Gateway to the West

I've gotten unforgivably far behind on keeping up this blog. I have all kinds of folders of images of stuff I've been doing, I just haven't gotten around to posting everything. In the morning I embark on my fifth trip in as many weeks (heading to the hinterlands of Minnesota), then I am home for at least one week. Hopefully I can do some catching up. I've decided to talk about St. Louis first, which was the hub of a trip I took the week of the 18th - 22nd.

Noir at the Bar

I did my first reading at the Delmar Lounge in St. Louis on October 21st. It was once of those coincidences that seem to happen from time to time when I travel. I saw this thing was on the schedule concurrent with me being in the neighborhood, so I emailed the dude organizing the thing to see if I could crash the party and go the thumbs-up. So I did it! This is an event, usually organized around a writer or two on a book tour, where a handful of writers will get up in front of a bar audience and read their work. It was more fun than I could have imagined.

The handsome fella in that image is writer and blogger Jedidiah Ayres. He was the guy who got me on board, invited me to meet early for dinner, and MC'd the thing. What a great guy. We (a rowdy group of 3 other writers besides myself) ate at a cool little restaurant called Blueberry Hill before the gig. Old time rock n' roll fans would do well to dine there! Jed introduced each of us and basically kept the whole thing on the rails.

Dallas writer Jonathan Woods was up next, reading from his collection of short-stories Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, out on New Pulp Press. I've become a real fan of Jonathan's work. He does a fantastic job of straddling the line between straight-up pulp stories and contemporary crime fiction, with lots of sex, violence, and just weird stuff in his stories. Check it out!

Yeah, the next guy up was me. I read a story coming out in the near future in a special edition of Crimefactory called Kung Fu Factory. The piece I read is called "Buster Lee and the Chucklehead That Wouldn’t Stay Down." It's a boxing story in the tradition of Robert E. Howard. It seemed to go over pretty well. I had a great time reading it!

Cameron Ashley came all the way from Melbourne, Australia, to be part of this. Yeah, he is here for other things too, but it was great to meet him. Besides being a great writer in his own right, he is also one of the editors for Crimefactory, and the editor I worked with for the Kung Fu Factory project. His story, a slice of Australian crime, was a blast to hear with the Aussie slang delivered in his trademark accent. Not only that, but Cameron was a great guy to hang out with.

Scott Phillips was next. He's written a bunch of books and they're all awesome. This night was the release celebration of his latest novel, RUT, and the excerpt he read from it was hilarious.

Rut is out on Concord Free Press, which has a unique way of releasing books. Here's the deal:

We publish great books and give them away. All we ask is that you make a voluntary donation to a charity or someone in need. Tell us about it. Then pass your book along so others can give. It’s a new kind of publishing, one based purely on generosity, and it’s changing the way people think about books

So I urge you to order a copy, then pass it along. I have mine!

The mighty Dan O'Shea drove down from Chicago to participate. Dan is also a great guy; I met him last summer when he was in Missoula with his wife to attend a wedding in Polson.

He read his story that appears in a new anthology called Discount Noir, which is now out for Kindle, edited by my friends Patti Abbott and Steve Weddle. His story was a gas, and a perfect close to the evening. Get Discount Noir!

The discussion of the night wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention the attendance of everyone's favorite rural Missourian, Matt McBride. He drove up to attend, and turned out to be as cool in person as he is online. He also has a story in Kung Fu Factory, so that's something to look forward to.

All in all it was a great night, and I think everyone who read and attended had a lot of fun. I can't wait to do something like this again!

Earlier That Day

I had a few hours to explore St. Louis before the reading, so I went down to the riverfront. The weather was gorgeous. I wandered the old streets by the river, then explored The arch, took the tram up to the top, took photos, etc. Here are some images. . . .

Love the old brick streets!

Lewis & Clark and a dog named Seaman, the pet name that's too dirty for elementary history teachers to be comfortable with for over 200 years!

It's tight quarters up at the top inside of the arch, with people looking down through the windows. Not a place for claustrophobic types, or people overly afraid of heights!

Underground between the arches are museums, gift shops, movie theaters, etc. I saw a Lewis & Clark movie, but didn't have time for much else.
Bouchercon will be held in St. Louis next year. I'm going if I have to commit a friggin' crime to make it happen, especially after I had to cancel my planned trip to NoirCon this year. I'm looking forward to it.

Le Kickball

Way back in August or so Julia and I joined a kickball team called Toxic Assets. I wanted to rename it the Toxic Avengers but no one else was having it. The team is sponsored by our friends at Selvedge Studio. We thought it would be fun because a) they are all nice people and b) we don't get out much. And guess what? We were right! We fell in with a great group of people who are all about going out and having fun. Amazingly, with the season winding down, we are in 3rd place out of something like 15 or 16 teams. Sadly, this past game is likely my last, as work travel (North Carolina next week, Minnesota the week after; I'm blogging from a hotel in St. Louis right now!) is going to take me out of a double-header next week, then playoffs the week after. However, should the team make the final, I might be able to make it back in time for that. Here's hoping for success on both accounts.

