All the Trepidation Without the Mauling

In about 1997 or so I moved back from the Pacific Northwest, where I'd been living since 1986, to Montana. I took a job and was living in Ronan, MT, on the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Reservation, which is about an hour's drive north of where I live now in Missoula. I wasn't particularly well-traveled at the time. I'd been in Seattle countless times, so I'd overcome any trepidation about big cities (or what I thought at the time was "big"), and I'd made a couple trips to the Midwest. When I settled back in Montana, I kind of figured those city days were behind me. I was retired (I thought) from playing rock music, had written a couple of (bad) novels, and was seriously considering taking up writing seriously, I mean really seriously, for the first time. I also had a pretty bad attitude. As much as I loved being back in Montana, I still felt like I'd either failed at everything I'd attempted to that point, and failing at the rest of the things that still had the faintest of heartbeats.

One of the first big projects I worked on in my new job ultimately led to a trio of us being sent to Chicago for National Manufacturing Week at McCormick Place. Imagine a huge trade show full of just about any kind of manufacturing software and apparatus you can imagine, squeezed into arena-sized rooms spanning multiple levels. It was overwhelming, to say the least. As for me and my companions, we were pretty much bumpkins turned loose in the big city . . . but we made the most of it. We happened to be there over a weekend, back in the days when a Saturday stayover made a significant difference in the price of airfare, and it happened to be a weekend when St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday. So yeah, things were crazy and it was fun, but it was also stressful and exhausting.

First look at the Mission Mountains over St. Ignatius, from the top of Ravalli Hill, 15 miles or so south of Ronan

Returning home, I needed some serious decompression after the mayhem of Chi-Town. Ronan is bordered on the east by the mighty Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness. These mountains are truly magnificent, rising out of the valley to about 10,000 feet in their highest peaks. This area is home to all kinds of wildlife; deer, birds of prey, mountain goats . . . and is also a Grizzly Bear Conservation Area. There are many trails that lead to hidden lakes, and I determined that what my state of mind really needed was a hike. So I headed out, alone, giving my wife at the time some vague reference to the trail I thought I'd take.

It was mid-March, and most of the snow in the valley was gone as I headed out. I took a trail we would often hike, heading up to a little lake called Swartz Lake. I headed up into the hills -- these mountains, as I said, rise straight up from the valley floor, so pretty much every hike one attempts is a steep climb -- and through some fairly dense forest. As I got higher I emerged from the trees and was moving up a barren slope. By now I was above the snow line, and as I got higher it got deeper and deeper, about midway up my shins. The trail wasn't clear, but there were footprints in the snow I was following, assuming they were from a previous hiker. I finally reached a point where I felt I'd gasped out the last remnants of the Big City Experience, and decided to turn around.

It was at that point that I got a clear look at the trail I was following. I hadn't paid attention before, but the angle of the prints made it obvious that whomever had made them had made them going downhill. As I looked, I realized no hiker had made them: they were bear prints. BIG bear prints. Very clear, very defined, no mistaking them at all. I put my hand in one of them to compare, and the spread of the toes dwarfed my hand, with the clearly defined claws extending another couple inches on each toe.

A cold chill went down my spine like someone had poured ice water over my head, but somehow under my skin. I'd seen plenty of black bears in my hikes, but never a grizzly. I didn't have bear spray, I was alone, and the only person I'd told where I was going had no clue where it even was or could likely even repeat it to anyone if asked. I knew my car was parked in a place that would ultimately lead to questions, but this isn't a locale where those kinds of questions get raised with any expedience. It was just as likely to be vandalized and ignored if it remained for any length of time. So I was pretty frightened.

I began my descent, carefully, all my senses tuned into my surroundings. As I got into the trees, I was trying to make more noise, but it was stressful because visibility wasn't particularly good. I was tramping along, trying to be cool, when suddenly something exploded out of the scrub to my right.

The Missions in winter, viewed from just outside Ronan

I jumped, turned, and landed in a crouch. I'm pretty sure I shouted, fully expecting to be face-to-face with the mother of all grizzlies. Instead it was a freakin' grouse, or quail, I don't remember for sure, startled out of its resting place by my passage. The little fucker sure made an explosive and noisy exit as it careened its way through the trees, unconcerned that it had about given me a damn heart attack. I stood there several moments, gasping, my heart hammering in my chest.

The rest of my descent was uneventful, despite my being wired tighter than a piano, and I've never been so glad to see my car waiting for me. I thought of all the things I'd done wrong, hiking in grizzly country, and felt lucky to have come away unscathed. Grizzlies aren't necessarily aggressive unless caught unawares, or defending their young, so the risks generally aren't that great. But still there was risk, particularly given the time of year. It's possible I passed the thing on my way up, and it might have even watched from hiding as I passed by. That probably freaks me out even more, as it weighed its options about what kind of a meal I'd make.

Fortunately for me, I don't look that tasty.

Conflict Tiger

I spent a blog post last week raving about a book I had just finished, The Tiger -- A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant. After finishing the book, I got on the website and did some digging around, read a couple interviews with Vaillant, and learned that his inspiration for researching and writing the book was a documentary he saw in Banff called Conflict Tiger, by British filmmaker Sasha Snow, in 2005. You can read about that genesis for the book on a blog he did for the mighty Powell's Books right HERE. In fact, I recommend you read the entire series of five or so blogs he did for them right HERE. It's interesting stuff.

