Cafe Noir

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A Z IN RENDEZVOUS

2012-03-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

As writers should we be concerned about the dumbing down of society? Do we even believe this is occurring?
Some time ago, I had been driving in the car with a friend of mine who was a development exec at one of the studios. Somehow we got onto a discussion of whether or not rendezvous is spelled with a Z ? Try as I might, I could not convince her that there was a Z in that word, until we finally got to my place and I could prove it to her with a dictionary. Of course, this was in ye olden days before iPads and smart phones.
Another time I was in a meeting with a story editor. The question came up, what's the difference between East and West Germany, this when there still was an East and West Germany. She had been reading a script and wasn't sure. So I had to tell her, yet with or without my little history lesson she was going to pass judgment on another writer's screenplay.
A similar thing occurred when another production executive asked me whose side we had been on, the North or South Vietnamese. Another wanted to know who fought on which sides in World War II – things anyone with a high school education should know. All these people had degrees from good colleges. And I could mention so many more similar incidents.
When I was working for a nationally syndicated entertainment radio show the producer/host called another writer and myself into the office and dressed us down for using too many "big" and multisyllabic words. We were trying to raise people up instead of lowering them down and instead we were dressed down. Actually, we weren't even trying to do that. We were just writing the way we thought and we didn't think we were using such big words that people wouldn't know them.
Eventually, I ended up going to pitch meetings or other meetings and dumbing down everything I had to say. After all, I didn't want to insult the hand that was feeding me.
In a different arena, my wife and I have been in our current house eight years now. But one of the significant things I remember when we were looking at houses was how many had few to no books in them. And eight years ago the whole country wasn't wired as it is today. There weren't e-books and iPads on which to store your thousand book library out of sight. And before that, in the mid-90s, when we were looking for our previous house, it was the same. No books in sight.
I thought this odd at the time. Now I think it's scary. True, people have the internet today for instant reference. But there's something to be said for having a store of basic and shared knowledge in your head that you can recall in an instant, instead of having to look it up here or there. Granted, we cannot know everything about everything, but there should be a rudimentary cultural base that the vast majority of society is tuned into. And why not use bigger words sometimes? I remember sitting and reading books with a dictionary at my side, writing lists of words and looking them up. That's how you learn, how you expand your vocabulary – your knowledge base. So why dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator? Is that really the society we want to live in?
As writers, I would think we'd want a literate customer base of people who will more often than not get our literary and other allusions, our historical references, etc. I think we should challenge people, both our readers and our editors, producers, etc., to uplift rather than pander to the lowest common denominator. And not succumb to the dictates of those who want everything dumbed down.
And yes, Virginia, there is, indeed, a Z in rendezvous –- look it up.

BEYOND BORDERS:

2011-08-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

"The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." – Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"

One of my favorite pastimes is meandering through bookstores. Partly for the obvious reasons and partly for less obvious ones. And I'm not a snob about it. I like both the big chain stores and the small independents. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The independents often carry a more eclectic stock or are sometimes even dedicated to a single genre, such as mysteries. Their staffs are usually more knowledgeable and well read. The big box stores have more variety and selection.

But either way, I look at going to bookstores as a social experience. Even if I say no more than "Hello" and "Thank you" to the clerk checking me out, I have a social experience with hundreds of authors and books.

On the social level I have met women I've dated at bookstores and seen authors I like do signings and readings. Check out a James Ellroy event some time if you want to see insanity in motion. And I've done signings and speaking gigs at bookstores myself.

I like bookstores that stay open late. That I can run to when an urge for something in particular strikes at an odd hour – and I keep plenty odd hours. Sometimes it wasn't a traditional bookstore but some other type of store that also sold books. But it was a place to go. A destination. Before moving out of the city proper (Los Angeles) to a more rural area, I would often hop in the car at all hours to go find a book to satisfy my addiction.

But that's getting harder and harder to do, even in the city. And yes, I also patronize Amazon, but I still patronize brick and mortar bookstores. And there is nothing like browsing through one, discovering new books and authors. Whenever I see a bookstore, I want to go in. Whenever I go in, I buy at least one or two things, hoping to help keep the stores afloat.

A few weeks ago I went to a Borders that's relatively near me. When I got there I found that they were soon to close. The stock had been decimated. But I still spent an hour walking through there and came out with a couple of books. Still, it was a very depressing experience.

I didn't know then that Borders would soon be closing all of its stores. But that news hit the airwaves recently. And I found it singularly depressing.

Maybe the art of the reading won't die. Maybe people will continue to read on various electronic devices, though I have my doubts about that too, at least in terms of what they're reading and the state of the language. Compare today's internet shorthand to how Shakespeare wrote (for example: CAS [crack a smile] vs. "If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me"). I couldn't find a good analogy for LOL, can you? But even if people continue to read books in e-form there will be something lost. The social experience that I speak of above. The joy of walking through a bookstore, seeing books you might not have heard about, picking them up, discovering new authors, new stories, new worlds. Feeling a new book in your hands. Opening it for the first time. Being in a place where there are like-minded people – people who like books. Who maybe want to be transported to other worlds, other times, other places, whether real or fictional. Who want to learn and laugh. Who also enjoy the experience of being in a candy store of reading.

I will miss Borders as I miss all of the independent stores that are no longer here. I will miss yet another place to go in and browse and while away the time.

MORE STARS THAN THERE ARE IN HEAVEN – MGM: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST BACKLOT – PART II

2011-05-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

We're back for Part II of my interview with Steven Bingen, co-author with Stephen Sylvester and Michael Troyan of MGM: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST BACKLOT. If you missed Part I scroll down and catch up on it before reading Part II. Enjoy:

Welcome back, Steve. What are your and your co-authors backgrounds? Tell us a little about your personal as well as Hollywood backgrounds.

There are 3 credited author's on this book, "MGM: Hollywood's Greatest Backlot."
Years ago our agent was told by a publisher that there could never be a "unified vision" on a book with 3 perspectives. That publisher didn't understand that we all felt exactly the same way about Hollywood's backlots and shared exactly the same odd obsessions. Whatever the book's virtues and flaws, I defy anyone to figure out where one of our voices stops and another's starts. Our collaborating was just like the production of most Hollywood movies. The book's very existence is a sort of 2-Dimensional denial of the auteur theory. Creativity by committee, if you will.

Mike (Troyan) and I both came out of Warner Bros. Corporate Archive – although his background is more academic than mine. I have a background rooted in film production while his is more literary. Mike is the author of "A Rose for Mrs. Miniver," about MGM star Greer Garson – which I can't recommend highly enough, by the way.

Steve (Sylvester), my other partner is in possession of vast amount knowledge and a vast collection of materials relating to MGM as a physical place. He's the only one of us who was actually able to boast of visiting the MGM backlot before it was all destroyed. In some ways, in visiting the studio he was able to do what I've aspired to do for my whole life. Because I was too late to see the place, the studio always seemed almost mythical, like Shangri-La or Camelot to me. But it was real and Steve was there. I wanted that perspective in the book. It just seemed like a good fit for the three of us to coauthor – and it was.

Who have you contacted (MGM old-timers, etc.) and have they been willing to help?

I don't know if it was a conscious decision, but we tended to avoid talking to movie stars because their stories have been told so often, and because their worlds at the studio were so insulated. Elizabeth Taylor was at MGM for decades, but her experience on the backlot would have consisted of being driven through the sets in a limo to her particular location. I doubt if she would have had much opportunity or interest in exploring a place which wouldn't have seemed at all unusual to her because of the odd circumstances of her life. It would be like asking a coal miner what was extraordinary about a mine shaft!

On the other hand we spoke to a lot of "regular people," some of whom worked on the lot for their entire careers who had amazing stories to tell, and who realized, even at the time what a bizarre and wonderful place MGM really was. Some of our best stories were from people who grew up near the studio who used to climb the fences and explore inside as children. I really do envy those people.

How many backlots were there? Where? What did they have on them?

MGM wasn't a single lot. Lot One contained the soundstages, corporate offices and post production facilities. The backlot was literally at the rear, or back, of the plant. As the studio grew it expanded across the street onto a property known as Lot Two. Lot Two contained a small-town street, residential districts, railroad stations (with working trains) – the largest of which replicated New York's Grand Central Station. It also had European and Asian villages, a jungle with a bridge, man-made lake, gardens, pools, castles, Southern and English estates, and a half dozen blocks, built full scale, replicating New York City and all its Burroughs – right down to the last street sign, man-hole cover, and fire escape.

Up the road a few blocks was Lot Three, which was even larger and contained three distinct old westerns settings, two more waterfront districts, a tropical rainforest, rock formations, winding roads, a Mississippi steamboat, a circus set, military bases, a POW camp, a vintage era New York Street, farms, ranches, an Arabian Knight districts and the world's largest process tank for shooting miniatures.