Anyway, I took a few pictures the other night. Every game we had a uniform "theme." This one happened to be the Red, White and Blue.

Up first are Leah and Scott, our co-captains. They are also married, which means they're probably (gasp!) doing it. . . .

Yours truly, looking tough.

Would you mess with these guys? The dude on the right had a two-run triple in his first trip to the plate. The guy on the left one-upped him with a freakin' home run. Scott happens to be pretty damn fast around the bases. I happen to be, surprisingly, really fuckin' slow.

So how about trifling with this bunch? No, I didn't think so. Hey, I may look hulking next to these normal folk, but even though I'm probably heavier than their combined weight I'm pretty sure I could bench press them all at once too. That's how I justify myself to myself, anyway.

Here's Chauntel, perched on third. Her uniforms were a little more . . . interesting . . . in warmer weather. The whole league was more . . . interesting . . . in warmer weather, for that matter.

Kelly, preparing to knock the shit out of the ball.

Kelly again, looking to score . . . with enthusiasm!

Leah, on deck.

Leah, looking to get to second base at first opportunity!

Stu, our designated lead-off man, first baseman and wearer of the red onesie.

Julia, Mary and a big poocher. Julia isn't dressed as the All-American Bag Lady. She's just wearing a bunch of my clothes in a ridiculous number of layers. And she was still cold!

Mary and John. I think he is explaining the rules of "butts up" to us.

Kelly and Stu in the most common state on our team: Laughing!

We won this game this night, which was cool. We played a fun team to play too. Most of the games have been fun, though a couple teams are loaded with frustrated assholes who forget that kickball among grown-ups is just a silly diversion, not the friggin' World Finals. Get lives, douchebags! You know who you are. . . .

So, Which One Really IS More Like the "Real" America?

Mais . . . C'est la Vie

My friend Patti posted this on her blog the other day, and I decided to steal it. I don't know why I find this type of thing so compelling, but I do. Clearly I'm not alone in that.



Hell, vast swaths of Main Street, Midwest, USA look like this, just on a smaller scale. Imagine what a city like LA would look like under similar circumstances. Or Las Vegas. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see this movie.

Congratulations, Portland!

Saw this video today; it's kind of a promotional thing for the Portland Timbers, who are slated next year to join the "top level" United States soccer league, Major League Soccer. Another reason to try and get to Portland more often.



I've been to only a handful of professional soccer games. Once at the Kingdome in Seattle to see the NASL-version Seattle Sounders play the Dallas Tornado. It was a blast! I had gone to soccer camp in the area as my 8th grade graduation present, then my folks drove over and picked me up, and we went to the game. That trip included my first flight on a plane, my first professional sporting event, and really my first extensive amount of time spent away from home. Here's a shot of me about to put one in the back of the net; I think I was in 6th grade at this time, so that would be circa about 1979.

Speaking of the Seattle Sounders, the current MLS version of the team (this is their second year in the league) won the 2010 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Championship last night, defeating the Columbus Crew 2-1. It was a big win for them. Not only are the Crew one of the best teams in MLS, but Seattle became the first MLS team to win the cup in back-to-back years. I've always been a Crew fan as well since when I was in exile in Ohio I got to go to a few of their games. Their stadium in Columbus is the first ever soccer-only stadium built in the US. Since then a few more have been built, and as I understand Columbus is talking about building a new, bigger stadium. That's all fantastic.



Some fans of American football will recognize the name Lamar Hunt as the late owner of the Kansas City Chiefs. He financed the building of Crew Stadium in Columbus. Hell, the man went above and beyond for sports in America:

Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932 – December 13, 2006) was an American sportsman and promoter of American football, soccer, basketball, and ice hockey in the United States and an inductee into three sports' halls of fame. He was one of the founders of the American Football League (AFL) and Major League Soccer (MLS), as well as MLS predecessor the North American Soccer League (NASL). He was also the founder and owner of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, the Kansas City Wizards and at his death owned two MLS teams, Columbus Crew and FC Dallas.

I watched the game last night, and it was a great one with end-to-end action and heaps of excitement and a huge, enthusiastic crowd. Congrats, Seattle! Now, hopefully, on to the MLS playoffs and maybe an MLS championship as well!