I immediately set about finding a copy of Conflict Tiger for myself, discovered its availability via PayPal on the website, and less than a week later I had it in my hand. I didn't hesitate and watched it that very night. It was fantastic. This is the synopsis from the movie's website:

In the forests of the Russian Far East, an inexperienced and foolhardy poacher triggers an infamous series of tiger attacks on people.

The authorities call upon the services of Yuri Trush, a specialist in tracking and eliminating tigers that have lost their fear of man.

‘Conflict Tiger’ takes Yuri’s most notorious pursuit of a ‘man-eating’ tiger as the basis for a documentary thriller.

From the aftermath of this epic confrontation, the film emerges as a parable which challenges the cosy illusions of the traditional ‘big cat’ natural history by setting the animal’s precarious situation against the pressing needs of human survival.

Because it came first, I hesitate to call this movie a perfect side companion for the book. The two certainly stand on their own merits, and do an excellent job of telling a similar story through the lenses of different mediums. But experienced together, that is where the two really shine. As a film, Conflict Tiger is an interesting blend; part documentary, part re-creation of events, and part a statement on the need for conservation, it does an outstanding job of letting the images and the voices tell the story without the filmmakers getting in the way. We don't need a dramatic voiceover to tell us these people are poor -- we see it in how and where they live. The landscape is immense, and it looks absolutely frigid. There is a scene where some men are walking along a trail, and the snow underfoot is squeaking loudly like two balloons being rubbed together. I turned to Julia and said, "That is when you know it's freakin' cold, when the snow sounds like that!"

It's difficult to talk about the film without giving things away, because I truly hope interested people will order copies for themselves (at less than the cost of seeing a movie in the theater, I should point out). I will say though that one of the things I like best about the film, as it relates to the book, is getting to actually see the people and locales that populate Vaillant's book. For example, Vaillant does an excellent job describing the bleakness of the settlements, particularly around the Russian village of Sobolonye and the fading industrial mining town of Luchegorsk.

The movie is in Russian, and my copy came with English subtitles. I preferred that to a film that would have been done in English. I love listening to these Russian voices, telling their stories in their own tongue. It is more powerful that way. Principal characters like Ivan Dunkai and Yuri Trush, ostensibly the "hero" of the story, come to life on film.

Particularly interesting, and frightening, is some of the video footage. Director Snow came up with footage somewhere of a tiger on the hunt, which is cut into some of the re-creations throughout, and its baleful glare is chilling. Equally frightening is the footage provided by Trush himself. In the book, we learn that Yuri Trush was careful about documenting on video much of what he and his men encountered while investigating these tiger attacks. Some of this footage, described in such excellent detail in the book by Vaillant, is in the Conflict Tiger film. Some of it is not for the squeamish, certainly, but it is powerful stuff. Whether it is the excitement in the voices of Trush and his companions Shibnev, Gorborukov and Pionka in the immediate aftermath of the penultimate encounter with the tiger, or the sobs of the camera holder as he films the discovery of a pair of frozen, emaciated tiger cubs, it is as powerful as anything I've seen.

Watching this movie, it saddens me that more people don't see this kind of thing. While Hollywood continues to offer us nothing but garbage, with a rare film of watchable quality popping up here and there, small filmmakers struggle to tell their fantastic stories, let alone have them seen. As much a bomb as a piece of dreck like Sucker Punch may be, what could the equivalent of its opening weekend revenue do for a small filmmaker like Sasha Snow? I'm reminded of a couple other independent releases I've seen and enjoyed in the past year or so -- 180 Degrees South and Facing the Storm: Story of the American Bison, for example -- and I am pleased that people are out there struggling to get the funding to make these movies. They need our support.

Conflict Tiger is a fascinating film. I urge you to check it out, and the book too.

Note: all photos swiped from the Conflict Tiger website. I hope Sasha doesn't mind!

The Wild Comes Leaping Up

Back in April of 2007 I read this book, When the Wild Comes Leaping Up: Personal Encounters with Nature, edited by David Suzuki. It's one of those books I've carried with me in my mind, even though none of the specific essays come to memory now as I'm reflecting on it. I think I'll dig it up and read it again. Here's the synopsis from its Amazon page:

In this eloquent collection, writers from the United States, Canada, the U.K., and Australia describe a personal encounter with the natural world that moved them, enhanced their understanding of nature, changed them, or was in some other way of prime importance to them. These essays describe childhood memories, everyday walks transformed into life-changing events, being in the grip of a great force, and startling encounters with wild animals. They are funny, sad, reflective, exciting, nostalgic, and outlandish. Each one presents a singular experience, and all are beautifully written and deeply felt. Personal encounters with the natural world written by award-winning authors. Some of the award-winning contributors include Margaret Atwood, Diane Ackerman, David Quammen, Rick Bass, and Wade Davis.

I do remember when I finished it I was on a plane, traveling home late at night after a steady run of work travel, feeling disconnected from "real" life. I thought then that I would maybe come up with a couple essays of my own for this blog, but never got around to it. Lately, with the themes I've been reconnecting with via my reading, and my own urge to plunge back into the Great Outdoors as spring and summer near, I've decided that maybe I'll start spending some words on that kind of thing a little more frequently. Especially this week, if for no other reason than I feel like it.

