Stumbling the Walk

This Blog Ain't Dead

2011-06-19T18:36:00.001-06:00

It's moved! For those who missed prior announcements, the blog moved from this site to a Wordpress site because Blogger just stopped doing what I needed it to do.

Reset your links/follows/subscriptions/whatever to http://www.chrislatray.com and let's get it on!

Travel Adventure

2011-05-31T21:44:00.001-06:00

New Post:

The Biggest Asshole in the World

Countdown to Extinction

2011-05-31T08:20:00.000-06:00

New Post:

Oklahoma Here I Come!

I've Had Enough, I'm Outta Here!

2011-05-30T22:15:00.004-06:00

No, I'm not giving up blogging, I'm giving up BLOGGER! For those who don't know, that is the platform this blog runs on. Over the last month or two the back end has had a number of problems. It was down for several days. There are intermittent problems with creating posts and commenting on them. I've heard from a number of people who have tried to comment and couldn't, and a couple who have gotten so frustrated that they said they aren't going to bother to try anymore.

Well, I don't have enough people who comment here to afford to lose any, so I've pulled up stakes and moved to the Wordpress platform. Hopefully it's more stable. I was able to import everything from here over there, so it should be cool. So please, if you link to me, or follow me, here are two new links, either of which will get you where you want to go for all the quality and life altering information I provide on a daily (almost) basis:

http://www.chrislatray.com

http://chrislatray.wordpress.com

My first new post is up over there. Here's the direct link:

http://chrislatray.com/2011/05/30/long-weekend-movie-extravaganza/

Oh, and I've changed from the Stumbling the Walk title to a more awesome, and pulpier, one: Naked But For a Loincloth. At least for now.

I'll keep leaving updates here when I put something new over there, for a while anyway, but I hope everyone makes the move with me. I'm not sold on the theme, and there are still some cosmetic changes to make, but at least it's up and running.

Thanks for reading! I hope it's worth it to you. . . .

Of Interest to Early Adventure Story Readers

2011-05-30T11:41:00.004-06:00

As I've mentioned, I've been part of a small group of people reading King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard. From Wikipedia:

The book was first published in September 1885 amid considerable fanfare, with billboards and posters around London announcing "The Most Amazing Book Ever Written". It became an immediate best seller. By the late 19th century, explorers were uncovering ancient civilisations around the world, such as Egypt's Valley of the Kings, and the empire of Assyria. Inner Africa remained largely unexplored and King Solomon's Mines, the first novel of African adventure published in English, captured the public's imagination.

One of the things we've discussed is the difficulty in overlooking the more racist remarks and references to the natives in Africa, as delivered by our protagonist/narrator, Allan Quatermain. Not to mention the wholesale slaughter that passes for "hunting."

So I found the following interesting, which I read in a magazine I subscribe to, Wend Magazine. This is in a section called "Now & Then" and this bit relates to a piece in the article adapted from another book I own but haven't read (though plan to start this week) called Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure by Julian Smith. I think this gives an idea of the kind of frightening stories that were coming back to England and America from Africa around the time Haggard, and the writers who followed him, were dreaming up their novels. . . .

Remarkable Discoveries by Explorer Grogan in Africa
Excerpted from: The New York Times, February 27, 1900

LONDON, Feb. 27 -- Some of the morning papers...publish a remarkable interview with Mr. E.S. Grogan, who has just returned to England after a two years' journey in Africa.

Mr. Grogan, who traveled over 6500 miles and represents himself to be the first European who has traveled through the continent from the Cape to Cairo, says that, after leaving Lake Tanganyika, with eight porters, he entered a region of active volcanoes, where he encountered "enormous lava streams, forming a veritable sea, forty miles by sixty, and a hundred feet deep." This whole region he found devastated, forests and herds of elephants being buried in liquid fire.

The neighboring country, he says, is occupied by some 5000 Balekas, ferocious cannibals from the Congo, who live by man hunting. His guides told him that the country, covering 3500 square miles, had been until recently densely populated, but that the people had virtually all been killed and eaten by the Balekas.

Everywhere he found evidences of cannibalistic practices. The very paths in the jungle were marked out by lines of human skeletons. The streams were full of decomposing remnants of humanity, half eaten and horribly mutilated.

These cannibals, according to Mr. Grogan's narrative, lived in grass cabins. He entered some of these habitations and witnessed horrible sights. He saw "cauldrons full of liquid with floating human skulls and the bodies of infants."

One one occasion the savages attacked Mr. Grogan's party, but he opened upon them with rifle fire. This staggered the cannibals, as they had never before seen a gun or a white man. Mr. Grogan shot two and the rest retreated. He says the Balekas are by no means repulsive to look upon. Although small, they are well built and have good features. Men and women go about stark naked. Their long hair gives them a peculiarly wild appearance.

Proceeding along the west coast of Albert Lake, Mr. Grogan found the natives terrorized by raids of the Belgians. He declared that he thoroughly investigated this matter, and found that the Belgian troops were in the habit of crossing the frontier, and had shot large numbers of the inhabitants, and had carried off the young women and cattle, tying up and burning the old women while white Belgian officers were present.

He adds, "From the north of Albert Lake to Lake Mweru the whole country is in a state of chaos. It is administered by incompetent Belgians. Often the non-commissioned officers and troops are of the lowest type of native and they are almost invariably cannibals."

I find this fascinating. What a different world, and, really, it all happened not so long ago.

So I Read the Story

2011-05-27T13:07:00.006-06:00

The excrement really isn't slowing it's assault on the oscillating device as it relates to my friend Benjamin Whitmer's review for Spinetingler Magazine of the James Reasoner story, "The Conversion of Carne Muerto," from the new anthology called On Dangerous Ground: Stories of Western Noir from Cemetary Dance Publications. If you recall, this whole bru-ha-ha inspired my recent post on what issues maybe fire you up as a reader, or movie watcher, or anything along those lines.

The debate around the story is that Whitmer calls it out as belonging to a certain type rooted in what he calls the "Indian hater" tradition. He then does a pretty thorough job of identifying the hallmarks of that tradition, and how they have perpetuated several myths as it relates to Whites vs. Indian interactions in American history. He does this as explanation for the reasons he doesn't like the story. There are strong political and cultural emotions at play here, and Ben doesn't pull any punches. It's generated a lot of heat and hot air, in many cases from people who haven't read the story, and probably haven't even thought that much about how Indians have been treated in literature or movies.

Happily I was able to acquire a copy of the story, and have the hardcover edition of the anthology headed my way. Having read the story now, if I must make a cold, emotionless evaluation, I'd say Whitmer is right, for all the reason's he's given. Whitmer's primary argument is that this is a story that's a pretty note-for-note take on the tradition as he outlines it, and really does nothing to bring anything new to the trope. Frankly, that assessment is spot on, if one chooses to view it in that light.

But that doesn't mean he hasn't earned a fair amount of the anger that's been thrown at him.

In a nutshell, the story is this (spoiler alert!): The tale is told from the point of view of a doctor working with soldiers out on the Southwestern frontier. Carne Muerto is a young Comanche who is taken captive by Texas Rangers, and they learn he is the son of the chief. Wounded, they bring him back in hopes of perhaps using him for information or to trade for white prisoners. When they are preparing to lock him up, a young white, Christian woman freaks out that they shouldn't be locking him up, and convinces the various officers that he should be turned over to her care while they decide what to do with him. She commences to try and convert him to Christianity. It seems to take. The doctor, who has been charged with guarding him while he's in the care of the woman, grows lax. Carne Muerto escapes, knocks the doctor unconscious, rapes the woman, and splits. He goes on to lead many successful raids on whites. The woman hangs herself. Her husband dies in a suicidal attack a couple years later. Unhappy stuff, but hey -- this is a Western Noir anthology.

I'm a big fan of James Reasoner, the writer of the story. It has many of the elements I like about his writing -- clear prose, solid dialogue, and a firm grasp of what people love about traditional Westerns. When I pick up a Reasoner yarn, I'm usually pretty aware of what I'm going to get, and the man delivers -- he's totally old school, and I love that about him. I have a ton of admiration for the guy.

Doesn't mean though that I don't have some beefs with this particular yarn, some of which come with my own hypersensitivity to how Indians are portrayed in popular culture. The capture and all that is fine. I don't mind the negative words the white soldiers use in regards to the Indians, because that is a reality of the world they lived in. Maybe it isn't 100% historically accurate, but whatever is? If I heard a guy down the street talking like that, I'd bust him in the face. But a period Western? I let it slide. To do otherwise tarnishes the realism the writer is trying to capture in the work.

However, these characters are people who were every bit as misogynist as they were anti-Indian. I could see our female character maybe convincing one guy that this "dangerous prisoner" could be given over to her care, but a group of three or four military officers? Even as the narrator is commenting on the hatred in the young warrior's eyes? Sorry, I'm not buying that. But it happens, and the story continues.

Our ill-fated Christian commences to try and show Carne Muerto the light. He seems to be buckling:

Carne Muerto tapped his chest with a fist. “God here,” he said. “Jesus here.”

Shortly thereafter, vigilance ebbs, and he makes his escape.

Even if I had read the story ignorant of all the points Whitmer has made about it, I would have been very disappointed. Why would this Indian take the time to rape this woman when escape presented itself? A native Indian, young and full of fury, in a hostile environment? I just don't buy that. I could see him killing the doctor, even killing the woman if she tried to prevent his escape. But rape and leave her behind to sound an alarm if she chose? Doesn't ring true at all. As for the conversion, I don't buy that either in the short time the story encompasses. I thought Carne Muerte was faking it, and we really don't know . . . the characters in the story assume that when he was absolved of sin by becoming Christian, he misunderstood that that meant he could do whatever he wanted and would be forgiven. Again, I'm not buying that. In such a short span could he even come to understand all these concepts enough to really even make decisions based on them? I don't think so. I can't imagine a young guy in his position doing anything but haul ass when opportunity presents itself, striking down any who stand in his way. Killing in this instance is really an example of self defense, and who could really blame him. Rape? That is an act of a twisted individual, regardless of who is doing it and why.

The rape becomes a vehicle to drive the remaining characters to doom -- the woman's suicide, her husband's suicidal demise. Meanwhile the perpetrator gets away presumably unscathed, the villain.

Really, as a story, I suppose it works if you can overlook the cultural weight of it. But I couldn't have, and haven't, reviewed it favorably, based mainly on my own personal values and prejudices.

Back to Whitmer's review. His first mistake was probably not researching a little more who James Reasoner is. The guy is beloved in the community of people most likely to buy this book and read the review. That has brought a lot of the heat on. I suspect that if some no-name like me had written it, the response would be a fraction of what it's been, if there'd been any at all. James has a lot of respect and love in the community, and it's been earned.

If he knew Reasoner, or was more familiar with his work and community standing, Ben might have worded his position more carefully. You start dropping hate-bombs and people are gonna freak. Whitmer says he did not intend to call Reasoner an Indian-hater, and I believe him now, but reading the review the first time that is exactly what I took away from it. Even reading it again, I had to look for reasons not to take that away, and most people aren't going to do that. That's a tough accusation to overcome.

