La Crescenta Library Event – July 2012

Ashley Ream & Paul D. Marks

Join Paul, Sue Ann Jaffarian (author of the Ghost of Granny Apples Mystery series and the Madison Rose Vampire Mystery series, and Michael Mallory (author of The Mural and the Amelia Watson Mystery series) for a panel/discussion on "Things That Go Bump in the Night".

When:  Saturday, July 28, 2012, 2:00 PM

Where: La Crescenta Library

            2809 Foothill Blvd.

            La Crescenta, CA, 91214

RJ Parker: TRIPLE PROMOTION - May 23-24

Check out RJ Parker's blog for details on a special promotion for WHITE HEAT, Bernard DeLeo's HARD CASE and RJ's book UNSOLVED SERIAL KILLINGS.

RJ Parker: TRIPLE PROMOTION - May 23-24: On May 23 and 24,  Unsolved Serial Killings  will be FREE. This book is currently #5 in Criminals in the Top 100 and it's only the second time I've put this book up for free in the Kindle Store.

Also on those two days, my good friend and author, Paul Marks will have his *New Release* White Heat FREE in the Kindle Store. If you haven't read this book, it is quite the read. Here is my Review of White Heat

Another good friend, mechanic, author and I think CIA operative but I'm not sure LOL Bernard DeLeo just released a new book through RJ Parker Publishing called HARD CASE this book will knock your socks off. It's packed with action and DeLeo's usual dash of humor and bantering.

Here's the deal ... When you purchase *HARD CASE* on May 23 or May 24, email the Amazon receipt to RJ Parker's Email and he will GIFT you a FREE digital book from the Kindle Store that you choose by either of the following authors:

Paul D. Marks
Bernard Lee DeLeo
William Cook
RJ Parker

Please share this blog with your friends and on Facebook, thanks so much... RJ

WOULD YOU TALK SOMEONE OUT OF BUYING YOUR NOVEL? -- I DID.

I was at the Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles booth at the L.A. Times Book Festival at USC over the weekend, selling my new novel WHITE HEAT, as well as several anthologies in which stories of mine appear.  I've been going for several years, though this is the first time I've had a novel that was all me to sell.  So that was exciting.

And it's always nice to socialize with both the public and my fellow Sisters…and Brothers in Crime.  To see people I haven't seen for awhile and meet new fellow crimesters.

But the main objects are to increase the visibility of Sisters in Crime and, of course, to try to sell books.  So why would I try to talk someone out of buying my new novel that I want as much attention and word of mouth as possible for?

Early in my time at the booth a woman came by and talked to me about the various anthologies and the novel.  We had a nice conversation about the books and other things.  And she seemed interested, but ultimately didn't buy anything.  I didn't think anymore of it.

But awhile later she returned with a young man in tow.  He looked to be about fifteen and it appeared from their conversation that she wanted to buy the novel for him.  I was happy that she'd returned and wanted to buy a book.

However, since the book was clearly for her son I felt like I had to say something about the content.

To give you an idea of what the book is about here's the blurb for it: WHITE HEAT is a mystery-thriller that takes place during the 1992 "Rodney King" riots in Los Angeles.  P.I. Duke Rogers finds himself in a racially charged situation.  The case might have to wait....  The immediate problem: getting out of South Central Los Angeles in one piece – during the 1992 L.A. riots  – and that's just the beginning of his problems.  And while he tries to track down the killer he must also deal with the racism of his partner, Jack, and from the dead woman's brother, Warren.  He must also confront his own possible latent racism – even as he's in an interracial relationship with the murder victim's sister.

On the surface the story is a mystery-thriller.  But it also deals with the harsh realities of race and racism.  And in doing so some of the characters use extremely offensive language, from the F word to various racial epithets.  Reviewer M2 says this of White Heat: "'White Heat' is a tough, tersely-written book featuring tough, complicated, and not always lovable characters who might push many readers to the very edge of their comfort zone. But it's honest and it's real, and it doesn't pander to its audience by providing pat or phony answers to the many complex issues it raises."

And while I want as many readers as possible and want people to enjoy the novel on both the plot and deeper levels, I felt I had to warn the young man's mother about the various intense aspects of the book. The choice was hers and she ultimately chose not to buy it and I lost a sale.

I don't believe in censorship of any kind, but this was, in a sense, self-censorship.  When it came to someone as young as this kid I felt it was my obligation to tell his mother and let her or them make up their minds.  I'm not sorry I told them and maybe someday he will read it.

What would you have done?

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC

I'll be signing my new novel WHITE HEAT at the Times Book Fest on Sunday April 22, 2012 at the Sisters in Crime booth.  From 2-4pm.  Hope to see you there.

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A Z IN RENDEZVOUS

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:

"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

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.