Last week, it was Wednesday or Thursday I think, Julia and I were headed to the gym around 8:30 AM or so. It was bright and sunny out. As we turned the corner about a block from our house, a bizarre-looking critter was trotting across the front yards of the houses in front of us. Too oddly-gaited for a dog, it was way too big for a cat -- turned out it was a raccoon. A big raccoon. It was the second one I've seen in our neighborhood, but this was the first time I've seen one in broad daylight. I fumbled with my phone to try and get a picture, but it squeezed under a fence and into someone's backyard. Now raccoons aren't exactly one of those A-list critters people go crazy about seeing (probably because we tend to see so many dead along the highway in certain parts of the country), but I get a charge out of seeing any wild animal I don't normally see.

Of course this time of year, if we lived in the Rattlesnake in the NE corner of Missoula, an area Julia and I, and many other people, often hike, we'd have other concerns . . . as this article from last week's Missoulian points out:

A big black bear has already broken into two garages in Missoula's Rattlesnake neighborhood, according to Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear manager Jamie Jonkel. A snowmobiler in the Ovando area spotted fresh griz tracks last Friday. And wildlife officers on the Flathead Indian Reservation saw a sow grizzly with a cub over the weekend.

Did anyone see the movie Shakespeare in Love from about ten years ago or so? I remember in that movie the theater experts claimed that in order for a play to be successful, it needed a small, funny dog in it. This moose story, from Hamilton, which is about an hour south of here, wins because it meets that criteria in the form of a "little schnauzer named Buttons." From the article:

On a dead run, Zohner looked back over her shoulder to see the moose running fast in their direction now.

"It looked like it was chasing us," she said. "I think the guy scared it. It was heading right back toward us. I yelled ‘It's coming. Run as fast as you can!' "

Dragging Buttons down the street by its leash, the two reached their porch at almost the same time and scrambled to get inside. The screen door slammed shut. Buttons was still outside.

This is one of those articles that you can almost feel the fun the reporter, Perry Backus of the Ravalli Republic, had writing it; check it out. I read it aloud to Julia the other night, and we've been giggling ever since.

Moose picture I took near Lincoln, MT, last year. That look says, "Get out of that car and I'll trample your fat ass and the little dog too!"

It could be because we have our own "chased by a moose" story. The summer before Julia moved up here she was visiting and we went camping near Lake Como, also in the Hamilton area. Behind the campsite area and down a slope was a marshy pond. Early in the morning Julia spied a moose below in the pond and summoned me. We were watching it from a distance of probably sixty or seventy yards when it decided it didn't like being eyeballed and came charging up the hill after us. Luckily we were just car camping, so we bolted to the truck; the moose thundered up to the edge of our site, looked around a bit, then lumbered off in the other direction. It was exciting. Not counting cows, roosters and dogs, that's the only time I can recall being chased by an animal. Oh, and this ornery horse my sister used to have, I guess.

Finally, the best wilderness link of the week hit my radar last Friday. It's another photo essay from The Big Picture, which I've linked to before, and never fails to blow me away. This one is called Dog Sledding Season - Coming to a Close. And it is a must view!

Makes me regret missing the Race to the Sky this year, which I wrote about last year. I won't make that mistake again in 2012.

Photo Finish Friday

The passport that nearly doomed the Panama trip right out of the gate:

Years ago, one of Julia's bad dogs (Hoss, RIP) got ahold of her passport and gnawed on the corner of it, as you can see in the picture. Nothing important is obscured when you open it -- not the picture, any of the numbers or seals, etc. Since that happened she's been to Thailand, Panama once before, and Spain -- and all of these trips have happened since 9/11. Maybe other places too, I don't know. But she's never had a problem, so we didn't think much about it.

When we checked in with Copa Airlines in LA for the flight to Panama City, the attendants there were taken aback. At first they said it wouldn't be allowed, so they summoned a manager, and she disappeared into the back offices. Apparently she called someone in customs in Panama City and got the go-ahead to let us check in and get on the plane. Luckily, she gave us the name of who she received approval from. After about 15 tense minutes we were through check-in and on our way to security.

Eight hours later or so we arrive in Panama City and start going through customs, where they freak out about it all over again. The customs guy summons a supervisor who disappears. Ten minutes or so later a woman comes and asks Julia to go with her. Minutes pass. Julia's dad and I are starting to get a little anxious. Finally I decide to go see what the holdup is; I find Julia sitting on a little couch outside some offices looking a little glum. We aren't sure what to do at this point, so we share the name of the person we were given in LA to streamline the process, wondering if slipping someone a $20 or a $50 is what is expected in this situation. I was leaning more toward unleashing mayhem, armed as I was with my Smith & Wesson Tactical Pen, and fighting our way into the country.

Finally, after probably at least thirty or forty minutes Julia is cleared and we are allowed into Panama. It was a huge relief, as obviously it would have sucked if she had not been allowed into the country, all because of a slightly damaged passport.

It should be noted that on the way back we had no trace of any of these difficulties. Suffice to say, before we do any more international travel she's going to get a new passport!



Photo Finish Friday is the brainchild of writer/blogger Leah J. Utas.

Print Crushes Everything

Look what came in the mail today!