Lot Three was itself surrounded by the satellite lots; Four, Five, Six and Seven – which collectively housed zoos and stables, more sets, storage sheds, partial fleets of aircraft and locomotives, a peat farm…. whatever there wasn't room for anywhere else. When L. B. Mayer, the boss, took an interest in horse racing in the 40's, people used to suggest that the Santa Anita racetrack should perhaps be rechristened Lot Eight!

What are your philosophical thoughts about the loss of the backlots?

I've always been haunted by and interested in Hollywood's backlots in general. The idea that there exists places in the world where there are entire phantom towns constructed to mimic the real world – and yet where no one has ever lived, could ever live, is fascinating and mysterious and a little creepy. Backlots are supposed to duplicate our lives, our homes, and the city streets we move thorough every day, and yet although they can be as familiar to us as places we've lived in our actual lives, they remain unknowable, untouchable, just out of normalcy and of recognition.

Backlots are like the purest form of architecture. They really are designed just for aesthetic reasons. The backlot architect doesn't have to worry about service elevators or building codes or faulty wiring. A backlot just has to look good and to set a mood in order to do its job. There are no real world considerations involved. Find an architect and ask him where else in the world that happens?

During the writing of this book it occurred to me that Hollywood's backlots are responsible for an awful lot of the defining non-movie architecture of the last century as well. Think about it. If Hollywood hadn't started designing sets to suggest moods or foreign settings would we really have shopping malls, or theme parks, or places like Las Vegas today? All of these places, for good or bad, came out of backlots and the people who designed them.

I used to give tours of Warner Bros. Studio in my capacity as historian for the company. Once I was showing the family of some executives an artificial lake out on the backlot and describing how that lake had been dressed as India for a film which I'd seen shot there. I was going on about how the set had looked exactly like the real India when all of a sudden it occurred to me, and I told my bemused guests this, that I'd never personally been to India at all. That my entire idea of what India is, in fact came not from the real thing, not from India at all, but rather from movies, some of which had undoubtedly been made right where we were standing right at that moment!

You should talk to my wife, she grew up in India for a time – but yes, she does have an American birth certificate.... But changing elephants in midstream now, What is your next project?

I can't speak for my partners…but…I will. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to shake off the current project! After all, I'm doomed to see the MGM backlot every time I sit back to relax and turn on the TV!

We'd love to make this book the first volume in a series about all 7 of Hollywood's major studio lots – the Seven Sisters. I'm just not sure if logistically, and legally it's going to be possible to do so. To look at it from the viewpoint of the other studios I can't really blame them for not wanting someone from the outside to come around and start rooting around in their past. We were able to "do" MGM because so many different hands have been running the company and the people who owned the copyright on the materials we needed weren't the original owners. But I don't know if that set of circumstances could come up again in regards to another studio. We'll see…

"MGM: Hollywood's Greatest Backlot" is available in bookstores and at Amazon. Click here:

Thank you, Steve, for joining me here at Cafe Noir. And good luck with the book.

MORE STARS THAN THERE ARE IN HEAVEN – MGM: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST BACKLOT – Part I

2011-03-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

Only one studio in the golden days of Hollywood could claim as its motto "more stars than there are in heaven" and actually mean it: MGM – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Not only did MGM have more stars than in heaven it also had more backlots – the place where dreams were made. In Culver City, CA, besides the main studio lot, were eight backlots, depending on how one counts them. I have the distinction of being one of the last people to have shot a film on MGM Backlot #2, one of the two main backlots and the last one standing, which is an interesting story in itself, but for another time.

Because of that, I was contacted by Steven Bingen, an archivist at Warner Brothers, who, along with Mike Troyan and Steve Sylvester have authored a book for Santa Monica Press called MGM: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST BACKLOT – with a foreword by Debbie Reynolds.

Unfortunately MGM ain't what it used to be and, in fact, the main lot, the only lot left, is now owned by Sony. All the backlots met with the wrecker's ball and made way for condos or other developments. "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," as Joanie Mitchell once sang. Luckily the photos, memories and stories of people who remember the backlots have been collected in this book.

What follows is Part I of my interview with Steve Bingen about the book and the backlots. Please note that the interview was done before the book was finalized and released so that is reflected in the interview's wording.

Thank you, Steve, for coming to Cafe Noir. What gave you the idea for this book – what was your inspiration?

There have been books written about MGM before, and I recommend them all. But there was always a major part of the equation, maybe the major part of that equation missing on each and every one of them. All of these books would inevitably contain one aerial shot of the lot – usually the same one – and a single paragraph, maybe, about soundstages and backlots at the studio. And that would be it!
This struck all three of us as mysterious. It always seemed to us that if you were writing about a place, and MGM was indeed an actual physical place, then why would an author choose to tell us what amounted to virtually nothing about that place? People always describe Hollywood's studios as "dream factories." Well that phrase isn't bad for what it is, and anyone who was there will tell you that life in those dream factories was if anything, even more interesting than the product the factory was producing. Yet no one had ever talked about that factory. Ever.

What we wanted to do with our book, was to zoom in on that single aerial photo in everyone else's book, to climb the fences of one of those dream factories and look around a bit.

Tell us about the book and what makes it unique.

Let me just say that the book is formatted as a "virtual tour" of MGM Studios. The text mostly consists of a walk around the lot, circa 1960, with every major set and department described and illustrated. We've included hundreds of unseen photos of the place as well, many of which were saved from catacombs and basements and archives which no living person has accessed in decades. I'm not sure about the "not living" people.

What did you learn about MGM and/or the various backlots that was new or really interesting?

I thought it was fascinating and haunting how many famous movies and television shows shot on that lot for which no one ever suspected that what they were watching was a backlot at all. Even if audiences were watching a set they had already seen in hundreds, thousands of other films, people seemed to accept that a curved European street was Paris one week and Transylvania the next just because a visual cue, a street sign or an establishing shot told them it was. Something like a fifth of all the movies made in the United States, historically were made somewhere on the MGM backlot! Sadly, and decades after the fact, this only proves how successfully these facades were at doing what they were designed to do. Even today in an era of wide-spread location shooting and so-called digital backlots, Hollywood's few surviving actual backlots manage to succeed in constantly fooling today's "sophisticated" audiences time after time. I recall watching the Super Bowl on TV recently, and counting at least 4 commercials during the broadcast which replicated real locations using current LA backlot sets which every single person in that game's vast worldwide audience had seen hundreds of times before. I can't help but wonder how many of those people, besides me, have ever suspected that was the case?

What were some of the movies shot on them?

In the book we came up with a list of every major backlot set with the titles of films shot on that set listed underneath. I'm not sure how much of that list is going to be published, and in what form, but as it stands now those lists alone, in reduced print, equal over 40 pages of text, and frankly are not even close to being comprehensive! It amuses me that people write books about, and make pilgrimages to, locations where their favorite scenes from their favorite films were shot. You know, Griffith Observatory in the Hollywood hills where a single scene in "Rebel Without a Cause" was recorded for example. Well, that location pales in significance to any single inch of any single movie studio – which has probably hosted hundreds, thousands, of films across the decades. I sometimes drive though those vast anonymous subdivisions which were built where MGM's Lot Two once stood, and I can't help but wonder if the people in those tract homes on that land, know, or care, how historic their property really is. Movie-wise that real estate is more important than any single block of Hollywood Boulevard ever was!

Anyway, I think it's kind of fun to hopscotch through these lists and realize how versatile these sets were, and how much of our shared movie memories were created on them.

How and why did you hook up with me?

Now that's an interesting story. I don't know if readers of this blog are aware of this but Paul directed one of the last movies ever made on the MGM backlot. That 40 page chronological list I mentioned of films shot at the studio ends with his name on it.

I didn't know any of this. I had noticed that there were a few very tantalizing stills floating around on the internet of the studio in its very decrepit very last days. I couldn't figure out what film these stills were from or what movie was seen in production in them. I started asking around on the sites where these "holy grail" shots had been posted and that finally led Paul and I to a meeting where he was good enough to loan me some of these same stills and describe the strange production history of his picture "Show Biz." I'm not going to tell that story here because I can't do so as well as he can, but needless to say it is in my book, and hopefully some of those pictures will appear there as well. (The photo selection is still being assembled [at the time of the interview]). Let me just say that the history of Paul's movie quite a tale. Ask him to tell it to you…

MGM: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST BACKLOT is a fun read and jammed full of great photos. Anyone interested in MGM and Hollywood history should have this book. It is available in bookstores and at Amazon. Click here:

In Part II find out about more about MGM. Stay tuned.

RAISING CAIN: CONVERSATIONS WITH JAMES M. CAIN

2011-02-25T20:05:00.001-08:00

Andrew McAleer is the publisher of the venerable Crimestalker Casebook mystery magazine. He's also authored three well-received mystery novels, including "Bait and Switch" and "Appearance of Counsel," as well the non-fiction "Mystery Writing in a Nutshell," written with his father Edgar winner John McAleer, and the number one best seller "101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists: Insider Secrets from Top Writers".