When Whitmer called out Reasoner for the name of his character (for which Ben has since apologized for), it was pointed out that this story was based on real people and events. Unsurprisingly, that oversight then called into question every point he'd made. In Whitmer's defense, though, pretty much only in character names alone is this story based on actual events. In this case the real events are the barest foundation of the plot, and can in no way be used as an argument along the lines of, "But this really happened!"

I suspect that what rubs people the wrong way is that the review reads kind of like Ben took the opportunity to get on a soapbox about a subject he's passionate about and has a lot of knowledge of. The story itself is little discussed, only that it falls into a pool a couple thousand words deep. Nowhere does he say the story shouldn't have been written, he just explains, in extreme detail, the hows and whys of his dislike for it. It could even be seen as coming off a little finger-waggingly. He doesn't really even discuss the story much, just leaves it propped against the wall of the paragraphs that precede the section of the review that actually addresses the story itself. A reader comes away a little overwhelmed thinking, "Okay, I guess James Reasoner wrote a story that proves he's an Indian-hater. Wait . . . what?"

That's unfair to both these writers.

"The Conversion of Carne Muerto" won't go down as one of my favorite examples of James Reasoner's work, but I didn't come away from it pissed at the lost time I'd spent reading it either. That's fine, the dude has probably written 50,000 words in the time it's taken me to babble on in this review, and I've got a pile of his stuff I'm eagerly looking forward to reading. I'm no less of a fan, and I trust he won't think I'm an asshole for saying what I think about this particular yarn.

As for Benjamin Whitmer, I'd never tell him to rein it in, even as I'd slide him a beer and remind him that he's kinda made the bed he's now going to sleep in until it all blows over. In a world where a lot of artists aren't willing to take stands on anything that might lose them readers (i.e. paying customers), I admire him for not backing down. The problem is the thing has snowballed, and it's probably time to just walk away. There are some absolutely ridiculous accusations being leveled at him, and at this point I don't think anything but harm can come from responding further. I suppose my review here is just adding to the absurdity too, but hey, hardly anyone reads my damn blog anyway.

Look, we all bring our political and cultural and crazy shit to everything we experience. I recently read somewhere a blog by someone reviewing two movies, Source Code and Battle: Los Angeles. This person hated Source Code, which has generally been viewed pretty damn favorably (and I happened to love it) because the villain was a clean-cut white dude. "How typical of those stupid libs in Hollywood, who hate America, to make the terrorist something other than an arab" or something along those lines. They were pissed. Battle: Los Angeles, however (a movie pretty much universally panned that I didn't see because I thought it looked like an absolute piece of shit), they loved, because "it showed exactly what our brave heroes in the military are really all about." So there we go. Everyone does it -- I'm sure we can all think of examples in our own lives. If the writers of those two films had done the opposite, an entirely separate batch of people would have been up in arms.

James Reasoner isn't an Indian hater who intentionally wrote a story to splatter his racist views all over everyone who read it. Ben Whitmer didn't intentionally call him such. But somehow, some of those lines have gotten blurred and that's unfortunate.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-05-27T11:10:00.003-06:00

The Anniversary Self-Portrait Edition.

Five years ago today Julia and I got up, drove to Couer d'Alene, ID, and got a marriage license. Then we crossed the street to The Hitching Post and got . . . hitched. We didn't tell anyone we'd done it until about six months after. We're sneaky that way, and it was fun.

It's still fun.

Where's Your Line?

2011-05-25T20:40:00.007-06:00

I recently read a story the other day that made me step back and think very hard about my own writing, and what it has to say about the person I am and the writer/artist I want to be. These reflections brought a lot of what I've been working on to a screeching halt too. The story is called "Folded Blue" and it's by a fine writer named John Rector, published on a new crime/noir flash fiction site called Shotgun Honey.

There's nothing wrong with the story. It's well-written, and packs a lot into a tight 700 words. Rector's an excellent author, and by all reports is a great guy too. So my discomfort with the story is no reflection on him or what he's about. It mostly just underscored a problem I've been having more and more with crime fiction in general: the content.

In this case, it's a theme very common in crime fiction, and that is violence against women. It could be girlfriends being killed, or prostitutes, it doesn't matter -- it's common as hell. Maybe it's leaned on so often because it's real; it's shit that happens in the real world that we can all recognize and relate to as horrible. But I wonder if the barrage doesn't somehow numb us to the realities of misogyny in our world, and violence against women. It's a horrible, real-world plague. And in participating in a storytelling sense, I question my motivations and whether or not I'm part of the problem as well. There's got to be more to write about than killing women, right? Oh, and torture scenes. Jesus, enough with the fucking torture scenes.

It reminded me of a time many years ago I was doing a little writing on a fiction site that was kind of horror-based; a guy wrote a story of a serial killer murdering a woman, and I went apeshit. Ripped it to shreds. It wasn't just that it was disturbing, it just stomped all over my budding-feminist values and just screamed misogyny to me. My reaction prompted a wave of online forum name calling and anger, and I bailed and never went back; I was troubled and embarrassed. Since then, I've had to kind of build a wall around my buttons just to read or watch anything, because just about any story, particularly a crime story, has elements that are going to be offensive to someone, and often me -- if I let them. But this Rect0r story, it was like the proverbial straw on a camel that collapsed a lot of issues that were building within me about crime fiction in general.

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves." -- John Wayne

Today, a writer I admire and like, Benjamin Whitmer, delivered a review on behalf of Spinetingler Magazine of a story written by another writer I admire and like, James Reasoner. The story is part of a new anthology called On Dangerous Ground: Stories of Western Noir,which has just come out. I haven't read the story (but I will as soon as I can track down a copy of the book), so I can't comment on it specifically, but I think Ben's buttons were pushed in similar way to mine have been in the past; here's a paragraph from the review:

Then I read the story assigned me, “The Conversion of Carne Muerto,” by James Reasoner. And that excitement died real quick, as I realized it was a minor variation of one of the ugliest stories in American literary history: that of the Indian hater. And that I was gonna have to explain exactly why I disliked this story so thoroughly, and that it was gonna take me a lot of words.

Ben goes on to dismantle the trope he feels the story is built on, and he does so in epic fashion. It is long, but it is well worth reading. I felt my blood beginning to rise, as it is an issue near to my heart. Hell, I can't even go to powwows anymore because I can't stand to see American flags flying over them, or listen to Christian prayers being delivered. To me, and this is no exaggeration, that image is akin to Jewish people standing with hands-to-heart beneath a Nazi flag.

Now it's hard for me to imagine a guy like James Reasoner knowingly perpetuating the "Indian hater" archetype as described so thoroughly by Whitmer. Nor do I imagine John Rector to be a misogynist bent on perpetuating, or belittling, the horror of violence against women. I also know that I'm a total hypocrite, because there is much that I read and enjoy, or movies I like, that could be dismantled by an expert in similar fashion for any number of reasons. Hell, I'm participating in a little book group with David Cranmer and several other folks reading Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, and every day I'm ignoring jibes against my sensibilities about every other page. So who am I to get in a tizzy about this stuff?

I don't particularly view myself as one of those sticklers for political correctness either, even though there are many words and ideas thrown around all the time that make me grind my teeth and, depending on the source, just let it pass. Talk of whores and sluts. References to dead prostitutes. Calling people "rednecks" or "white trash." Racism, particularly as it relates to our current POTUS. And now and then I hear a word exit my mouth and I'm shocked to hear it delivered with my voice. And that is when I worry that maybe I'm letting too much of this stuff slide.

So I guess what I'm asking is this: what pushes your buttons? Does it happen often? And how the hell do you deal with it without going into a coccoon? Or are guys like me just would too tight?

Saturday Night Excitement

2011-05-23T17:39:00.004-06:00

After two weeks in a row of being gone most of the time, I got home in time to basically put Julia on a plane to Tucson for a few days. I wish I could have gone with her! And with Sid essentially gone all the time (either flipping burgers at Wendy's or hanging out with his degenerate friends), I found myself alone on Saturday night. So I watched a couple movies and endured my other companions. This is what passes for excitement up in here with La Sirena absent. . . .

My life is an adventure.

I've been experimenting with uploading files direct from my cell phone to Tumblr, another blogging site. It's cool because it automatically updates Twitter and Facebook simultaneously as well (like that really matters). You can check out what I've been doing if you want, to see stuff like this:

It's something I'm experimenting with, more as a place to post one-offs when I'm on the go, then use this page for longer stuff. Who knows. At the same time, I've been considering just up and stopping doing ANY of this stuff.

Have one more batch of photos from the last Chicago trip; don't know if I'll do that here or maybe just throw them up on Flickr. Also have some shots I took hiking over the last few days.

So much action, so little time. . . .

A Fox? Sweet!

2011-05-23T16:59:00.002-06:00

This is dedicated to my friend David Cranmer, in light of his post today:

In local news in the same vein, this is worth a look too.

The Adventure Where Kent Gowran Tries to Get Me Killed or Arrested

2011-05-20T16:12:00.008-06:00

I wrapped up my work responsibilities early in Chicago, but still had a late flight out. I emailed my friend Kent Gowran and asked him about some places worth checking out. He responded with a good breakfast restaurant to check out in the Wicker Park neighborhood of the city. Close by he named a couple bookstores and a record store I would probably dig as well. So I figured I'd give it a whirl.

Around 11:00 or so I heard a ton of police sirens going off, but didn't think much of it. A few blocks down the street I encountered a couple cops in plainclothes standing out in front of a pawn shop, only they were sporting some artillery and had body armor on. I just shrugged, and kept walking. About this time I noticed a helicopter hovering overhead as well, just kind of swooping a narrow arc back and forth. A couple more blocks and I noticed about six or eight cop cars in front of this bank, with a bunch of cops milling about. The helicopter was directly overhead.

I walked around back, started walking up the alley where a few more cop cars were parked, and lo and behold laying right there was A BACKPACK FULL OF MONEY!

I was literally standing right behind that parked car. Then some cops came and chased me away. They were all pretty fat (no surprise there) and old so I figured I could outrun them . . . but the empty canine police unit told me there might have been a four-legged challenge in the vicinity, so I passed on my get-rich-quick scheme.

I went back out around front, and people on the street were speculating that either the pawn shop had been robbed and the dudes chased this way, or it was the bank that had been robbed, or both.

The news crew arrived. The camera man was setting up in front of the bank and I told him about the bag of money in the alley, and that that might make a good shot. He quickly bolted back there. The on-camera dude started to follow him, then asked me what I knew, and if I'd talk on camera. I said sure, and headed back there with them.

When the cops saw the news guys, they repositioned their vehicles so that the money bag couldn't be seen. Assholes. The camera guy said they do shit like that all the time.

Then we went back around the back street and up the alley from the other side. This shot is coming down the alley from the other direction, which as we learned is where all the action really went down.

This girl lives in the neighborhood, and the news guy started asking her questions. She knew less than me, and didn't even know about the money . . . but he chose to interview her instead. I think it's because she's from England and had a fancypants accent.

Then a guy watching all the goings-on went and got this girl, because she actually about got run over by the perps of the whole thing! She was walking her dog when the guys with the money (and a gun!) ran by her, then cops screeched into the alley at the opposite end. It's funny, because she said that she thought for a second about sticking her leg out to trip them, but didn't want them to get up and hurt her. She was pretty funny.