I've already blabbered enough about what this is; check it out if you've forgotten.

Let me just say that I thought this was cool enough when I downloaded the e-Version; same with the PDF. But the print copy? Destroys them both, hands-down.

So you should order one too.

In the Taiga, the Czar Always Eats First

My favorite nonfiction read last year was The Wolverine Way by Doug Chadwick. I'm sure you remember me raving about it. Part adventure and part natural history lesson, it talks about a compelling animal teetering on the brink of extinction and all the forces coming to bear for and against it . . . and the writing is superb. So for many of the same reasons, I'm pretty sure I've found my favorite nonfiction book of 2011 (though it came out in 2010): The Tiger -- A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant. I wish I'd read it sooner, as it's been on my shelf since just after it came out. Then again, the head-to-head battle for 2010 between this and Chadwick's wolverine book would have been a bloodbath. So here's the book trailer:



I could go on at length over how much I loved this book. More than just a fantastic look at not only tigers and one particular animal, it is also a compelling narrative on Russia and the people trying to make lives in one of its most remote areas. In a number of the other reviews I skimmed through when I was posting about it on Goodreads I saw some dismay from other readers concerning all the "other stuff" unrelated to the actual tiger and the attacks it made on humans that some felt was unnecessary. On the contrary; I feel the backstory and cultural/ecological goings-on in Russia provide critical context as to how these events went down. These little details only made the book more fascinating on so many levels. Vaillant handles the material perfectly, and the read is as suspenseful as any crime yarn I've read. Here is a little author video on the book:



A recent interview with Vaillant can be read HERE, and I urge you to do so. Here is his answer to a question about the "course of events" that inspires the book's narrative:

One of the most compelling—and chilling—elements of this story is the single-minded way in which the tiger set about liquidating Vladimir Markov, the unemployed logger-turned-poacher who shot and wounded this tiger at point-blank range. Because he was shot at close range, the tiger was able to identify Markov and track him, which he did. When he got to Markov’s isolated cabin, he investigated and destroyed Markov’s belongings in an eerily systematic way, the aftermath of which was recorded on video by investigators. Markov managed to escape, but the tiger waited, and waited – like a hit man—until Markov was compelled to return (it was his cabin after all). Although Markov was armed and ready, he was not as ready as the tiger who confronted him face to face, and killed him by his front door. So it begins...

We learn in the interview that the event that generated Vaillant's interest in the story was when he saw the documentary called Conflict Tiger, by British filmmaker Sasha Snow, at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in 2005. As a result, after reading the book I ordered a copy of the DVD. I can't wait to check it out.

Books like this are my favorite. Maybe because they are full of adventure; adventure that is real. A squad of frightened men in minus-forty degree weather on the trail of a maneating predator is about as close to a Howard or Burroughs story as one can get these days, and that is the stuff that fired my imagination as a youth. I still love that stuff. I love the wild, and admire the people who make their lives in it. I live in an area where many of these same conflicts are being played out, only the dominant predators in our local stories are wolves, mountain lions, grizzlies and black bears. Julia and I were out hiking yesterday, in an area where, though not likely, we could have crossed paths with an angry bear or lion. It's exciting. It's the world I want to live in. I'm thrilled people like John Vaillant and Sasha Snow are writing books and making movies about these issues. Makes my own efforts at uninspired been-there-done-that fiction seem all the more meaningless, when I find this stuff so inspiring. It has certainly made me pause for some serious self evaluation, believe me.

Hello Spring

As you can see, you still have some work cut out for you. And I'm not so sure THIS is gonna cut it.

Photo Finish Friday

Here's Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, shot with my camera phone from front and center at the show Wednesday night at the Wilma Theater in Missoula.

I'd mentioned in my previous post some concerns I had going into the show as they relate to my feelings about the band over the past few years, and I've been meaning to post a follow-up since the show. Probably still will, so I won't say too much about it here other than that the band totally redeemed themselves in my eyes, and it was a fantastic set. Both bands were top notch.

There is a reason I chose a picture of Cooley. I don't usually go to shows where I'm thinking, "If the band doesn't play [insert favorite song title from band's repertoire] then I'm going to be pissed." In this case, especially given the admitted chip I had on my shoulder, I was feeling that way about one particular song. And it's one that Cooley wrote and sings.

From the opening chord, and the thud of the kick drum, I realized that not only were these mofos going to play the song, they were friggin' opening with it. Words can't describe how jacked I was, almost to the point of tears (the manliest tears that have ever flowed over a grizzled cheek, mind you). It was awesome. The song is called "Where the Devil Don't Stay." You can listen to it here.

I had a great time.

Here is a slideshow of about 20 pictures I took, all with my cell phone, if you are interested.




Photo Finish Friday is the brainchild of writer/blogger Leah J. Utas.

I Had a Dream

Tomorrow night Julia and I are going to The Wilma to see Drive-By Truckers, with the opening slot taken by Heartless Bastards. One one hand I'm really excited, and on the other I'm a little anxious.

There was a time a few years ago when I would say the Truckers were one of my favorite bands. It was 2004 and The Dirty South had just come out, the third-in-a-row of absolutely fantastic country/rock masterpieces (the other two being Southern Rock Opera and Decoration Day). To this day, the opening cut of that record, "Where the Devil Don't Stay," is a song that would make my all-time favorites list. Top to bottom that record continues to be one I go back to again and again, and I love every song.