Mr. McAleer, along with Harry Sapienza, has recently ushered a project of his father John McAleer's to fruition: PACKED AND LOADED: CONVERSATIONS WITH JAMES M. CAIN, who as many of you know is the author of "Double Indemnity," "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Mildred Pierce," to name just a few.

Not only does Cain discuss his first notions to be a writer, his newspaper days and his Hollywood years. He also reveals his brutally honest thoughts on everyone from Hammett and Chandler to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Arthur Miller and even Marilyn Monroe. The book is peppered with epigraphs from Elmore Leonard, Sue Grafton, Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane among others.

Q: Welcome, Andy. Before we get to PACKED AND LOADED, maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? I understand that you're a prosecutor in Massachusetts. It seems that your profession has had a definite impact on your novels, can you expand on that a little?

A: Thanks, Paul. I’ve had I think a fairly interesting legal career so far. Right after law school I started a small law practice in the town I grew up in – Lexington. The only legal books I had were my grandfather’s old law books dating back to the 19 teens and 20s including the Mr. Tutt casebooks by Arthur Train, which I devoured and highly recommend. I did a lot of “country” law – real estate, probate, criminal defense. My first book Appearance of Counsel is about a small-town lawyer and my second and third novels Double Endorsement and Bait and Switch about a PI. I prefer the malice domestic formula used by Rex Stout and many of the Golden Age of mystery greats. My latest novel Fatal Deeds (Cherokee McGhee) will be released in August 2011 and is about a retired sheriff Gus Churchill. He hangs his shingle in Concord, Massachusetts. Working as a prosecutor has really helped round off my writing more from an investigative stand point. How things are done from a tactical questioning point of view and in terms of character development. In Fatal Deeds Gus likes to catch bad guys with brain over brawn and a little country charm. I may be old fashioned, but I like to know who the bad guys and good guys are. I would say my entrepreneurial background and legal background have served me well on what it’s really like to survive as a self-employed PI – keeping the wolf off the door can be as challenging as catching bad guys.

Q: You also taught at Boston College. I'm sure that's also had some effect on your writing.

A: I think everyone should teach. It keeps you young and in touch and you definitely learn more from your students than you could ever teach them.

Q: And the third corner of your tri-corner hat is that you're a Sergeant in the Army National Guard. Are you with the JAG? Has your army duty come into play in your writing? And do you plan to do a novel that might specifically revolve around that?

A: Actually I’m with the Military History Detachment now. Like my character Gus Churchill I love local history – I mean . . . I have to, right. . . ? I’ve lived in Lexington all my life just a mile from the Battle Green where the “Shot heard ’round the world” was fired. I enjoyed writing my non-fiction works Mystery Writing in a Nutshell and the 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists, so I hope someday to produce a non-fiction book worthy of the men and women who make it all possible for us to write our tales.

Q: I understand that shortly before his death in 1977, James M. Cain commissioned your father, Dr. McAleer, to write his biography? That's a pretty interesting story in itself. Can you tell us a little more about how that came about?

A: Sure. My father was writing Rex Stout’s biography at the time when he and Cain somehow made contact. They began a correspondence where my father would send him questionnaires and Cain would respond. Then, in the fall semester of either 75 or 76, my father’s graduate student Harry Sapienza went down to Cain’s home in Maryland and interviewed him for a couple of hours. Harry did a phenomenal job and really got Cain to open up about all facets of his life. Eventually it came out that Cain had already hired Roy Hoopes to write his bio, so my father put the brakes on things and took up his bio on Emerson. He felt Hoopes had first dibs on the project. I know my father admired Hoopes’ biography on Cain as do I.

Q: Cain responded to Dr. McAleer's questions with the intensity known to him. He gives his thoughts on everyone from Hammett and Chandler, in the mystery genre, to Hemingway and Fitzgerald in literary fiction. Even Arthur Miller. Do you have a favorite story or quote?

A: As a fan of local history one of my favorite chapters in Packed and Loaded is Cain’s vivid description of what a Hollywood “Triangle Girl” is. I mean . . . he talks about Marilyn Monroe and how she was a Triangle Girl and what it really meant to be one. There’s a great story there about this culture perhaps long forgotten by all. Now it’s codified nowhere I think, but in the memories of Cain through Packed and Loaded. These fascinating gals, doing what it takes to survive in the gritty Hollywood of the 40s and 50s, could be the “Mad Men” of their day.

Q: What was your father's impression of Cain?

A: Very high. In one of his letters to Cain he told him he was happy just to be on the same planet with him. My father admired people who were straightforward and by the book. Rex Stout and Cain were very much cut from the same cloth. He was the real McCoy.

Q: Is there anything in particular that you find funny or insightful or unusual that Cain comes up with?

A: I think in his afterword to the book by Shamus Award winner Jeremiah Healy, he summed it up best focusing on how after each question Cain would ask, “What else you got?” Like his works, Cain was the king of “less is more.” You knew where you stood with him.

Q: How did Cain feel about the film versions of his work?

A: Cain wasn’t full of “Cain.” He enjoyed his success because it gave him a platform to write. Above all the story was what mattered. “Why does this story need to be told?” That’s why he preferred the first person POV. It has more of a ring of truth to it. He did not let Hollywood go to his head.

Q: I understand, too, that these interviews were almost lost to us until you found them. Can you tell us a little about that?

A: Good question. Around 2000 a publisher was releasing a new edition of my father’s Rex Stout biography. P.G. Wodehose wrote the original foreword to the Stout bio and when we dug out my father’s Wodehose correspondence to do some research for an updated introduction to the Stout bio, the Cain work – long since thought to be lost – was found!

Q: Your father was a serious literary biographer of people such as Dreiser and Thoreau before tackling Rex Stout in the mystery field. How and why did he make the jump?

A: My father was an eclectic scholar. I think his military training in the Big Two taught him how to adapt and in the old days of education this is what you had to do. In the 40s and 50s Boston College was not the big school it is today. The Jesuits gave him an assignment and it was his job to learn the subject, master it, and disseminate the knowledge to his students. Interestingly, it was his Dreiser bio that landed him the Stout bio. When my father was visiting his cousin in Connecticut back in 1968 or 69, his cousin invited him to meet his neighbor – Rex Stout. When Stout met my father he had just completed my father’s book on Dreiser and admired it very much. Soon after he hired my father to author his bio. They became great friends. A picture of Stout tending to his irises still hangs in my father’s study nearly forty years after Stout’s death and seven years after my father’s. Well . . . I guess my secret as to why I like the malice domestic formula so much is out . . . Rex, Nero, and Archie are alive and well here. Cain, too! There is some more great stuff on Stout and my father on my website www.crimestalkers.com

Thanks, Paul. But I can’t leave without asking you a question or two. You’ve been able to master the short story formula quite well and have appeared in some great anthologies. How are the novels coming and what can we expect?

I feel a little funny since this is an interview about you and your book. I'm just about done with my novel "The Blues Don't Care," a mystery set on the L.A. homefront during World War II. And almost done with another satirical novel about a screenwriter in L.A. – sort of a 21^st Century West Coast "Bright Lights, Big City".

Thank you for stopping by, Andy.

I think anyone who's interested in mystery in general and Cain in particular, would enjoy this book. I know that I love both "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice" both as books and as movies. And, in fact, if I had to show a Martian the ultimate example of film noir it would be "Double Indemnity".

So anyone interested in mystery or Cain or the McAleers or any of the authors mentioned here should check out...

...PACKED AND LOADED:

Also check out www.crimestalkers.com

Buy "Packed and Loaded" at Amazon

BECOMING UNGLUED: AN INTERVIEW WITH LOIS WINSTON, AUTHOR OF ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN

2011-01-20T17:19:00.001-08:00

Joining me today is Lois Winston, author of Love, Lies and a Double Shot of Deception, House Unauthorized and the Dreams and Desires series. She's just come out with ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN, the first book of a new series, the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries.

PAUL: Hi Lois and welcome. What is your background – before becoming an author and needlepoint aficionado?

LOIS: First, thank you for hosting me on your blog today, Paul. Secondly, I’m not a needlepoint aficionado. I don’t think I’ve designed or stitched needlepoint in at least 20 years. What I design, among other things, is counted cross stitch. Big difference. Probably not to most guys (except those who own craft publishing or manufacturing companies) but a huge one to needlecrafts enthusiasts.
I’ve been designing needlework, fabric crafts, and general crafts for book and magazine publishers and kit manufacturers for many years (if I told you how many, you’d try to figure out how old I am, and in our youth-obsessed culture, I can’t have that, now can I?). Before that I worked as an advertising art director and a staff artist for a major department store chain.

Tell us a little about yourself, your background. Do you have a day job or are you able to support yourself with your writing? ...and needlework?

I wish I could support myself with my writing! Few authors can. I know NY Times bestselling authors who still can’t quit their day jobs. I juggle three careers. Besides my writing, I still design for one manufacturer and several magazines. I’m also an associate of the literary agency that reps me.

And tell us a little about your new book, "Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun."