While the news team was interviewing these women, I filmed them filming the interviews, though my audio sucks. Here are screen grabs of my videos, though.

During the interview with the second girl, the camera man kept turning around and doing the thumbs-up and mouthing "awesome!" to me. It was pretty funny. It was also funny watching her fluffing her hair and pulling it back into a ponytail and stuff before she went on camera.

Anyway, here is all the info from the news outfit. I'm surprised they didn't use more testimony from the second girl, because it was great. Regardless, pretty exciting stuff!

If only I'd know for sure where that dog was, I'm sure I could have disappeared with all that cash, helicopter or not. . . .

Photo Finish Friday

2011-05-20T11:23:00.004-06:00

"One wrong move, and the dog gets it." -- Puny the Cat

I'd forgotten I'd taken this; I noticed it on my camera when I was shooting pictures in Chicago yesterday. Julia had come into my office a week or so ago and said, "Ah, cute!" and pointed out Puny and Orly sharing the chair together (more like, Puny was there and El Rey decided to join her, intending to squeeze her off his chair in my office). Anyway, this morning when I pulled the images off my camera, I showed it to Julia. After the "Ah" moment of its cutenss, she looked puzzled and said, "Orly looks so nervous though!" Then a pause. "But look where Puny's paw is!"

One flex of her claws, and life could get ugly for the little warrior.

This led to Julia laughing. Then me. Then Julia laughing harder. Then me laughing hard because of Julia laughing. Julia has this different laugh that makes an appearance when the animals are doing something silly. It started there, and quickly devolved until both of us were in tears, snorts, and probably a little drooling even (on Julia's part, that is, certainly not mine).

This went on for a lot longer than it really should have between sane adults, which of course forced me to use this picture for PFF this week. I hope you don't mind. Somehow Orly has maintained his dignity throughout, but I'm sure if he catches wind of this getting out on the internet, he's likely to tear me a new one.

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

Another Trip to Chicago

2011-05-18T20:28:00.006-06:00

Back in the Chicago area for the second week in a row. Don't know that that's never happened before. Here are a few images all taken with the cell phone camera.

My chariot awaits at the Missoula airport. I shared the flight with the lovely Rose McGowan. She was rumored to star in THIS movie, but is actually in THIS ONE!

Up above the Wasatch Range, Utah

Gen Con -- my youthful D&D fan heart would happily follow you there!

The blurry type of cell phone picture I hate, but had to take this crowd shot while waiting for a chance to feast at Kuma's Corner, with my buddy Kent Gowran. I ate the Black Oak Arkansas burger.

Morning came all too early.

Glad I don't deal with this kind of traffic every day.

Where I was working this week.

Had dinner and a couple beers at a sports bar, watching the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals.

This is a guerrilla picture of the dude next to me. He was living and dying with every play.

Wandered back to the hotel at half time, and here I am....

This is a Picture of the Kind of Weekend It's Been

2011-05-15T18:48:00.002-06:00

So no workouts, a couple meals out, and just came from here.

Big Dipper Ice Cream, so tasty. Best ice cream I've ever had. As for the nudge that pushed me over the edge from longing for it to just going for it, I blame David Cranmer.

My Illinois Adventure

2011-05-14T21:45:00.011-06:00

Last Tuesday morning I had to get up at oh-dark-early and catch a flight to Chicago. By the time I boarded the plane, it was looking like a beautiful day in Missoula. Figures I'd be leaving just as the sun was finally arriving.

Thankfully it was sunny in the Chicago area -- they'd just had their first hot day. Of course it was humid too, but I didn't mind. During my first day on the job I discovered there was a little hiking area very near to where I was working and staying called Waterfall Glen. The hiking/biking/horseback trail comprised a big loop, 9.5 miles. I thought it would be a great way to spend a couple hours on a nice day going all the way around it. So after work on Wednesday I went back to my hotel, changed, and headed back to the main trailhead. I stuffed my keys and my camera in one pocket, my wallet and cell phone in the other, and headed out.

The trail was more groomed than I would prefer, but it was a beautiful evening. It felt great to be out in the fresh air and moving around, sweating, getting the heart and legs pumping. There were lots of trees, layers of birdsong, and many patches of wetlands. Even though there was a constant rumble of traffic from busy roads and a nearby highway, it was still a nice little outing in the midst of suburban hell.

I was a bit camera-challenged. All I had was my cell phone and my little Olympus point and shoot (works great on close-up shots, but not so great at any distance beyond about 20 feet). I didn't have my better camera, or my fancy little video camera I bought over Christmas. I was immediately disappointed when a flash of red caught my eye and landed in a branch. It was a Cardinal, a beautiful bird we don't have in Montana. He started singing his little heart out, so I grabbed some video just to get his song on audio. The first video you can't see him, but in the second I managed to zoom it in. Yeah, the video sucks, but it's all about the song anyway.

I continued on past the 2 mile marker, then the 3 mile marker. There was another trailhead here, which was literally about 4 blocks from where I was working for the week, right at the end of the street. I wondered how many of the people working there were even aware of it? Given that the two people I was working with most had long commutes -- one had an hour drive one-way every day, the other had 45 minutes -- I doubted they ever really even saw the signs.

Just beyond that trailhead I turned a corner and the path intersected a set of train tracks.

I got a little crazy taking pictures with different settings. First with my Olympus, then a couple different looks using the RetroCamera ap on my cell phone. I really like how they turned out.

A couple hundred yards beyond this spot was a large marshland, teeming with birds and frogs (invisible, but loud).

I grabbed some bad video of this spot as well, just for the music.

I continued on. I had encountered people along the way, but as the evening progressed I was seeing fewer and fewer. Not far from here I met a young Asian woman jogging, then farther along, just past the 4 mile marker, another woman jogging. The wind was rising, and the ominous rumble of thunder was off in the distance, and getting closer. Getting much closer, and fast. Somewhere between the 4 and 5 mile markers, I was about as far from the trailhead I'd left my car as I could possibly be. The thunder boomed suddenly so close and loud that I actually jumped. Ahead I could see the trail appeared to reenter the trees, so I figured I could take cover when the storm caught me, as I was sure it would. I didn't really care -- I was hot and sweated up, and didn't expect the heavy weather would last long. I turned around and took a picture of the approaching skies.

I put my camera back in my pocket, checked their contents, and realized with horror that my wallet was gone.

"The word adventure has just gotten overused. For me, adventure is when everything goes wrong. That's when the adventure starts." -- Yvon Chouinard (surfer, kayaker, falconer and fly fisherman; founder of Patagonia), quoted from the movie 180° South - Conquerors of the Useless

I just stood there, dumbfounded. I'd been checking it regularly, because I was making sure to keep my wallet between my sweaty leg and my cell phone. I thought back to the last time I was certain I'd had it, and it was when I came off the train tracks where I'd taken all those pictures. So I knew it was somewhere in the mile-and-a-half or so of ground I'd covered since then, probably near that marsh. Or not. I started heading back, eyes to the ground, looking for it.

Then the storm hit.

It was a total freakin' gully washer. I was soaked instantly. I quickly took my camera out of its little pouch and put my cell phone in it instead, since I knew I was going to need it and didn't want to risk it getting ruined by weather. Before long water was literally running over the ground, in spots almost ankle deep. Lightning was cracking overhead, and I was nervous about that because there wasn't much cover. It got fairly dark too, and I was worried I'd miss my wallet even if I did pass it. Meanwhile, I was going over all the problems I would have to overcome if I didn't find it. I was supposed to move to a hotel closer to the airport the next night; without a credit card I wouldn't be able to pull that off. I also needed to board a flight in two days, and without any ID that would be pretty damn difficult. I was kicking myself for being so careless and stupid. I don't usually even carry that stuff with me when I'm out and about on my trips, for this very reason. Why I hadn't followed my usual protocol, I don't know, but I was afraid I'd pay the price.

I finally reached a little trailside shelter I'd passed, and the lightning was making me nervous enough that I needed to wait it out. The second woman I'd passed was sheltering there as well. She laughed when she saw me. "When I passed you I knew you were going to get wet!" she said in a heavy German accent. She told me she lived in the development just yonder. I asked if she'd seen my wallet; she hadn't. I asked her if she would keep an eye out for it. I have my personal business cards in it, and they have my cell phone number on it (my work business cards, strategically, do not). I asked her that if she found it to please call me and I would meet up with her to retrieve it. That was my big hope, that someone would indeed do that and not, instead, swipe the meager cash inside and throw the rest in the swamp.

As soon as the lightning was distant enough I set out again. The rain had mellowed out quite a bit too. Then my phone rang. It was a 630 area code. I answered -- it was the jogging Asian girl I'd passed. She had my wallet.

I realized I was one lucky bastard.

I had her text me her address, and I told her when I got back to my rental car I would use my GPS to find her apartment. She said cool, and I proceeded to haul ass the 4 miles back to the trailhead.

It would have been great to take my time, because as darkness settled the forest noises only increased. Lots of frogs of all sizes hopped through the puddles on the trail. Deer were out in threes and fours, and usually weren't too startled by my passage. In an hour I was still soaked and a little tired -- I hadn't done the full loop, but still covered probably 8.5 - 9 miles round trip -- but I was also vastly relieved because I had my wallet back. I offered my savior a reward, but she wouldn't take it. I told her it was good to know that there are still some damn good people in the world.

The next day, after work, I was determined to attack the trail again and do the full loop. I drove straight to the closest trailhead, at the 3 mile marker, and changed in the parking lot. Then I hit the trail. Here's the swamp, where I'd filmed the sounds the night before, near where I'm sure I lost my wallet.

Next I passed the spot I'd passed the girl who found my wallet.

She must have found it shortly after that. In fact, if she'd pulled my driver's license and looked at my picture, I'm sure she'd have recognized me and probably could have flagged me down then and there. But she had told me all she'd looked at was my business card.

Here's where I'd taken shelter with the German woman.

What follows are a few more pictures from the rest of the trail. It was hot. I sweated. I got a big blister on my foot, mainly from the night before when I'd had to hike with wet feet. But I didn't care.

I made the full loop, 9.5 miles. I was more tired than I expected to be, but it was pretty steamy out. Plus I'd done almost that many miles the night before. But I did it, despite my best efforts to screw myself. Believe me, I learned my lesson.

"Taking a trip for six months, you get into the rhythm of it, it feels like you could just go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate in the opposite of that, because you get all these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs . . . y'know they pay $80,000 and they have sherpas who put all the ladders in place and 8000 feet of fixed ropes. And you get to camp and you don't have to lay out your sleeping bag. It's already laid out with a little chocolate mint on top. The whole purpose of something like climbing Everest is to effect some sort of physical and spiritual gain . . . but if you compromise the process you're an asshole when you start out and you're an asshole when you get back." -- Yvon Chouinard (surfer, kayaker, falconer and fly fisherman; founder of Patagonia), quoted from the movie 180° South - Conquerors of the Useless

Photo Finish Friday

2011-05-13T14:16:00.002-06:00

The Breakfast of Champions Edition.