The follow-up, A Blessing and a Curse, left me pretty cold. Then there was turmoil in the band. Jason Isbell, arguably my favorite songwriter in the group, left. Other players were in and out of the lineup, and the band did collaborations with other artists. Bass player (and Isbell's ex-wife) Shonna Tucker took on a larger role as singer and songwriter. Brighter Than Creation's Dark was a real dud to my ears, though the next one, The Big To-Do, while not a return to form interested me more than the previous couple. The new one, Go-Go Boots, out just a month or so, isn't working for me at all, despite repeated forced listens. The band just seems to have lost the fire. The songs just plod along, the records tend to be too long, and leave me bored and uninterested. I'm hoping the live show will revitalize my interest, because I've never seen them and I've heard they always deliver.

So in my dream, I'm front and center during the band's show. Most concerts these days have signs all over the place saying "No Cameras!" but people always have them anyway, especially on their cellphones. Usually it says right on the tickets, though I checked mine and it doesn't say that. Anyway, in my dream, the band is playing and front man/main dude Patterson Hood stops a song and starts yelling at a fan down front for taking a picture. He goes off all in a tizzy and this young fan gets thrown out. In the dream that pisses me off, so I start heckling Patterson. "Oh, look at the big rock star, doesn't want his picture taken! How rock n' roll! How punk rock that is!" and on and on. Finally he gets all pissed off and dives into the crowd with swinging fists and we start going at it in brawl-like fashion. Then I woke up.

It kind of cracks me up. First off, I'm not one of those tools to heckle a band from the crowd. And for all I know, Patterson Hood isn't the type to get all bent because someone has a camera. But just the idea that I would dream this means all my concerns over the show are working their way into my subconscious. This rock n' roll fandom thing is a big deal, people!

I am stoked to see Heartless Bastards though. I really dig this band, and I'm thrilled to see them getting a spot on a decent tour. Can't wait to see them!



I'll report on Wednesday and Thursday as to how the show goes.

Badass: The Birth of a Legend -- by Ben Thompson (Book Review)

One of my favorite books of 2009 was Badass -- A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live by Ben Thompson. While this site isn't technically a "review" site I still review the occasional thing that catches my attention, and I reviewed the hell out of this book because I loved it. So when I received an email from the Marketing Coordinator at HarperCollins offering me an advanced review copy of Ben's latest, Badass: The Birth of a Legend -- Spine-Crushing Tales of the Most Merciless Gods, Monsters, Heroes, Villains, and Mythical Creatures Ever Envisioned, you know I friggin' jumped at the opportunity!

What Thompson has delivered this time around is an object of almost literary perfection.

Here's the book description from the publisher:

Since the beginning of human history people have created myths, tall tales, superheroes, and arch-villains—men and women who embarked on insane adventures, performed extraordinary feats of unparalleled awesomeness, and overcame all odds to violently smite their foes into bloody pulp. In Badass: The Birth of a Legend, Ben Thompson compiles these fantastical tales from the beginning of time to today and tells them in the completely over-the-top manner in which they were intended, including:

• Rama: The Indian god-king who led an army of monkeys against the King of All Demons
• Thor: The Viking god of thunder and awesome hair, who crushed the skulls of giants with a ridiculously huge hammer
• Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon hero so hardcore he could arm-wrestle monsters' joints out of their sockets
• Moby-Dick: The hate-filled literary behemoth who obliterated ship hulls with his face
• Skuld: The Norse necromancer queen who summoned a horde of zombie berserkers
• Dirty Harry Callahan: The prototypical modern-day antihero and very embodiment of badass

The book is divided into four sections. The first is Gods, Goddesses, and other Kickass Celestial Beings. Second is Heroes, Heroines, and Over-the-Top do-Gooders. Third is Villains, Sorcerors, Antiheroes, and Psychotic Merciless Bastards. Finally, we have Monsters, Fiends, Hellspawn, and Worse.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and say this book is for everyone. If you're one of those people who take everything, especially yourself, too seriously, you probably won't dig it. If you hate adventure, spurn fun, and never rolled a 20-sider in pursuit of glory and plunder, you probably won't get it. If you can't look at a picture of Gerard Butler as King Leonidas in 300 screaming and not giggle maniacally before muttering, "Awesome!" then the book might not be for you. But if heroic, mythological stuff like this is your bread and butter, if these stories referenced by the personalities detailed in the book are what started you down your path as a reader, and you get a kick out of truly over-the-top hyperbole and pop cultural references, then you'll love it. For me, as a guy who as a youth pored through the original 1st Edition D&D Deities and Demigods book imagining my characters fighting all the badasses listed there (and who to this day thinks could write a book titled Everything I Needed to Know About Life I Learned Playing Dungeons and Dragons with a completely straight face), this thing is like a trigger for all of those memories, taken to the next level of awesome.