I thought you’d never ask! ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN is the first book in my new Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series from Midnight Ink. It’s a fast-paced amateur sleuth mystery infused with humor. Kirkus called it, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” How cool is that?

I understand that the protagonist in this novel is a new one for you. Tell us a little about her. Is she like you? How did she come about?

Is Anastasia like me? I’m getting asked that question a lot. Anastasia and I have similar backgrounds. We’re both North Jersey girls. We both went to art school. She’s a crafts editor for a women’s magazine. As I mentioned earlier, I design for magazines. I’ve also worked as a crafts editor for several craft book publishers. We both have two sons and one other relative in common (but I’m not saying which one!) The differences? My husband is very much alive (thank goodness!), I don’t have a Shakespeare quoting parrot, and I haven’t found any dead bodies hot glued to my office chair. Yet.

Love the title: Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun. And I know you write humorous mysteries, but where did that title come from? --Have you ever been assaulted with a deadly glue gun...

Anastasia came up with the title. And yes, I have been assaulted with a glue gun -- on more than one occasion. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

Would you say deadly glue guns kill people or do people kill people?

I’d say people kill people with deadly glue guns. Although certain glue guns have been known to take on a life of their own. Just ask mine.

And do you sleep with a glue gun under the pillow for protection – is it licensed?

Doesn’t everyone? No license required for glue guns, at least not yet.

In the new book, there's a Shakespeare quoting parrot named Ralph. Can you tell us some of his favorite lines from Shakespeare? And does he look for animalcentric quotes from the Bard or is he a generalist?

Ralph’s quotes are always situation-appropriate. He’ll pick up on something being said by someone and run with it. For instance, at the beginning of the book, Anastasia is confronted by a demand for $50,000 from her dead husband’s loan shark. Ralph sums up the situation by squawking, “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now, Julius Caesar. Act Three, Scene Two.” Ralph always annotates his quotes. Comes from spending most of his life in Great-aunt Penelope’s English lit classroom.

And what's this about Anastasia's mother-in-law being a Communist? Or does she just like to wear pink?

Lucille is a card-carrying commie. Very old-school. Decidedly red.

How much of your fiction is drawn from real life? Or your life in particular.

I get much of my source material from either personal experience or observing life around me. I’m a total news junkie and have used actual news stories as springboards for plots and characters. And as I mentioned earlier, there is this one relative that Anastasia and I both have in common…

One of your pet peeves is people who don't return phone calls or answer their e-mails. I'm with you on both. Any chance the glue gun or another weapon might be used on these folks in a future novel?

Always a possibility. Anastasia’s been known to wield a mean X-acto knife, as well.

Tell us some of your signings that people can go to.

Right now I’m in the middle of a month-long blog tour. The schedule is posted on my website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and at Anastasia’s blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. I’ll also be at several writers’ conventions and conferences throughout the year, and those are also posted on my website.

How and when/where can people get your book? And how can they reach you...assuming you want to be reached.

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN is available now at most bookstores, all the usual online venues, and at my publisher’s website, http://www.midnightinkbooks.com. I have links on my website that will take you directly to Amazon, B&N, etc. As for me, people can contact me through my website or by emailing me at lois@loiswinston.com.

Anything else you want to share with us?

For the blog tour I’m doing this month, I’m giving away 5 copies of ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN. Everyone who posts a comment to any of the blogs where I’m guesting (see above for where to find schedule) will be entered into a drawing. (Anyone who’s email isn’t included in their comment should email me privately at lois@loiswinston.com to let me know they’ve entered.) In addition, I’m also giving away an assortment of crafts books to anyone who posts a comment on select blogs.

Thank you for being here today. I now know to stay out of the line of fire of glue guns. And I hope people will go and buy ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN before the glue is dry.

A (MOSTLY) NOIR STOCKING STUFFER LIST

2010-12-12T16:12:00.001-08:00

Well, tis the season to be merry. The season of peace and goodwill toward all things. And what could be more merry and peaceful than noir stocking stuffers? So if you're looking for some last minute items, check out some of these below:

BOOKS:

Tapping the Source by Kem Nunn – surf noir at its best – Small town hick comes to Huntington Beach, CA ("surf city"), looking for his missing sister and gets the proverbial more-than-he-bargained-for. This ain't Frankie and Annette's beach party or Brian Wilson's (and the Beachboys) Surfin' USA...
Down There (Shoot the Piano Player) by David Goodis – from the “poet of losers,” his best book in my opinion, though I know others would disagree. Like many of Goodis' protagonists, Eddie cannot escape his past. Or his present.
Raymond Chandler – just about any of the novels; you might try a later one like "The Long Goodbye." Another trip through Chandler's mean streets. Marlowe's a little older. A little wiser, maybe. I don't think this book was very well received when it first came out. I think it's been reassessed in later years – I like it. Hate the movie based on it, though it does have some good points. Most especially the High Tower Apartments, where I once looked for an apartment. Trippy place.
The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham – not really noir, but if I had to pick a favorite book this would be it. Like with everything, some love it, some hate it. A great story of a man's quest for inner peace and the meaning of life. Sounds silly these days, what with such things as “Eat, Pray, Barf” and the like. How do we – how should we – lead our lives?
Ask the Dust by John Fante – For the longest time John Fante had been mostly forgotten, remembered only by a few who thought of him as our own. It's like having a favorite band that few people know, then one day they hit it big. You feel like you've lost something. About a decade or so ago he was rediscovered and the rest, as they say, is history. I know some people hate this book, where little happens. But to me it speaks volumes of a struggling writer's life in a Los Angeles that is no more, or maybe it is and we just don't quite see it anymore.

MOVIES:

Double Indemnity – The ultimate example of film noir. It's got it all the elements a noir should have: shadows, rain, greed, downfall by one's own Achilles' heel. A great femme fatale in Barbara Stanwyck. And, of course it's in glorious black and white. What more could you ask for on a cold, rainy winter night?
Ghost World – One of the few movies that, sooner or later, I try to steer almost everyone I know toward. Starring Thora Birch, Steve Buscemi and a pre-superstar Scarlett Johansson. Not a horror story, which some people seem to infer because of the title. But a story of people, young and middle aged, lost and trying to make their way in a "foreign" world – the world you see right outside your window. Touching. Poignant. And definitely worth a watch, though maybe wait till after Christmas...unless you want to join the ranks of those in Winter Blues and Depression Club.
Kiss Me Deadly – The search for the Great Whatsit by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Hammer makes Chandler's Marlowe, Hammett's Spade and most modern PIs look like Pee Wee Herman by comparison. And the movie Hammer doesn't touch the prose Hammer in that regard. Spillane didn't name him Hammer for nothing. A great noir movie. And it always amazes me on the Dish online program guide that this movie only gets a two star (out of four) rating when crap like those true classics that will surely stand the test of time "Orphan" and "The Crazies" get more. One of the best examples of where the movie definitely improves on the book.
In a Lonely Place – Some people classify this movie as noir; I'm not sure it fully meets the criteria. Nonetheless, it's my second favorite movie of any after "Casablanca". One is romantic idealism (with some cynicism tossed in for good effect); the other is pure cynicism. You decide which is which. "In a Lonely Place" is another movie that, in my opinion, greatly improves on the book, though I know this is sacrilege to some Dorothy Hughes fans. But, without giving too much away, the movie is more ambiguous and with a much more ironic ending, while the book is more a more straight forward story of a killer. From Bogart's character in the film: "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me."
Sherman's March – Well, it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy this – I guess I'm the kind. Ross McElwee set out to make a documentary about Sherman's march through Georgia during the Civil War. It turns out to be almost nothing about that, but instead is a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride through the modern South with a man looking for, well, I guess himself – as well as a girlfriend. And Burt Reynolds.... And so much more.

MUSIC:

Leonard Cohen – A lot of his songs are much the musical equivalent of David Goodis novels. Try especially the "I'm Your Man" or "The Future" albums for a nice look at the dark side of things.
Noisettes "Wild Young Hearts" album – Well, a bit of a departure here. Definitely not noirish in any way. Newish group, but they remind me of the "girl groups" of the early Sixties updated to today. Try especially the songs "Wild Young Hearts" and "Never Forget You." Bouncy fun.
Ruby Friedman Orchestra – relatively new also, and unfortunately some of my favorite songs by them/her are not easily available, though you can hear them on the web – like "Burning Skies" and "Hang Around". Still there are things to download at iTunes or Amazon. If you like alt sounds check her out.
The Dark Shadows (Brigitte Handley's alt rock group, not the TV show) – I particularly like the songs "Invisible" and "Lament of a Lost Soul". The latter might have worked good in "Ghost World," if the song had been around then. And the former is damned hard to find – but a good find. It's out on a CD...but you have to order it from Australia. Might hear it on Rodney on the Roq though.
Smithereens Christmas – Pat DiNizio, lead singer-songwriter wrote a beautiful song called "In a Lonely Place" based on the movie and including the above Bogart lines from it.......so the 80s (though they're still around) punk group qualifies as noir. But this is them doing their versions of Christmas songs. Hey, they did it before Dylan. -- But if you want their best album get "Especially for You."
On a side note, I have a story about Pat DiNizio, the lead singer/main songwriter of the Smithereens.
I love old movies. And, as stated above, one of my favorites is "In a Lonely Place" with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. On the Smithereens' album "Especially for You," from the mid-1980s, they had a song called "In a Lonely Place," and even copped some lyrics from some of the movie's dialogue. And I always liked the song as well as the movie.
So, I was looking to buy a vintage poster from that movie. To make a long story short, I did. And who did I end up buying one from but Pat DiNizio. So when I look at that poster or hear that song I always think: I wonder if DiNizio was looking at the very same poster and being inspired by it when he wrote the lyrics to that song? Great poster. Great song. Great album...if you like that punky-new wavy thing from the 80s.