I actually took this picture back in 2009 during a work trip to Houston. Why is it relevant now, you ask? Well, last night, when I meant to upload this post (but couldn't due to Blogger being down), I was at a Hampton Inn in Schiller Park, Illinois, which is very near to O'Hare Airport. Schiller Park happens to be the birthplace of the mighty Twinkie, back in the day.

Twinkies were invented in Schiller Park, Illinois in about 1930 by James Alexander Dewar, a baker for the Continental Baking Company. Realizing that several machines used to make cream-filled strawberry shortcake sat idle when strawberries were out of season, Dewar conceived a snack cake filled with banana cream, which he dubbed the Twinkie. During World War II, bananas were rationed and the company was forced to switch to vanilla cream. This change proved popular, and banana-cream Twinkies became a part of history.

I don't have twinkies very often, but every time I do it is a wonderful experience.

It's Like This Movie Poster Was Made For This Blog

2011-05-09T21:44:00.002-06:00

A guy I know asked if I was worried about whether or not this movie will suck as a Conan movie. I don't know, it could. But then again, at its worst it will be a movie about a dude fighting other dudes with swords and axes . . . how bad could it be?

Idiotman

2011-05-08T16:35:00.003-06:00

I came in from doing some yard work yesterday and Julia had left this cartoon from the New Yorker on my desk. Classic. She knows how much I hate the cliches "it is what it is" and "at the end of the day."

Is there a commentator or pundit or anyone capable of not using "at the end of the day" in a statement or analysis? Drives me up a freakin' wall. A couple more are the use of "big boy" whatever for something "advanced" or "important", or telling someone to "grow up" about something. Makes me crazy.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-05-06T07:42:00.002-06:00

This is a shot of Sid heading into school after I dropped him off one morning back in March. There aren't too many of these left -- he graduates in a month.

I can't remember if I posted this picture before. I like it. His car is currently out of commission, and when I'd resumed taking him in the morning I realized how much I'd missed doing so. I'll probably miss it even more when it stops happening altogether. It's something of a bittersweet time, this whole graduating thing. . . .

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

Afoot and Light-hearted, I Take to the Open Road

2011-05-04T21:49:00.007-06:00

That blog title is a line from Walt Whitman, found in another book about walking I started reading called The Lost Art of Walking -- The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism by Geoff Nicholson. I've only just started it and it's amusing enough, certainly a lighter read than the Solnit book I finished recently (which I need to return to here, as I highlighted several more passages).

I've done a bunch of walking in the past week, and it has been divine. Again, as I've said before, there is no better means for me to get my head clear than getting out on a good walk or hike. I've basically done three decent hikes, all in similar but slightly different parts of the Rattlesnake Wilderness just outside Missoula. Last week I went out for about six miles, last Sunday I did an 8 mile jaunt, and last night I cranked out 10 miles. What follows are several pictures cobbled together from these three jaunts. I hope you like this kind of thing. . . .

The next four are different versions of the same shot, using my "regular" camera and a couple different settings using the RetroCamera ap on my cell phone.

Missoula, off in the distance.

Again, a couple different looks of the same scene.

This is just a trio from a group of about thirty deer I saw. No bears or mountain lions, though!

This is the conversation between Sid and I. He'd been bugging me for fast food, which I denied by telling him I'd just been to the grocery store. When I turned my phone back on after getting into coverage area. A couple more messages popped in. Teenagers . . . all they want is food and money!

The obligatory self portrait.

Rock Time

2011-04-29T17:33:00.003-06:00

Jared Kiess, the dude who sings and plays guitar in Sid's band, filmed this at the show the other night. Pretty cool -- I didn't even know he was doing it. It was a tiny stage, but we overcame.

I have pictures and one video of the Hammer's set too, which I'll hopefully get to this weekend some time.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-04-29T13:56:00.002-06:00

They had my number.

Tomorrow is the River Bank Run here in Missoula, and I registered for the 10K. Unfortunately, other more important things have come up and I'll miss the race. Given the terrible weather, I don't really mind.

I've trained hard to get where I could pull the thing off, so last night at the gym I decided to run the distance anyway (93 laps on the indoor track), even though it wasn't the actual race. I'm happy to say I was able to do it, despite several factors; I'd played a rock show the night before so I was functioning on about 4 hours of sleep, and I'd already done a hard 12.5 miles on the bike earlier in the morning. But when I started running, I got into a nice, comfortable pace and I'm certain my last mile was the fastest. I figure I've shaved about 2 minutes off my mile time from when I first started. I'm pretty happy about that.

Oh, musical motivation for the run via the iPod were the albums Show No Mercy and South of Heaven by Slayer.

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

This Just In

2011-04-26T15:48:00.005-06:00

Got a phone call last night, and it turns out the magnificent AMERICAN FALCON is going to be sharing the stage with the mighty Judgment Hammer tomorrow night (April 27th) in Missoula at Harry David's Bar. It's last minute, yeah, but if you are in Missoula you should come out (9:00 PM) and rock out with us. There's no cover charge, and it's HUMP DAY for crissakes! And remember, the more you drink, THE MORE WE GET PAID! Don't be wimps, posers, or whiners.

Best thing is Harry David's isn't far from my house. At my age, the sooner I can get home and get in bed, the better.

Reflections of a Weekend

2011-04-25T10:35:00.006-06:00

Mostly pictures. Had our first really gorgeous weather this past weekend, and it felt great to get out and enjoy it . . . once I got there.

Queuing up to board a plane out of Charlotte to Detroit

Of course Sid was asking me for money as soon as I saw him. The cash machine urges expediency, in case the financial institution decides to take the money back before one can secure the cash.

Sid lives by that suggestion

Saturday

I wasn't the only one happy to have some sunlight shining in the window first thing in the morning.

Darla is a sun creature

Later that afternoon, Julia and I took a nice long walk along the river.

Down on the Farm

Sunday morning I went out to my parents' house to help out with a couple things.

Dad gets better toy upgrades than I do

These two critters are the newest addition to the family.

Other family members wanted to be a larger part of the day's action, and voiced their irritation to not be included whenever the opportunity presented itself.

When I got home, I got in my first bout of yard work since October. Enjoyed soaking up the sun. Puny did too.

Judgment Hammer Alive!

2011-04-22T19:14:00.002-06:00

Sid's band had a show last Saturday and I filmed it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, for what it is. Here's a taste:

You can see a video of every song they played (there are six total) right HERE.

I dig these guys. I'm pretty goddamn proud of my housemates today.

Somebody Has to be the Jackass

2011-04-22T13:03:00.002-06:00

I remember that Julia had been interviewed by these folks, but forgot about it. Now you can check it out yourself!

Missoula Fashion 2011: From Goodwill to glamour

"Fashion takes itself way too seriously," said Julia LaTray, the designer, seamstress and owner of Donkey Girl brand clothing. She named her one-woman production after what she considers her spirit animal. "We can't all be leopards and peacocks. Somebody has to be the jackass," she said.

I love it when Julia gets props. She works her ass off.

Big thanks to Kate Whittle at the Kaimin!

Photo Finish Friday

2011-04-22T09:41:00.003-06:00

The Road Food Edition.

Had some time at the Charlotte Airport on my way home yesterday, went into a little bar for a beer and maybe an appetizer. Menu said "warm tortilla chips with melted cheddar cheese." Thought that sounded pretty decent, so I ordered it. This is what I got.

That's not melted cheddar. That's melted fake cheese-like substance, and it's gross. I ate about two chips on the outer edges and said to hell with it.

At least the big glass of Sam Adams Beer was good. Not to be mistaken for Samuel L. Jackson beer, of course (very NSFW, by the way.... ).

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

Morning over North Carolina

2011-04-20T07:42:00.004-06:00

Thought this sight was pretty cool this morning as I left the hotel -- snapped the shot with my cell phone, and it doesn't look too bad.

One thing about North Carolina -- They claim to be BBQ masters, but I think their hearts are really with their fry babies. These people would deep fry their morning coffee if they could figure out a way to do it. Had some decent White Zombie Ale from Catawba Valley Brewing Company to wash down all that grease last night, at least.

Words to Live By

2011-04-19T12:46:00.002-06:00

On the road for work this week, but saw this sign at the customer site and, as a public service announcement, figured it was worth sharing.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-04-15T06:44:00.002-06:00

The birthday girl edition!

Here's Julia busting a move with a partner at the Indian village we visited in Panama. Everyone wants to dance with her, and today is her birthday!

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

Wanderlust

2011-04-14T15:51:00.005-06:00

Over the last couple weeks I've been slowly making my way through this book called Wanderlust -- A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit. I've had it on my shelf for quite some time (it was originally published in 2000). This is the first book of Solnit's I've read, though I've been a fan of her columns and essays, particularly the ones I've read in Orion (one of my favorite magazines for years now) and Harper's (another I've grown to love due to a steady supply via gift subscription from Julia's dad).

I think since I started reading Wanderlust I've read two other books, and at least one graphic novel. I haven't found this book to be one where I've felt compelled to blaze through it; I'm about midway along, and hope to finish it up by the end of the weekend. It's a little different than I expected, and the first chapter in particular was a bit slow, but it's picking up speed for me. As a guy who loves to walk, and hike, it has had some interesting passages about humans and our relationship to walking, whether via theories on when humans first started walking upright or when afternoon strolls got out of the garden and into the wider world. Good stuff, if you're into that kind of trivia. Solnit has pointed out that this book is "a" history of walking, not "the" history. There certainly is a difference.

A couple passages I've noted so far as being particularly interesting. Here's the first, pretty early in the book, where Rebecca notes how she first started walking regularly near where she lives in San Francisco, thinking about writing about walking:

These linked paths and roads form a circuit of about six miles that I began hiking ten years ago to walk off my angst during a difficult year. I kept coming back to this route for respite from my work and for my work too, because thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking. Walking itself is the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and the beating of the heart. It strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing. It is a bodily labor that produces nothing but thoughts, experiences, arrivals.

I really like that. Most of my best ideas have come while walking, while out combining a kind of exercise with an activity where I'm not really striving for anything but to just move, both the body and the brain. It is something that I almost always feel better afterward than I did when I started. That line, "thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture," is so spot on. I'm a firm believer in idleness as a path to enlightenment, whether it is a spiritual thing or just trying to calm the brain through a plot hurdle one can't quite get over (or a key change, lyric, design project, etc.). Whenever I start feeling creatively, uh, constipated, I know I haven't been getting out and walking or hiking enough. And all the running and stuff I do doesn't count, because in those cases I'm usually wearing headphones to get me through it. It's a different experience, at least for me.

Here's another one I really liked:

Part of what makes roads, trails, and paths so unique as built structures is that they cannot be perceived as a whole all at once by a sedentary onlooker. They unfold in time as one travels along them, just as a story does as one listens or reads, and a hairpin turn is like a plot twist, a steep ascent a building of suspense to the view at the summit, a fork in the road an introduction of a new storyline, arrival the end of the story. Just as writing allows one to read the words of someone who is absent, so roads make it possible to trace the route of the absent.

I don't know, I just dig that, the metaphor of road or trail as story. I bet there are many, many writers and creative types who find the simple effort of walking to be a kind of creative reset button. It definitely is for me.