For example, here is an excerpt from the chapter on Diomedes, the King of Argos, who fought in the Trojan War. Guys like Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, et al tend to get all the press from that war, but Thompson makes his case for Diomedes performing "towering acts of bone-crunching awesomeness on par with the greatest deeds of any of those mighty warriors." As everyone surely knows, the Gods and Goddesses themselves involved themselves in the 10-year Trojan War. Diomedes was favored by Athena, but only because he was so mighty. When he was putting an ass-whooping on one of Aphrodite's favorites, she appeared and ordered him to halt. He took a swing at her and sent her back to her crib wounded and bawling. Apollo then intervened, and while Diomedes didn't harm the God he still attacked relentlessly until Apollo left the field. That's when we hit a passage I read over and over again, where Thompson talked about Diomedes' relentless tendency to simply not care whom he faces when it's time to throw down:

Never was this more intensely awesome than when Diomedes, the mortal son of some moderately important guy, went straight-up against Ares, the Greek God of War, in mortal combat. That's right, this guy was so utterly fearless that he fought the deity responsible for warlike bloodshed, and the being whose sole job is to decide who won victory in battle. Diomedes didn't care. As soon as he saw Ares' chariot smiting Greeks alongside the Trojans, the king of Argos rushed over to face him. Amazingly, this wasn't even a hopeless battle -- as Diomedes was charging in to do battle with Ares himself, Athena warped down into Diomedes' chariot, guided his arm, and the Greek hero threw an epic spear that wounded the God of War, sending Ares running back to Olympus crying and howling like a punk bitch. The only analogy I can really make here is that this is like playing a game of D&D, deciding to have your character attack the Dungeon Master, and winning.

If that analogy doesn't make you howl, then you just don't get it. If you do, then you know just how truly great this stuff is.

Here is another one, talking about Medea, who is most known for her role in the legendary pursuit of the Golden Fleece by Jason and his Argonauts.

Medea is the sort of hardcore chick that would have spent much of her time in mythological Greece gracing the covers of the most brutal and horrific editions of US Weekly ever published. Her life had all the juicy intrigue -- love, sex, betrayal, revenge, divorce, occult dealings, and bad-hair days -- and she capped it all off with a brutally overdeveloped love for murder, violence, and flammable substances so profound that if "setting people on fire" were a Facebook status, Medea would have "Like"d it.

Besides being a book that seems like it was written just for me, Thompson delivers a work that proudly displays his own real love for the subject matter, with a twinkle-in-the-eye that makes it obvious he knows just how ridiculous his approach is. Still, that approach is backed up with scholarship; the bibliography is immense, and collects many works I'd not heard of before. For all the hyperbole the details of these subjects' exploits aren't made up by Thompson -- they are truly representatives of centuries of folklore and myth. It makes me want to pursue some of those books he references, even as it makes me queue up all the movies in my collection that involve heroes kicking ass and taking names.



As for near perfection, as much as I may be amused by the inclusion of dudes like Captain James T. Kirk, or B.A. Baracus, among the heroes, their presence in place of the noticeably absent Conan of Cimmeria is inexcusable. Hopefully that glaring oversight will be rectified in the next book, which I sure hope is on its way.

You Want a Piece of Me?

At long last, KUNG FU FACTORY from Crimefactory Magazine is available for purchase, download, whatever. I'm excited, because I have a story in it. Here's the hype:

From the far East-to-the backwoods of the American Nightmare - Crimefactory Magazine Presents: Kung Fu Factory! Crimefactory's hardest hitting pulpfest to date! Featuring new fiction and features by Christa Faust, Anthony Neil Smith, Frank Bill, Cameron Ashley, Duane Swierczynski Chad Eagleton, Chris La Tray, Matthew McBride, Liam Jose, Jimmy Callaway, Garnett Elliot, Bryon Quertermous, the Nerd Of Noir, Michael S. Chong, and Joshua Reynolds!

There are three ways to get it: via PDF download, you can order it for your Kindle, or you can buy a fancypants hard copy version of it. Don't ask, just do it.

In a nutshell these are all stories that have something to do with people getting their asses kicked. Not only that, but these are some top shelf writers. Yeah, this is the Christa Faust I'm always raving about, who is offering an excerpt from her next book from Hard Case Crime, due out in October, called Choke Hold. Duane Swierczynski's name has also graced these pages before, and he's talking about his run as writer on The Immortal Iron Fist from Marvel Comics. He also has a new book coming out from Mulholland Books called Fun & Games, the first of what I think are three books. That's pretty awesome. Hell, I could rave about all these writers, but you get the picture -- top shelf talent, no doubt about it.

As for my story, it's called "Buster Lee and the Chucklehead That Wouldn’t Stay Down -- A Tribute – with Apologies – to Robert E. Howard and Eric Powell." The call to submit stories came right after I'd visited the Robert E. Howard museum in Cross Plains, TX, last year, and I had just read a collection of Howard's boxing stories. So the timing was perfect.

I think I knocked it out in one sitting. The other dude referenced in the tribute part of the title, Eric Powell, is also a guy I'm a big fan of. He is most famous for creating and writing The Goon, one of my all-time favorite comic series. My main character in the story, Buster Lee, and his sidekick Marvin, are definitely nods at Powell's Goon and Frankie characters . . . whom I also see a lot of Howard's own boxing characters in as well. So my idea was to kind of put my foot in that little circle, and I think the story is pretty entertaining. I know I had fun writing it, and I had fun reading it at Noir at the Bar in St. Louis last fall.


Here's an excerpt. Buster and Marvin are in a bar owned by a dude named Stanley, who has just brought the fight promoter Herkimer Yelm to their table to talk Buster, Champion of the Air Brigade, into fighting an opponent for big money.