Have a

Merry Noir Christmas

and a

Punk New Year!

Technorati Tags: Christmas,stocking stuffers,film noir,mystery,Paul Marks,Paul D. Marks,music to buy,Ruby Friedman,The Dark Shadows,Brigitte Handley,The Smithereens,In a Lonely Place,Double indemnity,Raymond Chandler,David Goodis,Tapping the Source,Kem Nunn,Kiss Me Deadly,Noisettes,Ghost World

Deadly Ink 2010 Short Story Collection…

2010-11-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

…is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Includes my story “Poison Heart,” plus stories by J.F. Benedetto, Mitzi Flye, Barb Goffman, Carole Hall, Erika Hoffman, Rosemary Olson, Judith R. O’Sullivan, John Reisinger, T.S. Rider, Charles Schaeffer, D.I. Telbat, Elise Warner, Alice M. Weyers, Lina Zeldovich.

Proceeds go to the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Good stories for a good cause. Get yours now.

The Four Rs – Reading, Writing, Rithmetic and Reckoning

2010-09-06T18:33:00.001-07:00

Recently, several of the authors and one of the of the editors of Murder in La-La Land trekked up Highway 126 to the Blanchard Library in Santa Paula, CA. We had a good turnout and everybody there was wonderful. As nice as can be. Interested. Attentive. The library itself, a former supermarket, is a cavernous building – a giant airplane hangar or soundstage with tons of books. The kind of place that I enjoy just wandering around for hours.

But there was (is) one problem: Except for the people who came to see us, this huge building was empty. Empty! Not a single person there wandering the stacks. Nobody at the tables bent over books. Nobody on the computers. Nobody even talking loud so the librarian had to shush them. Granted, we live in the age of the internet, but people still go to libraries, don't they? And isn't the library still a place to go for socializing, if not for learning? Where I live they are going to be opening a new library and I can't wait, even though I'm addicted to the internet as much as anybody else.

I fear that this is merely a symptom of a post-literate society. After all, what are people looking up on the net, Shakespeare? Or is it only Much Ado About Poontang? Or spending endless hours on Facebook, just diddling around with the all important updates about what they had for breakfast and, even more importantly, if they had a good bowel movement.

Maybe because it was summer. Maybe because it was a weekend afternoon. But something tells me that's the not the case. We all know that reading and readership is declining and ageing. Out of a crowd of about twenty-five people, maybe three were under the age of fifty. That is scary.

It seems to me that the more info we have the less people seem to be interested in it – at least in info that means anything.

And how many people in our society are functionally illiterate? I've seen figures of up to a third of the population cannot read a medicine bottle. How many lawyers can't name the Supreme Court justices? How many teachers don't know even the basics of their subjects and can't teach? How many people are dropping out of school or graduating, but still barely functional? How many people can barely see beyond the tip of their typing fingers?

Hell yes, I want readers. And I want a country where people are literate, which doesn't mean they have to read Proust or Joyce or, God forbid, "Gravity's Rainbow". I'm no snob, hell I write mysteries for the most part, with some serious fiction thrown in for good measure.

The Blanchard Library is a veritable supermarket of books, but still the audience is going hungry, filling their minds with Facebook and Four Square updates, living Second Lives instead of their first (and real) lives.

This does not bode well for us as authors or the country as a whole. Frankly, it scares the shit out of me! Important Facebook update to come.

Technorati Tags: literacy,reading,writing,libraries,Paul Marks,Paul D. Marks,Santa Paula,Murder in La La Land,mystery,Continental Tilt

DOES MURDER REALLY SMELL LIKE HONEYSUCKLE?

2010-07-11T18:59:00.001-07:00

It was a hot afternoon, and I can still remember the smell of honeysuckle all along that street. How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?
--James M. Cain/Raymond Chandler/Billy Wilder
--Double Indemnity

Does murder really smell like honeysuckle? Well, I'm not so sure about that, though that is one of my favorite lines from film noir. But we did go to the Motion Picture Academy the other night to see Double Indemnity on the really big screen as part of Oscar Noir: 1940s Writing Nominees from Hollywood’s Dark Side festival – http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2010/noir-doubleindemnity.html

And if one had to show a Martian the ultimate film noir for my money it would be D.I. It has everything a good noir should have: great, shadowy black and white photography (I know, I know, there are color noirs), a femme fatale, a man who gets sucked into a vortex of lust and murder and people who are just utterly despicable – just the kind of people you want to spend a couple hours of your life with, at least onscreen. I could write pages on how much I like this movie and film noir, but there's not much that hasn't already been said and this blog is really about the screening and the festival. But if you want to see a great film noir, check out Double Indemnity.

And there's certainly nothing like seeing a movie on not the big screen, but the huge screen – the Silver Screen. I noticed things that I'd never noticed before, though one of them was pointed out before the screening: Raymond Chandler, who co-wrote the screenplay with Billy Wilder, based on James M. Cain's novel, has a recently discovered cameo. After Fred MacMurray leaves Edward G. Robinson's (Barton Keyes's) office, Chandler is seen sitting on a chair in the hall. A rare appearance for the reclusive author.

One of the drawbacks to seeing an old movie like this today is that audiences have become jaded and cynical. When I watch a film noir in the dark of my home I take it seriously, unless it's just so bad that you can't help but laugh, in which case I would probably turn it off. But with an audience, even an audience of noir lovers, there is laughter, sometimes at appropriate places, sometimes not. And the laughter takes one – at least this one – out of the moment and out of the mood of the film, especially a serious film. That said, there's also something enjoyable about watching a great old movie with an audience, even a movie I've seen fifty times, if not more.

Before the movie, Miriam Nelson (Franklin) spoke. She played Edward G. Robinson's secretary. Screenwriter Nicholas Meyer introduced the movie. And Edward G. Robinson's granddaughter and great grandson were there in the audience.

After the movie, Laurie MacMurray Gerber, Fred's daughter, was interviewed. She said that if you take a look at the original drawings for Captain Marvel you might notice a similarity to Fred MacMurray as the artists based Marvel on her dad. She also talked about how she'd never seen her dad kiss another woman, other than her mom, actress June Haver, except when she watched Double Indemnity for the first time.

If you love film noir, there's still time to see several great movies on the really big screen. Check it out at: http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2010/noir.html

* * *

On another, but related subject, the security at the Academy Theatre sucked. I can sort of understand going through security at an airport though that, along with several other things, has made flying a nightmare. I'm not scared of terrorists or the actual flying – never have been – but I am scared of airport security which makes me insecure about my rights and freedom. But I digress. When we got to the Academy Theatre we had to empty our pockets into little plastic trays as one does at the airport, a security guard rifled my wife's purse. What were we going to do, blow up the ten foot tall golden Oscars at the front of the auditorium?

Since we moved out to a more rural area outside of L.A. a few years ago and have become sort of hermits/recluses we haven't been going to screenings as we used to. Never had to go through security. Of course that was awhile back and they were industry screenings. The Double Indemnity showing was open to the public so maybe that's the difference. Because if it isn't and you have to go through this humiliating process every time you go to a screening, what a nightmare our society has become. Hell, even if it is a public screen, how sad that this is what we've become. And I do find it humiliating to be searched and prodded as if we're all badguys.

Can't wait for the full body scans and breast groping to begin.

The Salahis can get into an affair with President Obama, but we have to go through this humiliation to watch a 60 year old movie? Enough already!

Technorati Tags: film noir,double indemnity,Paul D. Marks,Paul Marks,Salahi,mystery,movies,James M. Cain,Raymond Chandler,Billy Wilder

MURDER IN LA-LA LAND

2010-05-11T15:21:00.001-07:00

Makes Its Debut at Los Angeles Times Book Festival in April

As noted author Sue Ann Jaffarian says: "In Los Angeles even murder can be trendy. So settle in and enjoy your trip through La La Land. You may never want to visit us again–"

The bright orange cover hides the book's heart of darkness and murder in the City of the Angels.

Diversity is the name of the game in L.A. Diversity in population. Diversity in food. Even diversity in murder as in "Murder in La-La Land".