Hiking Ch-Paa-Qn Peak (Squaw Peak)

As summer was winding down, I realized I'd been pretty lame about getting out and doing many of the things I love to do most. We'd gotten so busy with other things that too many activities I'd written down at the beginning of the year to accomplish just hadn't happened, and it was bumming me out. I think my mood was paying the price for it, not to mention my enthusiasm to accomplish other stuff. When I don't get outdoors, my verve for living an active life suffers, and I turn surly. So I've been making a concerted effort to put in the time. I'm a bit backlogged in my posting about some of these outings, but over the next couple weeks I'm going to try and catch up.

Back on September 12th I resolved to climb the tallest peak in the area. I've lived in the shadow of Squaw Peak for much of my life. It looms over the Missoula valley at just a hair under 8000 feet. In this photo taken from The M overlooking Missoula you can see it way off in the distance.

It's Indian name is Ch-Paa-Qn Peak. A few years ago there was some hubbub about renaming it; I think it is supposed to be called "Sleeping Woman Mountain" or something like that, but I don't know that it's ever caught on. The reason is "squaw" is considered by many to be a derogatory term, though there seems to be some debate about that. I'd certainly never call someone that, but I don't know that a lifetime of knowing that mountain by a certain name could be changed by someone deciding I was supposed to call it something different now. Anyway, here's a better, and beautiful, shot of the peak that I found online.

My parents live just below it, and the drive to the trailhead pretty much starts at the end of their driveway. I went up the evening of the hike with my mom to scout out where the trailhead actually is, as it had been close to twenty years since the last time I'd been up there. As we took the road up into the hills -- a road I'd spent much time in my youth on foot, on horseback, and via snowmobile -- the views that opened up were gorgeous. In this first shot (as always, click the image for a larger view), the pale green valley you see in the center of the frame, with the tree line, is where my folks live. The trees border Six Mile Creek, which runs right through their back yard.

This is a shot of Missoula off in the distance.

A little higher up, and zoomed in a little, is another shot overlooking where my folks live.

As one ascends to the top of the ridge, about 13 miles or so up, the descent down the north side is onto reservation land. This sign cracks me up. I don't know that there is a metal sign in rural Montana that isn't full of bullet holes.

On our drive up, we saw a black bear on the road ahead, but he quickly disappeared before I could take a shot of him with my camera. After we located the trailhead, we drove back down the mountain. First thing the next morning I drove back out there and headed up for my hike. It was a gorgeous day -- sunny and warm.

From the road across the top, one can see the peak looming ahead. Quite a different angle from below, eh?

Here's the sign marking the trail; it's only three miles to the base of the peak itself, and not such a bad hike, though steep in spots.

At times the trail was in deep shadow, with high brush on either side. I was armed with bear spray, but didn't see anything more than some scat. I did hear an elk bugling way off in the distance. That was exciting.

2.5 miles later I had crested a long climb and emerged into an area less cloaked in trees. For about a half mile the trail kind of circles around. If you look through the trees in this first shot, you can see the peak in the background.

Suddenly, flashing through the trees I saw a large, pale canine shape. I was momentarily excited -- could it be a wolf? If you ask some of the more ignorant local types, you would assume these hills to be crawling with Canis Lupis as they hungrily destroy all traces of elk, deer, livestock and scores of hapless children. But no, these turned out to be a trio of dogs with a couple humans accompanying them.

We met here at a crossroads where two other access trails from other areas join the one I took. They converge at this sign post, and from there the trail extends fairly steep to the base of the last couple hundred feet or so of peak.

Where that stretch of trail ends, the intrepid hiker must basically find a path over what amounts to a pile of rocks to reach the summit. This photo doesn't do it justice, as it is steep and many of the rocks are quite large. I was on all but all fours at times, making my way up. It is a moderately difficult climb, but not too rigorous; just time consuming.

This is a large cairn right where the trail emerges from the forest. It is to help a hiker find their way back to the mouth of the trail back down after descending from the peak. There were also several faded orange streamers tied to trees; I tied an American flag bandanna I was carrying.

As this shot from the top of the peak shows, without some point of reference on the way back down, how one could easily become lost just finding the path after finding a way back down!

There are a couple cairns at the summit as well. And a stunning view in every direction that these photos simply do no justice to. I feel it's almost pointless to even post them, but what the hell.

Here is a view looking Northeast. The mountains are the Mission Range. About mid-frame would be the hills that comprise The National Bison Range, one of my favorite places on the planet. If I turned slightly left, due north, way off in the distance would be Flathead Lake, and beyond that Glacier National Park and Canada.

Here is a look a little Southeast, with Missoula way off in the distance.

And here's yours truly, perched atop the world.

After I took this photo I hauled my ass back down out of the mountains. It was a long, sweaty day, but worth it on a multitude of levels. I'm looking forward to getting back up there again. I know Julia wants to go too; don't know if we'll make it before the snow flies, but make it we will!