The Leisure Gang - An Update for my Parents

2011-04-13T12:30:00.007-06:00

I was out at my folks' place last weekend helping them get the last of the year's wood split, and putting a dent in next year's necessary supply. I came away with a blister on my thumb (despite the leather gloves) and a new dog bed to throw in my office. My dad called and asked if the damn dogs had started using it yet, so I took some photos to document it.

This first one was Saturday night. I'd been watching the DVD Sid gave me for my birthday of PREDATORS (which I fully enjoyed, perhaps more even than when I saw it in the theater), turned on my lamp, looked over the edge of my desk, and lo and behold:

To think Julia feared her Russells would never abide living with cats

That's almost scandalous.

These next two I took this morning.

So you'll see, the only dog not documented taking her ease on the new bed is Velcro, though I think I saw her there once. I don't think she's feeling left out, though.

"More room for me on all the beds in the living room!" Velcro says.

... except for when there's too much dog for one bed.

I guess the 6th denizen, Kitten the Basement Dweller, hasn't been on it either. But she never comes upstairs, so I don't think she counts.

"Go to sleep, Fatboy," Kitten says. "Soon as you do, I'm making my move to take over your pillow."

Finally, seeing as how I share a home with someone who claims to "not really be a cat person," I think this photo, which is kind of obscured in a way those Sasquatch pics and videos that hit the internet often are, may be photographic evidence that that comment is, as they say, bullshit.

A Little Late in the Year for This

2011-04-13T11:14:00.005-06:00

Julia and I took advantage of the gorgeous, if chilly, weather yesterday evening to make our first foray up the M trail. Wasn't the best time of day for photography, but I took a shot overlooking downtown anyway.

There were a lot of other people on the trail -- clearly the break in the rainy and snowy weather inspired more folks than just us! Thing is, this hike has long since gone from something we do for recreation to become part of our workout routine. During the summer we try and tackle it several times per week, and it is never easy, because when it becomes easier we just push harder. We were talking about it on the way, how sometimes the approach in the car feels dreadful. I told Julia that it isn't life or death, that one can always stop and rest on a rough day. But she said, and I agree, "Thing is, once I went up without stopping, I realized I could never rest on that goddamn trail again." Sad, but true.

I brought the stopwatch out to see where I measured against last year, fully expecting to be lagging. I've been running and working out a lot, yes, but one workout doesn't guarantee success in another if it is an activity using different muscles and motions. So I staggered up to the top, looked at the watch, and discovered I was a full 39 seconds faster than the fastest climb I'd made all last year -- only 22 seconds slower than my best ever (since I've kept track, that is*). Hell, if I'd been paying attention, I'm pretty sure I could have pushed harder and beat that record, as I still had quite a bit of gas in the tank when I arrived at the top. I was pretty happy about that. The only reason I wasn't watching the clock is I didn't want to bum myself out halfway up, thinking I was going about three minutes slower than I actually was.

So this morning, feeling cocky with myself, I decided to challenge my 3 mile/5K record when I did my morning run. It wasn't particularly easy, but I beat last year's best over the distance by 2:35. I was pretty happy. That's a full 7:25 faster than I ran the 5K last year during the River Bank Run. And no, I'm not sharing any of these times, because they're still embarrassingly slow. But they're getting faster for me.

Here's my fat ass (the bulbous shape in the white shirt) crossing the finish line at last year's 5K River Bank Run, 1 year and 30+ pounds ago

This year's River Bank Run is two weeks from this coming Saturday. I'm doing the 10K instead of the 5K. Last Saturday, while deciding if I would still go for the 10K, I went out to run the 6 miles to see if I could do it . . . and did. So that's my plan. I'll still be the slowest dude out there, but I'll be out there.

Progress feels good.

* I've kind of become anal about keeping track of stuff like this. But I like to refer back now and again to remind myself where I started.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-04-07T22:52:00.006-06:00

Simple pleasures.

This is actually a shot from the parking lot of the convenience store about 0.7 miles from my house. There is a small wetland right next to it, and I love to park there. Right now everything is still yellow and dead-looking, but it won't be long before it all greens up and looks beautiful. The red-wing blackbirds are out in force; in the mornings their calls are numerous and loud. There will be ducks, and deer, and gophers, and who knows what else. It's a wild little spot right on the edge of the city, and I dig it.

I took this picture yesterday afternoon. I'd signed out from work and driven over to finish a book I was in the closing pages of. I do that sometimes. I think it's a holdover from years back in Washington when I would leave for work very early to beat the traffic, then spend an hour or so reading before clocking in. I love to read in my car, in waiting rooms, on the plane, anywhere.

Sitting with the window down, listening to birdsong, and reading or even just sitting and chilling out -- I love it.

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

I Have No Plans to Die Today

2011-04-07T10:23:00.012-06:00

I've been lame about posting anything this week. So I just put together a bunch of random stuff for today. It's all incredibly important, though, so if you need to make yourself a sandwich or grab a beverage or something before digging in, I urge you to do so now.

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RIP Joe Bageant

One of my favorite "political" books of recent years introduced me to one of my favorite writers, Joe Bageant. He wrote Deer Hunting with Jesus. Since reading the book I have been an avid reader of the essays that appeared on his website, and his discussions with folks who would email him comments. He passed away last week after a quick and dirty battle with an ugly form of cancer. THIS is a great eulogy, well worth reading. Here is a clip of him doing an interview for a movie coming out called The Kingdom of Survival.

He will be missed.

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Of all the things that regularly make big media splashes -- celebrities, sports, politics, etc. -- the one that I care the least about and frankly don't understand the attraction of at all is golf. I hate it.

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The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Julia and I watched this crazy movie last week off the NetFlix. It's kind of a Korean Western/Pulp/Action thing. It had by far the most gunfire in any movie I've ever seen. It was pretty damn fun. Highly recommended, if you dig that sort of thing.

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If I had a dollar for every time these goddamn dogs I live with growl and snarl at each other in a given day, I'd be writing this blog on one of those fancy high speed Mac computers with a monitor as big as my wall instead of on a middling-level Windows laptop that technically isn't even mine.

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THIS is a great article about independent, "B" list low budget action movies from one of my favorite comic writers, Beau Smith. He talks mostly about the making of the movies and how they mirror the making of comics, but I felt a lot was relevant in many art forms.

Something that the creative end should always remember is that no matter if it’s comics or films it is still a business. You’re in business to make money. It’s not a charity. The thing that the business end need to remember is that they are NOTcreative talent and they should leave that to the ones that are.

I see a lot of calls to support independent bookstores, local businesses, etc. Sometimes I think the call to support independent artists gets overlooked. Support your independent artists, people!

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Speaking of artists catching a break, one of my favorite writers, Bonnie Jo Campbell, won a Guggenheim Fellowship. Congratulations are in order!

Since its establishment in 1925, the Foundation has granted nearly $290 million in Fellowships to more than 17,000 individuals. Time and again, the Foundation’s choice of Fellows has proved prescient: thousands of celebrated alumni and scores of Nobel, Pulitzer, and other prizewinners grace its rolls.

Here's what Bonnie will be up to:

Bonnie Jo Campbell, a novelist who traveled with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus for five months, will be writing a series of interlocking stories set in a contemporary American circus, revealing a surprisingly rigid social hierarchy in this multicultural institution.

Bonnie has a new book out in July. Julia and I are planning to coordinate a trip to Portland to coincide with her doing a reading there. Word on the street is she may be in Missoula this fall for our annual Festival of the Book as well. Fingers are crossed!

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As I have recently just turned 44, I've told Julia that for the next 12 months she may call me Magnum. Particularly in intimate moments. And I don't mean Magnum PI, I mean the most powerful handgun in the world.

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This is why I love dancers.

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Summer blockbuster season is almost upon us, and you know I'm into a lot of that stuff. The first one I'm fired up to see is, of course, Thor. The following trailer has two key moments you must take note of. The first occurs at the :54 mark, and runs through :58. That is the part where, when we see it in theaters, Julia always gasps and claws at my leg. The next segment is from 1:42 through around 1:55. Dig it.

That second segment I mention is a perfect example of one of the things I've always loved about heroic stories: the idea of one person -- the hero -- stepping out alone to face seemingly insurmountable odds on behalf of others. In this movie, I believe the idea is that Thor has been banished to Earth to learn humility, and he does so by realizing only he can protect humanity from the threats they are about to be faced with. It may seem cheesy, and unrealistic, but I love that stuff. Always have. If you scoff, you should read some Joseph Campbell (no relation to Bonnie Jo that I'm aware of) and get off my back. That dude was a full-on scholar, and was known to consume vast quantities of buttery popcorn while totally digging summer blockbuster hero movies.*

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Finally, on the work front, there is a certain type of pushy jackass I have to deal with on occasion that thinks they can influence me to leapfrog their project over others by CCing people they presume to be my "superiors" on emails where they are demanding status updates. That's the surest way to get shoved down to the bottom of my to-do list. Petty? Probably. But I never claimed I'd be saving everyone's world every day.

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* I actually made up that last bit about eating popcorn at the movies. It could be true, though!

More Glorious Spring

2011-04-03T08:35:00.001-06:00

Quite a view out my office window this morning.

Wind looks to be blowing the snow still coming down about horizontal too. Awesome. I hope it all melts before Julia gets up, or there will be hell to pay. . . .

Photo Finish Friday

2011-04-01T10:39:00.002-06:00

It's a rough life.

This is what goes on around me while I'm working. Clockwise starting with the cat, we have Puny, then Darla, then Velcro, all trying to squeeze into the same patch of sunlight beaming in from the east-facing window.

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

All the Trepidation Without the Mauling

2011-03-30T20:43:00.006-06:00

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

2011-03-29T14:16:00.008-06:00

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

2011-03-27T18:06:00.011-06:00

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

2011-03-25T10:13:00.003-06:00

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

2011-03-21T16:33:00.002-06:00

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

2011-03-21T12:28:00.007-06:00

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

2011-03-20T21:32:00.002-06:00

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

2011-03-18T10:49:00.004-06:00

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

2011-03-14T14:27:00.004-06:00

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)

2011-03-13T12:35:00.005-06:00

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?

2011-03-11T13:34:00.006-07:00

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

2011-03-11T10:37:00.004-07:00

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

2011-03-10T15:22:00.004-07:00

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

2011-03-09T14:32:00.002-07:00

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

2011-03-04T11:47:00.002-07:00

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

2011-03-03T13:13:00.004-07:00

The lovely Ann-Margret.

March Comes In, Fluffily

2011-03-01T11:19:00.009-07:00

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.

This May Be Even Better Than Yesterday's Music One

2011-02-25T12:36:00.002-07:00

Photo Finish Friday

2011-02-25T10:52:00.002-07:00

He fought the law and the law won.

Homeboy about to be disappeared in Panama City

One thing I noticed right away in Panama was the police presence. Some wore blue uniforms like regular cops, some wore green uniforms that looked like army uniforms, and these guys wore black. I asked Guido (pronounced Gee-do, rhymes with Speedo, you Jersey Shore watching people), our guide, and he said these guys in black were roughly equivalent to the Secret Service in the USA, as we were in a market just down the street from the presidential mansion.