We talked more than a minute. Finally I rubbed my chin and said, “Thing is, Herkimer, I thought I heard ‘ole Abbott Drooker got himself killed.”

“I heard that too,” Marvin said. “Killed in the ring is what I remember.”

Herkimer nodded. “We all heard that, but I seen him, and he’s fight ready.”

“Apparently tales of his demise were exaggerated,” Stanley said, with a little self-important chuckle.

I ignored him. “And this new trainer of his, this wag calls himself ‘The Doctor’, is offerin’ a thousand dollars for me to get in the ring with Drooker.”

“Won’t put him up against anyone else, only you,” Herkimer said.

“Which is why I was so keen to see you, Buster!” Stanley said. “He wants to set up a big fight; he’s been talking about it for weeks!”

“We’ve all been waiting for you, Buster Lee, Champion of the Air Brigade,” Herkimer said, leanin’ forward, his eyes all bright with greed.

In ten years my mama raised me with more sense than my old man could beat outta me, and I could smell a scam from a mile away. This one stunk more than Marvin’s feet after double shifts in the engine room. I was scowlin’ pretty hard, and I could feel all these guys’ anticipation just leanin’ on me like a landlady on pay day.

“So I get a thousand dollars, win or lose,” I said. Herkimer and Stanley about threwtheir heads outta socket they was noddin’ ‘em so hard.

“And whadda you guys get?” Marvin said.

Both scallywags hemmed and hawed and cleared their throats without sayin’ much at all, and I silenced ‘em with a hard slap of my hand against the table that made everyone in the room jump. “I don’t much care what you sons-a-bitches are gonna get off my back,” I said. “I’ll do this fight – ”

The guys started to get all excited.

“On a couple conditions.” They froze. “First off, Herkimer, you’re the most crookedest promoter ever put together a card, which is why I never wanted to see you again. You’re gonna advance me fifty dollars right now, to tide me over to the fight, which is gonna be tomorrow night. And you,” I said, pointing a big finger at Stanley, “are gonna put me and Marvin up for the night, keep our glasses filled, and our bellies tight ‘tween now and then. It’s that way, or no way.”

Stanley and Herkimer looked at each other with kinda pained expressions, then nodded.

“Alright then. Go spread the word. Make sure everyone in Omaha knows that the champ’s in town, and will be deliverin’ a beat-down come Saturdee night.”

So do what you gotta do. Download the PDF of the thing. Order it up for your Kindle. Or even order a hard copy. Or do like I did and go for all three. You'll be glad you did!

Photo Finish Friday

Behind the scenes at the photo shoot for the DonkeyGirl Spring 2011 Collection. Here's Julia wrangling our friend Gwen's hair into shape prior to getting all fancied up for photos.

We were at the downtown Missoula studio of photographer Youa Vang. She had contacted Julia some months ago, after having seen her designs, and asked to work together for their mutual benefit. It's worked out great, and it was my first time to participate at an actual studio, as opposed to the guerrilla setup we've used in our basement for past shoots. Youa also shot the pictures for the most recent batch of six party dresses that went up at Donkeygirl a few weeks ago.

I was there with my little video camera thing, just getting a bunch of random footage. The plan, if my footage isn't awful (which is an enormous "if"), is to make a little video splicing live action footage with final images, just for the fun of it. If that happens, I'll post it here.

Meanwhile, here's another shot of Gwen, getting ready to have her picture taken for real (and not just by the guy pointing the video camera and cell phone camera at her).

It should be mentioned that besides being fun and perdy, Gwen is also a lethally-skilled kickball player.



Photo Finish Friday is the brainchild of writer/blogger Leah J. Utas.

Get eBeat to a Pulp

The first collection from Beat to a Pulp, Round One, is now available as a Kindle book. For those of you of the electronic reader persuasion, I highly urge you to pick it up, and not just because David and Elaine at BTAP were the first editors to publish one of my stories via their online Weekly Punch. This book really is a great collection of stories that are all over the map in content and consistently awesome in quality. Hell, you can say that about the webzine as well.

I bought it, even though I have the print edition as well. As I've stated before, I like reading short stories on my phone, which is my only means for accessing Kindle stuff, and this is perfect for that. I've been slowly pecking away at the stories in the book, but I'll probably finish it up off my phone.

So to reiterate: Kindle people, buy it HERE.

While you're at it, you may as well snag a copy of the print edition as well, since it will look so awesome on your shelf. Get that HERE.

See how easy that was?

Russian Wilderness

I've been compelled by the wilds of Russia for some time now. This photo essay from a site called English Russia really provides some natural eye candy. Do check it out. Here are a couple pictures and captions that particularly caught my fancy.

People often try to find human features in animals, wild or domestic. In this picture a bear seems to admire the evening lake. In fact, it is sitting in a food coma, overeaten itself with salmon. It can’t eat anymore, it is even difficult to move, and fish still swims in the lake. The bear observes fish with satisfaction and happiness in its eyes.

Ha. Food coma. I'm familiar with that concept.

When one moves to live among wild nature, one gets to understanding that 2/3 of city life skills are of no use here. Simple things become vital: set the saw, start your snowmobile that stopped in the middle of snowy landscape, not to get lost in the wild nature.