This anthology, with twelve stories by a variety of authors, made its debut at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival at UCLA at the end of April:

Its next appearance was at the May SinC-LA meeting where Gabriella Vasquez and I read from our stories. But the official release of the book is on May 22nd at the launch party at the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood:

Saturday, May 22, 2010

5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Mystery Bookstore

1036-C Broxton Avenue

Westwood, California

The book, edited by well-known mystery writers Naomi Hirahara, Eric Stone and Juliet Blackwell, with a forward by Michael Mallory, features twelve stories of murder, mayhem and transitive vampires – whatever the hell they are – in the loony city that we call La La Land.

From the book's cover: "Los Angeles, the City of Angels, home to Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Where everyone is auditioning for a part, and where lies and deceit come veiled as glitz and glamour. Join us, if you dare: view a vampire movie in our Forever Hollywood Cemetery, or take a walk along the concrete banks of the L.A. River. But watch your step. Murder brews within the micro-cosmic homeless communes that call it home and sometimes riffs on melodic waves from the jazz street musicians just down the block. Twelve stories of mystery, murder, and mayhem, from the authors of Sisters In Crime/Los Angeles, that will send you scrambling for a bus ticket home. But watch your back. As they say, nobody leaves LA."

The call went out for stories of Murder in La-La Land. I tried hard to give them what they wanted. My story, CONTINENTAL TILT takes its title from Frank Lloyd Wright's theory that if you stand the country on its edge, all the loose nuts will roll into California: Two strait-laced detectives, who maybe should be strait-jacketed, are called to a murder in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. A vampire movie has been playing on the mausoleum wall and hundreds of, uh, guests have been picnicking and watching the movie from their graveside seats. The ironic thing about this is it really happens. People go to the cemetery dressed as various characters, in this case vampires, werewolves, etc., sit on the graves and "Spread out on beach chairs and blankets, with bottles of wine and beer, Boba tea, doing wheatgrass shooters and eating catered Mexasian sushi, fusion food for the Millennial-iPod generation. " (quoted from "Continental Tilt")

A man is murdered at the cemetery, with two vampire sized pin pricks in his neck, while the vampire movie is playing. Only in L.A. Only in CONTINENTAL TILT.

A sample from the story is below. The setup is that the two chagrinned Hollywood Division detectives arrive and start separating the crowd into like groups to start their investigation of the strangest murder mystery of their careers:

"Okay, all vampires over here. Werewolves on the south side of the mausoleum. Frankensteins the north side. Charlie Mansons there, Marilyn Mansons over there." What was I saying?

"What the hell's the difference?" Mari said.

I shouted through a bullhorn. This was the new, kinder and gentler LAPD, but sometimes you still gotta use a bullhorn. "People dressed up as Kiss by the pavilion."

"What about Transitive Vampires?" a voice came out of the blue.

"Transvestite vampires?"

"Trans-i-tive Vampire – don't you know anything?"

"I don't get it. What the hell are you dressed up as?"

"A dangling participle," the trans-whatever vampire sneered. His disdainful tone said he thought he was a notch above the other vampires. As opposed to the normal vampires he wore all white, top hat, tails and cape. I was going snow-blind looking at him.

"Something's dangling. I'm not sure if it's your, uh, participle," Mari said.

"I really should be dressed as a verb. Transitives are verbs, but then I'd need a direct object, you know."

I didn't know. I didn't think I cared. But in ferreting out a case you have to have all the information. Okay, he was a dangling participle but he should have been a verb.

"Why don't you tell us a little about yourself? What are you doing here?"

"I came to watch the film, of course."

"You like to watch movies in a graveyard?"

"It sort of sets the mood, don't you think?"

"Did you see anything?"

"You mean like the deceased becoming deceased?"

"Yeah, like that."

"Certainly not. I was watching the film."

"Film, they all call it film. When did movies become film...or cin-e-mah?" Mari said. "What do you do for a living, besides sucking blood, of course?"

"Are you implying I'm the killer?"

"No, just a bloodsucker."

"I'm a writer. Agents are the real bloodsuckers."

"What do you write?"

"Novels."

"Have I read any of them?"

"Can you read?"

I stepped between him and Mari and turned him over to a D-I to get his stats.

"You still haven't told me where to go, Detective," he called to me, probably 'cause he knew I had weight. I was sorry we were still in earshot.

"I'd like to tell you where to go–" Mari said.

The transitive vampire stared at Mari. "You, dear lady, are an indefinite pronoun."

"Did he just insult me?" Mari glared.

"Just go with the other vampires," I said, stepping in front of her. I didn't want her to tarnish the rep of the kindergentlerLAPD.

"Good Lord, don't you know I'm not like the other vampires. I'm a transitive vampire."

"Aren't all vampires from Transylvania?" I said.

"It's trans-i-tive, not Tran-syl-vania," he said. "Don't you people know the difference?"

"Fine, find all the other transitive vampires and start your own group."

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

The editors tried to select stories with diverse locations and subjects and it's fun to see how everyone came up with their different takes on La-La Land. So get off of your yoga mats and skip the spinning for today, let your fingers do the walking across your keyboard to your favorite bookseller and order the damn book.

MURDER IN LA-LA LAND

With stories by (and in order of appearance):

Paul D. Marks – "Continental Tilt"

Terri Nolan – "Hobo Joe"

Pam Ripling – "Just Like Jay"

Jack Maeby – "Beethoven's Last Chorus"

Jane DiLucchio – "Blondes Have More Fun"

Gabriela Vazquez – "Average Monster"

Jude McGee – "Death is Golden"

Patricia Morin – "Rap Sheet"

Kathy Kingston – "This I Know"

Donna May – "The Acquisition"

Kathleen Piche – "Board and Care"

Lenore Carlson – "Mrs. Spacek"

Murder in La-La Land authors and editors:

Technorati Tags: Paul Marks,Paul D. Marks,Continental Tilt,Murder in La-La Land,Sisters in Crime,mystery,satire,short story,vampires,Hollywood Forever Cemetery,noir,Naomi Hirahara,Eric Stone,Julet Blackwell,Michael Mallory

BALLAD OF FESS PARKER -- FAREWELL DAVY CROCKETT

2010-03-24T19:48:00.001-07:00

♫♫♫ Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free,
Raised in the woods so's he knew every tree,
Kilt him a bar when he was only three,
Davy, Davy Crockett king of the wild frontier.♫♫
--George Bruns / Tom W. Blackburn

For those of us of a certain age and era, part of that era died last Thursday with the passing of Fess Parker.

In December, 1954, Walt Disney aired the first of a three part miniseries on Davy Crockett, starring little known actor Fess Parker. The three episodes of the original Crockett miniseries were "Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter," "Davy Crockett Goes to Congress" and "Davy Crockett at the Alamo". The show was a mega hit, but there was a problem: Davy had been killed off at the Alamo in the third episode. However, the series (TV's first miniseries) was too big a hit to let it die such a quick death. And, of course, being television Davy was resurrected for pre-Alamo adventures.

Well-known people die all the time. Sometimes their passing affects us in a deep way; sometimes we simply have a brief flash of memory about some movie or song they were involved in that intersected our lives at a certain point. When I heard that Fess Parker died last week I had much more than a brief memory flash. It was the passing of youth, the collective youth of the Baby Boomers.

The passing of Fess Parker, an icon of a generation, affected many of that generation. Author and novelist Darrell James said: "...it affected me too. I was thinking about some of the episodes and scenes that I can replay in my head, and so much of my early values of justice, heroism, loyalty and right vs. wrong, came from the character and Fess Parker's portrayal."

The Davy Crockett craze led to a marketing boom in all kinds of related items, especially coonskin caps, like Davy wore. Almost every child in that era had to have one, including me. When I mentioned Parker's passing to my mother the first thing she said was how she remembered me running around in my coonskin cap. And when I sent out a private e-mail to a fairly large group of friends almost every boy (uh man) and many of the girls (women) who were children then remembered having a coonskin cap. Even when my wife and I went to Disneyland not long after we were married I bought a new coonskin cap. Unfortunately, one of our cats attacked it but it still survives – the hat that is. (Wish that cat was still around too!)

Only a couple of weeks ago I had pulled out my Disney Davy Crockett DVD set and put on the Alamo episode. It might not be totally valid as a historic document and it is from an innocent 1950s Disney point of view, but it was a lot of nostalgic fun. The disc set is still sitting on the piano, as I was too lazy to put it away. Maybe I'll play another episode or two before it goes back on the shelf.

I collect toys, among other things, and some of the toys I collect are from the 1950s, including some Crockett toys. Marx, a well-known playset manufacturer of the era, created a Davy Crockett playset, complete with a character figure of Fess Parker as Crockett and a tin Alamo building.

Parker moved on to become a vintner and hotelier in and around Santa Barbara. A while back, my wife and I stayed at his Santa Barbara hotel and bought a bottle of Fess Parker wine...with a junior-sized coonskin cap on it -- fun kitsch.