The story behind this picture is we were meandering around the square, checking things out. I was right next to two of these officers when two Indian women, from a booth like this one, ran up to them, pointing and screeching wildly. The cops took off at a run and soon collared this dude. Of course I was in hot pursuit, laughing at danger every step of the way. Apparently this guy had stolen from the Indians and made a break for it. He didn't get far. I'm thinking next door to El Presidente's crib probably isn't the smartest place to take a stab at petty theft.

It was quite dramatic as we loitered near and watched the proceedings. At one time there were probably eight or so officers around him. Ultimately they loaded him in this truck and whisked him away. The perp looked . . . troubled. I commented to Julia that "fighting the power" is all well and good until "the power" shows up in fatigues packing assault rifles and freakin' baseball bats.

The cops around Panama were usually in pairs, mostly in small pickups and on motorcycles. At least one of them always had an assault rifle or shotgun. We saw them everywhere, and we also passed through at least two sections where they were stopping traffic and checking drivers' papers. I asked Guido about the police presence and why they were so heavily armed. He said back in '89 when the US invaded Panama to oust Noriega (another one of our glorious military actions -- Operation Just Cause -- in the name of "democracy" and other things), he armed the citizenry and beseeched them to rise up in his defense. In the aftermath all of those guns ended up in the hands of people who you probably don't want heavily armed. In addition, many police and military people found themselves unemployed, and the city saw a boom in private security. All that brings us to today, where the authorities find themselves facing criminals with impressive weaponry.

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

Heartbreaking

2011-02-24T15:39:00.002-07:00

Funny, yeah. But still . . . heartbreaking.

There are still good musicians out there. Mainstream listeners just don't care about them.

On This Date in 1940

2011-02-23T12:13:00.002-07:00

Woody Guthrie wrote this song 71 years ago today.

It may seem kind of hokey to many people now, but the sentiment is important to remember, especially the way things are going these days. There are many sons-a-bitches in the USA that need a firm reminder stuffed right up in their pieholes.

28 Hours Later

2011-02-19T11:31:00.003-07:00

I had occasion this morning to drive right by where I took my Photo Finish Friday shot yesterday, and given today was bright and sunny I thought I'd take a couple more shots. So here are images using the polaroid camera from my Retro Camera App I downloaded to my phone, from essentially the same spot as yesterday morning.

Here's a shot using the regular camera the phone has.

Looks okay, but I think the image quality looks better retro, at least in trying to present an interesting image. If I wanted a crisp image, I'd use my "real" camera, because this straight-up shot from the cell phone just doesn't do it for me. People who say cell phones are going to make digital cameras obsolete obviously don't care about good pictures. Even my small, inexpensive point-and-shoot crushes this for quality.

When I grow up I want a pro camera. Maybe I should knock off a gas station or something.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-02-18T10:17:00.003-07:00

I've been playing around with this ap I downloaded onto my phone that makes the camera shoot pictures with various "vintage camera" options. This morning around 7:30 AM on a gray, cloudy day I drove up onto the South Hills area to take this shot with the phone:

This is obviously the polaroid option, in color. I think there are about five different camera types, and this one turned out the best. I like it because in the dim background you can just make out the ghost outlines of the hills to the north. As always, click the image to make it bigger.

It's funny. Here we are in an age when digital cameras make it easy for just about anyone to take excellent, sharp images . . . and I find myself liking more and more the rougher, old-looking stuff. Anyway, here's the black & white version, which is also pretty cool:

For interested Missoula folks, this was taken from Artemos Drive, looking kind of NE with Higgins Ave angling kind of from the center of the frame slightly diagonal to the left.

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

The Latest from DonkeyGirl

2011-02-17T18:05:00.006-07:00

New stuff up at DonkeyGirl's Etsy page -- Party Dresses! Make sure and check them out. I particularly like the Bettie Dress. I totally think Christa Faust should be rocking this thing at Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis.

I mean really, can't you totally see her in it when she's up for an Edgar for her forthcoming novel, Choke Hold?

Christa pictured here with Noir Czar Eddie Muller

Meanwhile, Julia's hard at work on her Spring 2011 collection, coming soon!

Very cool. She continues to be an inspiration.

¡Diablos Rojo!

2011-02-17T10:31:00.005-07:00

When we first arrived in Panama City, by the time we got our customs stuff sorted out, our luggage, and were finally picked up, it was dark. Guido, our guide, took us to dinner, then the plan was to return to the airport to pick up another guy who was arriving to join a group of students from the University of Southern Illinois who were also staying at the lodge in Gamboa (the town we were staying in, north of Panama City).

It was a surreal ride, being in this strange, unknown place, and the airport isn't exactly near downtown Panama City. We were driving this road, in all the crazy traffic (Panamanian drivers are nuts!), and along the sides of the streets were a combination of ramshackle buildings and open markets thronged with people. The lights in these markets were dim, and the smoke and smells of cooking food were heavy in the air. Music was blasting from the markets and from other cars. It seemed so unhinged, and slightly dangerous . . . and I wanted to stop and jump right in the middle of it.

Suddenly this bus, essentially a renovated school bus, loomed up -- bright with all these wild lights, and painted up crazily. We saw several of them. Guido told us the are called "Red Devils." As I understood it, these buses offer the bulk of the public transportation, but were about to be put out of business by state-owned buses due to their being somewhat unreliable, and even dangerous. I thought they were awesome.

They were all over Panama; we saw them everywhere we went. Of course there were far more in Panama City (1/3 of the entire population of the country lives in Panama City) but we'd even see them out in the countryside. Some were fairly plain looking, but most were garishly painted in a way that the most gawdawful conversion van could only dream of. This one was in the mountain town of El Valle, which sits in the caldera of an extinct volcano, hauling people from one end of the town to the other, back and forth. Think about it now, I wish we'd taken a ride just for the hell of it!

Someone in our group -- I think it was John -- wondered aloud if the people who own these buses treat them like tattoos; as the money is available, new art gets added, or more lights, or bigger and louder tailpipes. There were just so many, and so wild in appearance!

I wasn't able to take all the pictures I'd have liked to, and most of the ones I took from inside our van didn't turn out. If I had the time and money, I'd love to go back and shoot a coffee table book's worth of images. They were a lively and interesting part of the experience of touring around Panama. It's sad to think that by the time I make it back they may no longer being roaring down the roads.

Oh, Canada

2011-02-16T22:12:00.002-07:00

Our "friends" to the north may be the conduit that leads to our destruction, but this alone gives them a pass.

Blame it on those Stinkin' Kids

2011-02-15T09:53:00.004-07:00

Saw this bit on Vagabondish that links to this article: Survey Reveals Business Travelers Want Adult Only Flights.

Could adult only flights become a possibility in the future? If business travelers get their way it could. That's because a recent poll revealed business class passengers would use a major airline that offered flights minus children on board.

There are few things worse than a screaming kid on a flight, I get that. On our return trip from Panama, on the LA to Salt Lake connection, I scored an upgrade to First Class. Being the chivalrous man that I am, I let Julia take it. Which I regretted, because the row ahead of me included a fractious child who pretty much howled and squirmed the whole way. Going back a trip before that, on my return from Milwaukee in January I was wedged into the window seat next to a young couple with a baby. The kid wasn't noisy at all, but smelled like babies smell. And I don't like that smell, I won't deny it. But hey, I survived, no big deal. I'm an adult, I realize that things aren't always going to be about me, you know?

There are things much more aggravating than that on flights, believe me. The dude who jacks his seat all the way back into my lap at first opportunity. THAT enrages me. Or the loudmouths who carry on a loud conversation all the way from Minneapolis to Houston as if everyone wants to hear their jibber jabber. That annoys me more than kids, hands down. Or those assholes who ignore the flight attendant's request to just put one bag in the overhead and keep their coats and other bags on the floor in front of them, and proceed to fill an entire section of bins with their shit (roll-away, briefcase, overcoat and hat) before sitting down. Rude bastards.

This line is the kicker, though:

Nearly 18% of business travelers were bothered by the complimentary upgrades some economy class passengers received.

Hey, you 18%ers? Go fuck yourselves. May the next flight you're on, and every one thereafter, be marred by a kid shitting its pants in the seat right next to you.

Now That's Romance

2011-02-14T11:35:00.003-07:00

Courtesy of one of my favorite artists, the always awesome Glen Orbik.

Don't worry, kids. I'm sure this couple is married.

TERMINAL DAMAGE by the Do Some Damage crew (Book Review)

2011-02-13T13:07:00.003-07:00

I was late to the party when it comes to reading eBooks. Didn't see how I'd ever possibly be able to get on board. Then my mom bought me a Barnes & Noble Nook, and I ordered up a couple books. Actually enjoyed reading them. Now I have half-a-dozen or so waiting in queue to be read, right along with the 100+ of physical books I have that I need to get read. It goes on.

Still, not having a Kindle, I figured those releases that were Kindle-only wouldn't ever cross my radar. Until I got this fancy Samsung Fascinate smart phone that has a Kindle ap on it. No way I could ever read anything on a freakin' phone, though, right?

Wrong.

Releases like this collection from the fine folks at Do Some Damage are perfect. This is the second collection I've read exclusively on my phone (this one was the first), and I find it to be perfect. I don't slouch into an overstuffed chair to dig in like I would with a regular book (or even with my Nook, for that matter), but often enough I find myself in situations where I have some time and don't have anything with me to read. Out comes the phone, and I can read a story or two while waiting for whatever it is I'm waiting for. At the DMV. At the Jiffy Lube. Waiting for my kid after school. Hell, I finished this one lingering an extra 20 minutes in bed this morning.

What about the stories in Terminal Damage? Excellent, of course, which is to be expected. About half of these folks are already published authors, and the others have the ripe scent of inevitability all over their prose. The styles are as varied as the personalities of the writers, all touching on the airport theme that runs throughout. You want humor? Charbonneau brings it. Tough guy bustin' people up? Weddle's your man. Biker dudes expanding their criminal enterprise? You knew John McFetridge would deliver.

So yeah, if you haven't bought this already, do it. Get in on the ground floor so you can brag about how you were reading these cats before everyone else was.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-02-11T09:26:00.003-07:00

Here is another case of an image not doing a scene justice.

This is a waterfall we frolicked under in Panama. The angle here is deceptive, as the whole thing was probably twenty or thirty feet tall. We had taken a dugout canoe about an hour up the Rio Changres to visit an Embera Indian village. On the return, we took the canoe up a little tributary as far as we could, then walked in the rest of the way. Coming around a corner, crawling over some rocks, we saw this.

It was a big pool of cool water. After being out in the sun, the water felt divine. We swam around in the pool, then swam up and wallowed right at the base of the falls. It was fantastic, one of the best stretches of twenty minutes over the entire trip.

Blame it on the Jungle

2011-02-10T20:44:00.005-07:00

Beyond the mindblowing experience of getting to soak up the natural beauty of Panama, one thing I really loved about the trip was the luxury of being unplugged. No phone calls, no email, no social media, none of that for the entire ten days. No news of the outside world, nothing. Julia's dad, John, had his laptop, and his allowing Sid to use it in the evening to communicate with his girlfriend no doubt helped the little fella survive the trip, but I never checked anything. It was glorious. On the return, when we landed in Los Angeles, I almost felt nauseous when I was about to turn my cell phone on to call my folks and update them on our status, because I knew as soon as I did all the voice mails and emails and text messages and all that stuff that had accumulated would come flooding in.