This little photographic jaunt is going to make me bump my copy of Ian Frazier's Travels in Siberia up on the TBR queue, for sure.

I love this kind of thing.

Photo Finish Friday

I feel like I'm kinda phoning it in this week, because as pictures go this one is pretty bad.

Wednesday I actually got up off the proverbial couch and went out to see some live music; one of my favorites was playing at The Palace in downtown Missoula, Scott H. Biram. I'm glad I did go, because it was a great show. If you want to know what he is all about, this is from his website:

Rock ‘n’ Roll ain’t pretty and neither is Scott H. Biram. The self proclaimed ‘Dirty Old One Man Band’ successfully, and sometimes violently, lashes together blues, hillbilly and country precariously to raucous punk and godless metal.

Biram ain’t no candy-ass singer/songwriter either, sweetly strumming songs about girls with big eyes and dusty highways. HELL NO!!! His singing, yodeling, growling, leering and brash preachin’ and hollerin’ is accompanied by sloppy riffs and licks from his 1959 Gibson guitar and pounding backbeat brought forth by his amplified left foot. The remainder of this one-man band consists of an unwieldy combination of beat-up amplifiers and old microphones strung together by a tangled mess of guitar cables.

For this show, besides his footstompin' originals, he covered songs from the likes of Leadbelly, Muddy Waters (a man which Scott and I happen to share a birthday with), Woody Guthrie and Metallica.

When I arrived, Scott was sitting at the bar by himself, so I sat with him for 30 or 40 minutes and just talked music and being on the road. We talked a lot about a documentary he is in called The Folk Singer - A Tale of Men, Music & America, from the folks at Slowboat Films. I've been meaning to write a blog about this movie -- still will once I get a chance to watch it again. It was a great way to kick off the night; Scott is a great guy to have a conversation with.

Here's some grainy video of him playing some Doc Watson (lighting at The Palace sucks):



Things almost went awry at one point during the show. I had just put my camera down for the song he was playing. All of a sudden this shot glass just comes flying out of the crowd and nails him; I think it glanced off the mic stand a little but impacted HARD against his guitar -- the '59 Gibson. Biram freaked, started yelling about who fucking through a bottle at his guitar, etc. then bolted out to stop the guy from getting outside. Half the crowd went that way too. I think the dude got away. Biram eventually calmed down, apologized, and got back to it. It was a bummer, but he handled it well. I don't blame him. I wish the guy'd gotten his ass beat. That's the thing I hate the most about going to shows -- drunken morons.

Here he is playing some Woody Guthrie, "Pastures of Plenty":



And here is a double shot of a couple of his own songs:




Finally, this is a clip I really like:




Great stuff. I'm glad I didn't fall back on my lazy proclivities last Wednesday night.



Photo Finish Friday is the brainchild of writer/blogger Leah J. Utas.

Another from the "They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To" Department

The lovely Ann-Margret.

March Comes In, Fluffily

Snapped this picture through the windshield on the way to the gym this morning, after a night of some fresh snowfall. Julia, angrily occupying the shotgun position, said, "It's friggin' March. Time for this shit to MARCH right out of here!"

As for the gym, only HIGH ON FIRE could power me through three miles on the jogging track the morning after a late night of band practice. 47 laps on this damn thing. The most I've ever done here was 93. That was . . . tedious. Don't ask how long it took. My breakneck pace I refer to as the "survival shuffle."

At least I got my good deed for the day out of the way early. An old lady was trying to adjust the seat on one of the stationary bikes, and couldn't make it happen. When she flagged me down, I got her up and spinning. She smiled and thanked me. I filed it away with a beatific smile, knowing I could be an asshole at some point today and not lose any karmic good will with the Universe.

Speaking of putting in time at the gym, did you see THIS? This is at the NFL Combine, which is where all the college football players hoping to be drafted do various drills to show the pro scouts what they are capable of. This dude, Oregon State defensive tackle Stephen Paea, crushed the strength test by bench pressing 225 pounds 49 times, a new record. It's interesting that to measure strength they don't have guys max out, they take a relatively low weight and see how many they can do.

My usual bench press workout starts out at 235 for 12, then 245 for 10, then 255 for 10 (by then, with all the other exercises I do between sets -- I do a total of 10 different exercises, 3 sets each -- sometimes I can only get 8 on that last set). I had just done my weight workout last night, so I was a little sore. Julia urged me to try the 225 challenge thing right when we got there, so I gave it a whirl. I only managed 18. I think on a fresh day, like a Monday after a weekend off, I could easily do 20, maybe even 25. I'd like to get it up to 30 or 35, though. Might take a barbed-wire arm band tattoo to pull that off, though, and I'm not sure I'm willing to make that commitment. I've never tried to see how much I can bench with just one or two reps, but I'm pretty sure I could do at least 275. If Julia and all her hot bellydance friends and models gyrated around me, I might even be able to do 300. That's been my goal since I started hitting the iron again, to lift 300. I figure if that pretty boy Hugh Jackman can do it, I damn sure should be able to too, for crissakes! I mean, he wants to be Wolverine . . . I just want to wow the chicks when I'm naked, but for a loincloth.

I'll tell you the combination that really puts a whoopin' on me though is pushups -- anywhere from 30 - 50/set -- combined with planks @ 60/90/120 seconds. Brutal stuff.