It all seems like yesterday and it all seems so very long ago at the same time in this changing country of ours. Our world is changing at an accelerated pace in a lot of ways. It's sad that a lot of younger people today don't know who Fess Parker was. Many don't even know who Davy Crockett was or anything about the Alamo. A sad state of affairs. But for some of us it's a moment to think about our childhoods and memories. People we've known and things we've done.

Everything I've heard about Fess Parker in his personal and off-screen life is positive and says he was a decent person, which cannot always be said for Hollywood celebs. He is also known for playing Daniel Boone on television and various characters in a variety of movies, including Disney's "Old Yeller," a great one. But for many kids who grew up in the 1950s, Fess Parker will always be the one and only Davy Crockett.

What did Fess Parker and Davy Crockett mean to you? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

So long, Davy.

((( Links: Fess Parker singing "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" -- the song was originally sung by Bill Hayes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw4xNGHxaJw

Davy Crockett singing farewell at the Alamo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wuOhxyYAP8&feature=related

Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen singing "Old Betsy" at Disneyland opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvKV37VbJYk&feature=PlayList&p=01D4383159A135DD&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=21

Trailer for Davy Crockett Mike Fink episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2HmWak4I_c

Alamo final battle scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Tu8NskR-E&feature=related )))

SCOFFLAW DOG -- THE AUD MAN OUT

2010-02-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

It happened right before Christmas. My wife and I were in the back of the house with a friend. A loud knock on the door. Cop knock? Amy – said wife – went to see who it was. When she didn't return after about ten minutes we started to wonder what had happened to her. I joined her at the door.

A large man with a an angry scowl stood just outside, reading Amy the riot act.

"What's going on?" I said, already feeling the bile rise inside me as this stranger ranted on.

"Your dog is digging holes in my yard."

"That's impossible," says I. Now in many cases that might simply be the defensive reaction of a proud puppy parent. In my case I knew it was the damn truth!

Flashback:

Earlier in the day, around 1pm Pacific Time, I got awakened by our dogs barking. (I'm a daytime sleeper as I like to write at night. Don't sleep anymore than anyone else, I just do it at a different time. Maybe there's a bit of vampire in me, so I guess I should get in on that craze, but that's another post.)

The dogs were going nuts. I went to the front door, saw a green Suburban out front in the drive. Couldn't see anyone there. Thought about opening the door, then thought I'd better put on some proper clothes, after all if it was a burglar I wouldn't want to be underdressed and make him feel unwelcome. So I went back to the bedroom and by the time I got back to the front door the Suburban was gone. I didn't know who it was. A solicitor, though we don't get many of those out here? Meter reader? Someone casing the joint? But they were gone and I was up "early," so I got started with my day.

End of flashback.

Around 4pm that day came that cop knock on the door. This is the time Amy goes to answer it while I stay with our guest. I join them a few minutes later to hear the man of the green Suburban belaboring the issue that our bigger dog (and since both are fairly large – one is stockier, the other taller, which is "bigger" – I wasn't exactly sure which one he meant) had been digging up his yard...earlier that day and not for the first time. And that he chased it back to our property.

Since I had seen his truck there earlier, around 1pm as stated, I asked if the dog had dug up his yard that day. He said "Yes." I said "That's impossible," but he wouldn't let me explain as he wanted to have his say and told us he was just giving us fair warning.

"Fair warning of what?"

But he didn't want to talk anymore and split.

We didn't know who he was or where he lived, but after talking with some other people we figured it out. We went to his house to try to explain but no one was home.

Frustrated, we didn't know what to do.

So we left a letter in the mailbox of Mr. Suburban, explaining that our dog couldn't be the culprit because A) when Amy's not home and I'm asleep the dogs are in the house and she wasn't home earlier in the day and I was asleep and since we knew both from his truck being there at 1pm and what he'd said about the dog digging up the yard earlier that day it was impossible and B) we have no doggy door (which he had accused us of having but wouldn't accept my invitation to view the house to see that the only doggy door we had was in his imagination – nor would he accept my invitation to see the dogs the first time he'd come by [catch breath]).

After getting the letter, he came by the next afternoon to apologize. Of course, when we left the letter we didn't know if he would get more angry and go crazy or if it would appeal to his rational self. It was the latter. And he did apologize and saved a little face by saying he had only wanted to warn us because he didn't want our dog to get out and get hurt on the canyon road. I let him save face. And while he was talking to me, Audie (named for Audie Murphy and not to be confused with a car of similar name but dissimilar spelling), the scofflaw dog in question, came to the door along with our other future criminal creature. And he could see that Audie was not the dog he'd chased from his property.

But before it was all resolved we had to deal with the heinous injustice of a false accusation and the mug shot of Audie at the top of this post. As you can see he was behind bars, paw prints on a print blotter, mug shot and all, and not looking very happy about it. He was, indeed, the Aud Man Out. But I ask you, could this dog be capable of what he was accused of:

AND THE WINNER IS...

2010-02-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

...William Santoro

The only person to have picked all three pictures of me from the filmstrip -- numbers 2, 4 and 5. Congratulations and your "To Have and Have Not" DVD is on its way.

"You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow."

WILL THE REAL PAUL MARKS PLEASE STAND UP

2010-01-26T18:19:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." "A rose is a rose is a rose," said Gertrude Stein, which one might take to mean that a name is a name is a name.

So, what is in a name? Well, if you've ever had your identity stolen you'll know – more than you ever wanted to know "what's" in a name.

Some may remember the old TV show "To Tell the Truth." On it three guests would claim to be an individual who had done certain things. For example, the real Maria von Trapp from "The Sound of Music" was a guest. Then the show panel, made up of celebs of the time, such as Polly Bergen and Bennett Cerf, would give the guests the third degree, then have to choose which one they thought was the real Maria from the two impostors. Often the scrawny guy between two hunks would end up being the World War II hero or the frumpy woman next to two glamorous women turned out to be Maria von Trapp.

I feel like that with the internet. We all search our names every once in a while – c'mon, admit it. Several years ago it seemed like I was the only Paul Marks on the net. These days I'm just a grain of sand on a beach that stretches from Malibu to Alaska. And who is the real Paul Marks?

We like to think we're unique, the only people with our particular name. Which may be why parents these days seem to be going in for odd, no make that different names than what we might normally consider. They think that will make their children unique. They're wrong, but that's for another blog post. When you were in school you were probably the only person with your name so, in a sense, you were unique. Then you go on the web and search yourself and find out that you're a doctor, lawyer or even a wanted character. One way or another there's a million of you out there. Unless your name is Engelbert Humperdinck you are not alone.

Before Facebook (and still) many of my old friends have found me via my website. Which does come up if one searches Paul Marks, but more so if one puts the name in quotes. And even more if they add the middle initial "D" to their search. But at the same time comes a bevy of lawyers, doctors, scientists and a bunch of people with guitars (which may or may not be me since I do, or did, play guitar and bass – and bass seems to come up with a lot of Paul Markses too.) Even a Biggest Loser winner comes up under my name and is that something one really wants to be associated with? (Besides, how can someone be a winner and a loser at the same time?)

Sometimes when I'm looking through Google to see what my standing in the world is I feel like I just don't know myself anymore. Do I have blonde hair or black, or even blue? Green eyes, blue or brown. Am I a doctor, lawyer, writer or the man in the moon?

I think I'm coming down with IIC (Internet Identity Confusion) and you know none of us want to be iic – ick? But if I am ick at the very least I want my place in the latest DSM IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Who shows up when you or your friends search you? And would you ever want to step into one of your name-doppelganger's lives for even a day? Would they want to step into your life?

SO, HERE'S A CONTEST. There are six pictures in the film strip above. Some are of me, some are imposters, though they are all Paul Markses in their own right, but not in my right. The first person to correctly pick out which ones are me and e-mail me at Paul@PaulDMarks.com will win the classic Bogart-Bacall film TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT on DVD…if you're willing to give me your mailing address.

Check back on Sunday evening for the results.

ALMS FOR THE POOR...WRITER THAT IS

2010-01-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, in a land far-far away, it's rumored that writers could actually make a living selling short stories.

Larry Dark, O. Henry Awards editor, said: "In 1918, a writer could make a living writing short stories and selling them to magazines and newspapers. In 2000, this is not the case. Sadly, the more obvious, vivid entertainments of our age do not invite audience members to think in order to understand them the way short stories do. And while literacy rates have increased significantly, the rate of literary appreciation has not. The short story has become marginalized and is read by a much smaller percentage of the American public than it was when this series began."

If you're a schoolteacher, janitor, plumber, accountant, hot dog vendor or the proverbial rocket scientist or brain surgeon, you put yourself into your job, give it your all and get paid for your efforts.

Hell, even editors and publishers like to get paid.

So why is it that so many people feel they don't have to pay writers?

What would happen if Stinky the Plumber showed up at their house to fix a leaky pipe and they said, "Well, you know, I'll see if I like the job you do and then I'll see if I have a couple bucks I can pay you." Or "I'll pay you in the equivalent of contributor's copies" – what would that be? We all know what would happen.