Thing is, after boiling down over a thousand emails (the vast majority of which was spam) spread out over a couple personal accounts, plus work, there really wasn't anything important that I'd missed. Not to mention all the Google feeds I just deleted unchecked (probably 90% of them, after cherrypicking from the ones I truly enjoy reading every day). Besides a few project-related work emails, of all the stuff that came across there were a grand total of three messages that I really cared about, and even those were only of mild interest, and wouldn't have had any real big ramifications if I'd just ignored them.

Clearly, given the amount of time I spend with the electronic world, I'm putting way too much importance in it. That, and I realized I really don't have much going on in my private life that is particularly relevant to the rest of the world. Which is why I haven't blogged about the trip, even though I'm bursting with stuff to talk about. I'd rather sit in a coffee shop or at a bar with the dozen or so people who read this blog, face to face, than blog it. That isn't going to happen, obviously, so eventually I'll throw out a couple posts here and there. But damn, for all the "good" that's touted about this social media thing, it really is pretty damn superfluous. Even as I say that I'm aware that I've met some great people via the online world, but I think it's important that we all just step the hell away from it all a bit more frequently.

Getting outside, man, doing things, that's where it's at. Sitting at a computer just can't compete. In Panama, I even spent a couple evenings by myself, after everyone else had retired to their rooms, sitting at the table on the porch where we always convened, jotting stuff in my notebook, or even just sitting and listening to the night sounds of the jungle (mostly bugs and night birds). If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it right now. Looking at the pictures, or daydreaming about it, it's hard to believe we were actually there at all.

So it probably comes as no surprise that after being back for about a week-and-a-half now it's been a real struggle getting back into the daily groove. I know I risk sounding like a whiner, which I hate, but everything: work, writing, even exercise -- to say nothing of the trials and tribulations of domestic life (paying bills, returning calls, et al) -- has been pretty damn tedious. It was great to get away, and so difficult to come back.

To use a real stretch of a metaphor (and you'll note that I just unleashed a horrible pun too!), think of the gate on a wire fence. I don't know how many of you people grew up in environments where one was faced often with closing a gate on a very tight fence, but more and more making ends meet has been just like that; cussing and sweating and swearing while leaning against a post in hopes you can just squeeze it under the wire that holds the whole thing together. Sometimes it's fine, but often that post just won't get under the goddamn loop no matter how much elbow grease you put to it. The desire then is just to say fuck it and drop the gate on the ground and drive over it a couple times, but then all the freakin' livestock will probably get out and everyone knows what a trial rounding them back up again can be.

Livestock. It's enough to make me want to go full-on vegetarian. Problem is I find most vegetarian fare to be perfectly fine . . . as a side dish to a big piece of meat, that is.

For all the post-vacation existential angst, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And will do another trip like this again, just as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I've uploaded a bunch of pictures from the trip. You can view a slideshow of them RIGHT HERE. If you click the Show Info in the upper right corner (as indicated in red in the following picture) it will give you a brief description of what the picture is. Hope you dig them. Just know they don't come close to capturing what it was like to be there, though. Pictures almost never do.

Photo Finish Friday

2011-02-04T08:22:00.001-07:00

Street cat chillin' in Panama City.

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

Back in the USA

2011-02-03T09:02:00.004-07:00

This post is a couple days late, as we did make it back from Panama on Monday. It was everything we'd hoped for; the trip was great, and there will be more to come, but as of now there are a ton of loose ends we are trying to get tied up. Meanwhile, here are just a handful of pictures. . . .

Ten Days Unplugged

2011-01-21T08:05:00.002-07:00

Later this morning Sid, Julia and I are abandoning the cold, heading to the airport to fly to Los Angelas, and then to meet up with Julia's father and step mom to fly out Saturday morning for a long-planned vacation in Panama. We've had this thing on the schedule for over a year, and it's exciting to finally have it happening. Consequently I'm not going to be plugged into anything electronic for the duration, and I can't wait.

I decided to throw a bunch of mass market paperbags in the luggage to catch up with during all the airport and plane time. I'm going to plow through as many of these as I can, and they are all fun titles.

See you in ten days!

Photo Finish Friday

2011-01-21T06:22:00.002-07:00

This week's offering is a shot through the windshield of my rental car of a stretch of Bray Road, a short stretch of country road near Elkhorn, WI.

The significance of this is that Bray Road is famous for The Beast of Bray Road, a critter some think may be a Bigfoot, or even, , a werewolf! From Wikipedia:

The Beast of Bray Road (or the Bray Road Beast) is a cryptozoological creature first reported in the 1980s on a rural road outside of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. The same label has been applied well beyond the initial location, to any unknown creature from southern Wisconsin or northern Illinois that is described as having similar characteristics to those reported in the initial set of sightings.

Bray Road itself is a quiet country road near the community of Elkhorn. The rash of claimed sightings in the late 1980s and early 1990s prompted a local newspaper, the Walworth County Week, to assign reporter Linda Godfrey to cover the story. Godfrey initially was skeptical, but later became convinced of the sincerity of the witnesses. Her series of articles later became a book titled The Beast of Bray Road: Trailing Wisconsin's Werewolf.

I've read the book, and it covers more than just the Bray Road sightings, but a history of sightings in that part of the country; throughout Wisconsin in particular, and into Michigan. These sightings continue today, and author Linda Godfrey, who I've had fun exchanging messages with via twitter on several occasions, does a great job keeping up with these stories.

So Sunday when I flew into Milwaukee I took the opportunity to drive out and visit Bray Road. I drove up and down it in daylight, then again after dark, hoping to see something . . . but the only beast out there that evening was me. I was kind of disappointed.

The skeptical inquirer may ask with a smirk, "You don't really believe in this stuff, do you?" and I will answer, "Of course I do! Life is more fun that way. . . . "

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

Highlights from Milwaukee

2011-01-20T21:43:00.012-07:00

I spent the first half of this past week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for work. The highlight, by far, was Monday night, when I went out to dinner with Jon and Ruth Jordan, they of Crimespree Magazine fame. We met at the Motor Restaurant at the Harley Davidson Museum and basically had the place to ourselves on account of the big snowstorm that had been blowing through the city all day. After our meal we went back to their house and talked books, writers, music, comics, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

These two people are well-loved in the crime/mystery fiction community, and for good reason: they are just great folks. Immediately we were jabbering away like old friends, and it was a perfect way to spend a long evening away from home. That is something we spoke of, in fact, that this particular community of artists is so supportive of one another, and are generally every bit as cool in person as one would hope them to be. I really had a great time hanging out with them, and look forward to doing so again.

No, they weren't dressed this fancy; I swiped this image off the 'net because I didn't take pictures while we were hanging out

I can't figure out how to embed the video, but if you go to THIS PAGE and scroll down a bit you will see a little video interview with them. You'll also get a glimpse of their huge library of books that fill shelves in every room of their house. I referred to it as a Temple to Pop Culture, and that ain't far from the truth.

Other Than That. . . .

I'd already put in a full day's work at the customer site before meeting Jon and Ruth. The weather had been fine the previous day, Sunday, when I went out for a drive in the countryside (and stumbled into Lake Geneva, home and resting place of E. Gary Gygax, and the birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons!*). Monday morning it was snowing steadily, and bare streets were beginning to get covered pretty well already. It snowed all day, and must have piled up in excess of six or eight inches. Here is a shot of the customer site, and up the street where it was located.

It was a cool, if roughish, neighborhood. A pretty tasty Mexican restaurant was just down the street. I had lunch there on Monday, then went back for dinner on Tuesday.

This restaurant was just down the street; I loved the signs painted on the wall a few blocks down.

I played with the navigation thing I downloaded onto my phone, where it guides you around via GPS. That was kind of fun. The wonders of technology.

If work hadn't been something of a hassle I would have liked to spend more time checking out Milwaukee. It was beautiful with all the snow, and kids sledding down hills around several parks my navigations took me by. I visited Mystery One bookstore, but would have liked to explore even more. Hopefully I can make it back in summer some time. Julia has some family property just north on Washington Island which we keep talking about visiting. Perhaps one of these summers, sooner than later, we can head up there, with a day or two to check out Milwaukee as well.

One Other Thing. . . .

Last week I was in Chicago, and this one I was in Milwaukee. As many of you may know, the NFL season has wound down, and the Chicago Bears play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday to decide who will represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. It has been fun listening to both sides of the debate on the local sports radio stations -- this is the oldest rivalry in football, and it is heated. I almost regret that I won't be able to see the game! I don't really care who wins, all I know is whoever does win is who I'll probably be pulling for in the Super Bowl.

* I kinda hoped I'd wrap up early on Tuesday so I could head back to Lake Geneva and explore the D&D aspect a little more, maybe find where Gygax is buried, etc., but things didn't work out. Maybe next time! It was still cool, though. When I was in junior high, Lake Geneva was one of those places I desperately wanted to visit, because it seemed that all that was cool in the world at the time was originating there.

Buddha on a Bike

2011-01-20T20:13:00.001-07:00

More about the Garden of a 1000 Buddhas, and the chopper that will ultimately bring peace to my life!

I Can't Wait

2011-01-20T10:23:00.001-07:00

I mean, I really can't freakin' wait.

July 22nd.

Let the Travels Begin

2011-01-16T20:39:00.004-07:00

Last week I traveled to Chicago for work. As I type, I am in a Hampton Inn smack in the middle of downtown Milwaukee, also for a work trip. I ventured out on Sunday for this trip, which I don't normally do, because I need to be back no later than Thursday in order to turn around on Friday and begin the big family trip to Panama! So this year is starting off with a lot of airportin'.

One of the things I decided to do this year is keep a better record of the things I do and observe on my travels, more as a way for me to train myself to observe things better. I bought a moleskin journal to use for nothing but this purpose. The other night while waiting for some delicious Tower Pizza to be made I sat at one of their tables with a glass of beer and wrote down the events of last week's trip in retrospect. Tonight I transcribed it, mainly out of curiosity to get an idea for how many words fit on one page in this thing (approx. 230, give or take 10 - 15). I figured since I took the time to transcribe it, which I might not always do, I may as well put it here. You'll quickly learn just how exciting this work travel thing can be!

1. Work Trip to Chicago (Midtronics) 01/10 – 01/13

01/10: Travel Day (Delta Airlines)

Early flight (6:00 AMish) Monday into O’Hare, then drove about 30 minutes south to Willowbrook. My room was at the Holiday Inn, one of those that was probably nice about 15 – 20 years ago. Lingering smell from when cigarettes were allowed, dingy carpeting in the hallways, etc. Still, the room wasn’t bad and at least the shower didn’t appear designed for Halflings.

It was sunny and maybe upper 30s when I arrived. By nighttime it started snowing, though, and was windy and nasty and cold. I had too much lunch at a Buffalo Wild Wings when I got there, but that didn’t stop me from ordering a pizza later to watch the NCAA Championship Game between Auburn and Oregon. The Ducks lost. I worked on a short story called “A Dog Named Buddy” with one eye on the game. Only ate about a third of the pizza. Stayed up too late too.