Or try going to a restaurant, eating a five course meal and telling them "It's good, really good, but not quite right for me" and walk out without paying. ( Of course, I don't expect to get paid for what I write on spec, but this was too funny an analogy to pass up.)

Red Smith said: "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." Even when you open a vein for the Red Cross and donate blood they give you juice and cookies.
Most people don't have an appreciation for what we go through as writers. The hours spent alone, no one to talk to over the water cooler (though that's changed somewhat with the internet, which is a surrogate water cooler). The opening of our veins to get to the good stuff.

So why do we give our blood, sweat and tears away? Because we want the recognition and we're willing to do just about anything for that. And the editors and publishers know it.

What would be the terrible difficulty for them if they paid us a nominal fee, just to show their appreciation and I don't mean contributor's copies. Sure, some magazines pay a fee, but it isn't livable and you'd have to sell them a thousand stories a year to pay the bills.

The old nursery rhyme goes:

Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Sailor,
Rich Man, Poor Man,
Beggar Man, Thief.

It seems to me that the tinker, tailor, soldier and sailor get paid on a regular basis. The rich man has his already (though if he's like Richard Cory it still ain't worth it); the poor man (who's probably a writer doesn't get his or her due), and, of course, the beggar man and thief get theirs one way or another. Why not us writers? Even a token would be appreciated simply to show that the editors and publishers value our efforts.

Even in my "day job" as a script rewriter I've had producers try to stiff me one way or another. One time I went to this huge, well appointed house above Sunset Boulevard. Two Jags in the driveway. Two producers in a living room filled with outrageously expensive art, designer furniture and designer water. And they wanted me to work for nothing up front, which went against the WGA rules, but that didn’t' seem to matter – it often doesn't seem to matter. It's bad enough I don't get screen credit as a script doctor, and my father still can't figure out how I earn a living, but to not get paid on top of it is a whole 'nother level of degradation. One of the reasons I started focusing more and more on fiction writing, stories and a novel I'm currently working on, was to get that name recognition. I didn't realize at the time I started I'd be trading the money for the byline.

But I guess if we write for money that makes us prostitutes so maybe the publishers and editors of these various magazines are doing us a favor by letting us suffer for our art, keep our virtue and not having us soil our reps.

To paraphrase Sophie Tucker's or Mae West's comment on being rich – or whoever you want to believe said it first – I've been paid and I haven't been paid. Being paid is better.

Ultimately, we write because we have to. We open those veins because we have no choice.

IVANA TRUMP, THE NINE CIRCLES OF HELL AND ME…

2009-12-29T14:47:00.001-08:00

…with apologies to Dante Alighieri

The First Circle of Hell – Writing About Ivana Trump.

The Second Circle of Hell – Flying These Days – You know, things like: having to get to the airport three hours early so you can stand in line to be humiliated by cold hands and colder glares, unless you're into that sort of thing. Not to mention the strip tease you have to do – if only they would add a stripper pole to the lines…

The Third Circle of Hell – Pack Your Single Allowed Bag Expecting to be Searched and having your intimates gone through three times in the course of getting to a single destination.

The Fourth Circle of Hell – Not Being Able to Have Anything on Your Lap the Last Hour of Your Flight – What does this do to the Mile High Club – get your fun in before that last hour.

The Fifth Circle of Hell – Terrorists.

The Sixth Circle of Hell – Children in Airports – See Number Five.

The Seventh Circle of Hell – Children on Airplanes – See Numbers Five and Six.

The Eighth Circle of Hell – Flight Attendants who do Nothing about Screaming, Running, Yelling, Spitting, Crying, Children in hermetically sealed tubes with stale air, stale food, stale restrooms and no parachutes to escape.

The Ninth Circle of Hell – Sympathizing and Empathizing with Ivana Trump for getting P.O.'d at Children who Run, Scream, Yell and Cry on airplanes and Flight Attendants who do Nothing about them.

But even so Ivana Trump should be drawn and quartered or worse yet made to spend an hour in Chucky Cheese or Gymboree, just because she's Ivana Trump.

What do writers and actors have in common?

2009-12-18T19:15:00.000-08:00

They're both searching for their characters.

I once had a producer tell me that character is "picking your nose with a .38." He meant the pistol, of course, unless he had something else in mind, which I'd rather not know about. But character is not "picking your nose with a .38;" it's not wearing a fedora or a handlebar moustache, driving a tricked out Mini or even carrying a .44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world". Though many people, like this producer, seem to confuse superficial attributes with character.

Character is the decisions and choices the character makes. But to get to that you have to ask yourself and your character some basic questions. What does your character want and/or need? And why? To what lengths are they willing to go to get it? Will she choose X over Y? What is he willing to sacrifice to get what he wants? Plus other questions such as these and the usual basic backstory questions about everything from their background to their eye color.
Even in Dirty Harry's case the Magnum is only a character attribute or "tic," if you will. But it isn't Harry's character. Harry's character comes out of the choices Harry makes, choices to defy the system, do things his own way and get justice at any cost, not giving a damn about the legal niceties.

But how do you get to know your character? One way is to get to know your character's backstory. And that backstory will guide you to your character's decisions and make him consistent. Actors, like writers, want to know their character's backstory so they can know how and why the character reacts this way or that in a certain situation and thus how to play the part. Writers and actors have a lot in common. The main thing is that they both have to find the heart and soul of their characters.

And even though actors are handed a script most scripts are like a blueprint for a building. The basis for the building is there but right now it's just lines on a piece of paper or a computer screen. In this sense writers and actors have a lot in common and they can learn from one another. Not too long ago I did a review of "The Right Questions for Actors" by acting coach Jeanne Hartman. In it she asks fifteen questions that actors should ask themselves when considering their character. Some of these can help us writers see our character's secrets, while others will help in seeing the power relationships (who's dominant and submissive) between characters, etc. Most, if not all, of these questions are good things for writers to consider when writing our characters. Spiral bound and with worksheet pages, it's not a bad guide for writers as well as actors. And it might also be good if we put ourselves in the heads of our characters the way an actor might.

The bottom line is that we can both learn from each other's crafts. Even if we're not writing for the visual arts, stage, screen, television, the art of the actor can help us get into the heads of our characters.

John Lennon

2009-12-08T21:27:00.001-08:00

Today is the 29th anniversary of John Lennon's death. Below is an article I wrote about his death on the one year anniversary. It was published in the Los Angeles Daily News. I still have the same populist outrage as I did then, though there's been a lot of water under the bridge and I've changed in many ways. Still, it's interesting to see what the world -- my world -- was like back then.

SALAD AND SALAHIS

2009-12-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

Alice Cooper said "welcome to my nightmare." And I say "Welcome to my blog," and it's all sort of the same thing, isn't it?

I didn't know what I would write about for my first blog post. Do I tell all three of you out there reading this what I had for breakfast, how fabulous my shower was today or about the case of mistaken dog identity that almost landed my pup in the clink (a true story and maybe for another time)? Or I could even talk about writing. Instead I want to talk about the incident with Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the real reality unreal couple who crashed President Obama's dinner a week ago.

I guess a pretty face and blonde hair goes a long way toward making a Secret Service agent smile. "Hey Big Boy, is that your Sig 9mil or are you just happy to see me?" Whatever, something in the way she moved – or he – opened the doors to the White House for Tareq and Michaele.

I remember an incident from the last millennium where I was at a dinner with then-President Gerald Ford, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a horde of other guests. We had arrived early, gone through the Secret Service checkpoint at the entrance and went to our table in the first row off the head table. We were impressed that one seat had a note on it that said "Reserved for Secret Service." And you can believe no one sat in that seat, though I'm sure that that little seat sign wouldn't have stopped Tareq or Michaele Salahi had they thought that was the best seat at the table. After all, reality show stars – or hopefuls – are more important than the Secret Service anyway and I can just see them surreptitiously switching the sign to another seat.

After about 45 minutes and the hall filling up, one of the people at our table wanted to go back out to his car to get his camera. Ten minutes passed; he still hadn't returned. Twenty. Thirty. Forty-five. Almost an hour. The place was already full when he left so it's not like he had to stand in line to get back in. The wayward wanderer finally returned.

"Where've you been?" we asked.

"I was stopped by the Secret Service at the door."

It turns out that the eagle-eyed Secret Service agents remembered our buddy, one of the first people to arrive, leaving without a jacket when he went to retrieve his camera. When he returned with the camera he'd also brought his jacket. The agents noticed and wondered why. It certainly hadn't gotten any colder. They interrogated him for almost an hour to make sure he wasn't sneaking in a hydrogen bomb or illegal fruit.

I've been impressed with the Secret Service ever since, to have remembered one man and his jacket (or lack of) out of hundreds of people seemed an amazing feat. If only those same agents had been on the door to greet the Salahis. And hopefully what happened at that event is an anomaly and not a sign of a new, kinder and gentler Secret Service. We went on to enjoy the rest of the evening with a steely-eyed Secret Service agent at our table, who kept a keen and steely eye on our wandering friend.