01/11: On Site at Midtronics, Day One

Made it to the customer site around 8:00. Recognized my contact from the user’s conference in Vegas last October. Nice enough guy. Place makes battery systems. Main building for office people is like a huge cubicle farm. I couldn’t work in this environment.

They ordered in lunch from that sandwich chain, Jimmy John’s. Pretty much sucked. I think one just opened up in Missoula, but I’m not sure. Won’t be going there, that’s for sure. Anyway, I hate when customers order in lunch because there is no break then from being ON. I planned to go to my hotel and work out since I didn’t in the morning, but couldn’t.

Was supposed to meet Dan O’Shea for dinner but weather snafus forced a rain check. I ended up going to this awesome market that I thought was a Whole Foods knock-off that turned out to be a Polish version of the same. All weird European labels, weird food in the deli, stuff like that. Also had stuff like Amy’s and other brands that I recognized from the Good Food Store, but it was still cool. Loaded up on a bunch of fruit so I wouldn’t eat total shit all week.

Then proceeded to go have breakfast for dinner from friggin’ Denny’s. Called Julia, crashed hard, no writing or movie watching.

01/12: On Site at Midtronics, Day Two

Customer was having network/server problems unrelated to my work, so it slowed our progress. Should have wrapped up by noon but was there until 5:00 PM. Had a meeting with a production bigshot. Crazy how out of touch so many of these guys are with what actually gets stuff out the door of their own place. It’s a lot like politics. The world is run by assholes.

Working lunch ordered in again – this time pizza. Tried to hold out but failed; intended to have my fruit for my lunch. Did, but also had a couple slices. I only mention this because my contact asked if we have pizza in Montana. I said of course we do, and we make actual slices instead of the stupid squares they cut it into in the Midwest. Then he asked if there is even an airport in Missoula. It blows me away that people ask some of these questions.

Did hit the gym in the AM, which was good, but not in the evening. Had BW3s again, worked on my story, then watched Double Dare. Zoe Bell. Yowza.

01/13: Travel Day (Delta Airlines)

Didn’t have early flight. Slept in, then drove to O’Hare. Hour delay because of weather in Minneapolis, but eventually made it. Lunch at Chili’s in Minneapolis airport for about the 1000th time. Read a bit. People watched. Then boarded to Missoula. Didn’t get 1st Class upgrade, those bastards. Got home an hour late, then truck acted like it didn’t want to start. That hasn’t happened before. Made it home, crashed.

Trip Reading Details:

Finished Dead Lift by Rachel Brady
Read Deliverance by James Dickey
Read most of The Anti-American Manifesto by Ted Rall

Wrote 1431 words

Photo Finish Friday

2011-01-14T12:56:00.003-07:00

Last October Julia and I visited the Garden of 1000 Buddhas in Arlee, which is a beautiful, work-in-progress site. We were walking around the grounds, then went into the shed where all the statues are being made and stored, and both stopped on our heels with gasps and exclamations of "Holy shit!"

This magnificent Norton chopper was donated, and will be raffled off as a fundraiser. I know there would be much more peace and love in our house if this sucker was parked in my garage.

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

Photo Finish Friday

2011-01-07T09:51:00.004-07:00

Taken with the camera on my phone yesterday while out with the Big Dog.

Is that the face of an old dog happy to be out for a walk or what?

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

My Wife is a Dirty Girl

2011-01-04T11:59:00.002-07:00

While grinding up veggies for juice the other morning, I showed Julia this carrot. She demanded I photograph it. Oh, the shame. . . .

Winter Wonderland

2011-01-04T11:48:00.003-07:00

This is why I love Montana in the winter. These were shot on a quick hike at the foot of the Rattlesnake Wilderness on the NE edge of Missoula, maybe a 15 minute drive across town from my driveway, up the canyon to the trailhead. Wish I'd used my better camera, but these shots still capture how friggin' beautiful this season can be.

Tuesday is MACHETE Day

2011-01-03T20:30:00.005-07:00

My favorite movie of 2010 comes out on DVD this Tuesday. For over the top, pulp-influenced bloody fun, you don't get much better. At least if you're me. I can't wait. Might have to have an Awesome Movie Double Feature with this one and Black Dynamite.

Flash Fiction, or True Crime?

2011-01-02T21:28:00.002-07:00

Got the following in an email last week:

The mom was at home asleep, her daughter and daughter’s friend were in the living room watching movies. Out of the corner of their eye, they saw someone in a dark hoodie coming up the walk way. They figured it was grandpa, taking his late night break from his Wal-Mart job. They didn’t pay any attention when he came in the house and stood in the living room. After about 10 minutes, they turned around and saw a big native guy sitting at the kitchen table, eating one of their pieces of pizza! He was really drunk, didn’t even seem to realize where he was, asked if he could use the bathroom.

Then the daughter and her friend went into the mom's room and woke her up. The mom shut them in her room and went out and told the guy to leave. He wouldn’t leave; she told him she was calling the police. She called them and went in her room with the girls. 20 minutes later the police finally showed up, but the guy had wandered out. The cops looked all over for him but couldn’t find him. They did, however, find 3 other people walking in the neighborhood that had outstanding warrants, and arrested them!

When the mom got up this morning, she discovered the guy had peed on her living room rug. Then at 7am, the cops called her to say they’d found and arrested the man. He’d been so drunk he ended up in the emergency room being treated for alcohol poisoning, and apparently has no recollection of being in her house.

What do you think, true story or fiction?

Actually it's a true story, and all this went down not half-a-dozen blocks from here. The names and source have been changed to protect the innocent. Kinda funny, really, though I'm sure at the time it was pretty friggin' scary.

New Years Eve in the Yaak

2011-01-02T20:28:00.010-07:00

For something different, Julia and I decided to drive up after she got off work on Friday and spend New Years Eve in the Yaak. If you are wondering where the hell that is, it's a little valley in the Cabinet Mountains in the upper northwest corner of Montana, with a river and a town named after it.

Mapquest said it would be about a 4.5 hour drive. It ended up taking us seven hours to get there, though 30-45 minutes of that was for a lunch stop in Ronan to feast on burgers from Lynn's Drive-In. I used to live in Ronan; I took these shots of the Mission Mountains just south of the town proper; the peak you see is the highest point, called McDonald Peak.

It took so long because the roads were pretty bad. We had gotten an arctic blast of weather in the days leading up to the year's end, and while it was just sunny and gorgeous (as you can see) it was very cold and the roads were still covered in snow and ice. They weren't suicidally bad, mind you, one just had to be cautious. I kind of enjoy that kind of driving. In many ways, needing to be so mindful on questionable terrain seems a bit safer to me than blasting along at 80+ on a highway getting road-hypnotized.

At Kalispell we turned west on Highway 2. As the sun started going down that slowed us a bit too. This is really a beautiful stretch of highway, and as night falls the biggest concern is large animals in the road. I took this shot at sunset while I drove.

Little did I know, one of the trip highlights was about to occur. If you look at the white slope just to the right of the road ahead, a rare opportunity was lurking there. As we passed and I set my camera aside, Julia suddenly turned in her seat and shouted, "A lynx! That was lynx back there!" Now that is as rare a critter as one can see out here. Could have been a lynx, might have been a bobcat . . . but either way, it's a rare sight. And of course I didn't see it. But I'm glad she did. This is what one looks like, for those who wonder:

Finally we arrived at our destination, the Yaak River Lodge. We stayed in the Elk Suite.

This is Zippy, the stuffed badger just inside the front door.

Here is an image that crystallizes what I think of when I think of winter in the Yaak.

So why would I have an image about this place at all? I, like many people, learned of this area via the writings of author Rick Bass, primarily in his 1991 work called Winter - Notes from Montana. He's written some other books about the area, and has been a tireless activist toward preserving its wilderness status. I reread Winter in preparation for the trip, just to familiarize myself again to see how it has changed since Bass arrived in the late 80s. It's still remote, but the change is pretty drastic. From the maintained highway leading there, and the power lines, it was clear it was much different. I was curious to know what kind of people live here now, though, and how they differed from the characters in Bass's early book. We headed out to the Yaak River Tavern for their New Year's festivities to see. Here's a picture of the place the next morning.

We had a good time. There were a lot of people there, and a live band playing country and bluegrass, and some food spread out on a big table. Everyone we talked to was friendly (the real estate woman we were introduced to rolled her eyes when Gary, the guy from the lodge, told her we'd heard of the Yaak from reading Rick Bass, and said, "Well, we don't believe all of this place should be wilderness, we believe we should be able to use some of it too!"), but the crowd was not really what I expected. There weren't any ruffians there, the people were surprisingly, as Julia remarked, genteel. I asked Gary how people make their living since there isn't any real work anymore with logging in the tank, and he said "most of the husbands travel for work." So the impression I was left with is that these are folks who get their money elsewhere but choose to live in this beautiful place. I don't begrudge them that at all, I was just expecting it to be a little more, I don't know, outlaw. I expected the ban on smoking to be eschewed, I thought there would be a collection of bearded guys who looked like they'd been out in the woods for weeks on end (saw a couple of those types in Libby on the way up), etc. But it wasn't that.

Anyway, here's the arrival of midnight inside the tavern. The bulk of the crowd was still outside watching fireworks. The annoying blower of the noisemaker is my blushing bride.

Across the street is the Dirty Shame Saloon. That is the place where Bass and his girlfriend would spend time with the other people who inhabited the Yaak in the 80s, watching football on a tiny screen with the generator running, and eating burgers and drinking beer.

I asked Gary why all the action was at the Yaak River Tavern instead of the Dirty Shame, and he laughed. He said the Dirty Shame has always had a reputation as a rough place, and kind of a biker bar, but that a few years ago it was purchased by Christians who had instituted a two-drink maximum, and made it all cozy. As a result, the meat of its reputation had been scrubbed away. That should change though, as apparently they are selling out.

The next morning we had breakfast and headed out. For the trip home I turned south on Highway 56, which links up with Highway 200 about 45 miles west of Thompson Falls. That stretch of 56 was about the most beautiful drive I've ever undertaken. I should have taken pictures, but I really didn't think it would capture the beauty. It was bright and sunny, with the trees and landscape heavy under snow. Animal tracks were everywhere. The Bull River ran along the highway. It was breathtaking. Julia kept dozing off, and there was little traffic, so it felt like I had it all to myself. Calling it a "winter wonderland" doesn't do it justice. I feel like I want to go back right now!

Once we hit 200 before long we weren't crowded by mountains and trees any longer, and the skies clouded up a bit. The highway was crowded at times, however, by herds of these critters.

All told, we probably saw a couple hundred bighorns. It's a hazard, but there are plenty of warning signs.

It was a great trip, if a little brief. I'm looking forward to getting back up in the Yaak during the summer time. The country we passed through is as beautiful as anywhere in the world, and I'm reminded again how lucky I am to live here. It's simply magnificent.

Photo Finish Friday

2010-12-31T09:48:00.003-07:00

This is a scan of a shot I took back in 1991 of one of my all-time favorite racehorses, Captain Condo. My horseracing post earlier this week got me thinking of him.

Back in '89 - '93 or so I used to visit Longacres Park in Renton, WA, quite frequently. I loved the smells, the horses, the atmosphere . . . it was a small park, intimate, and I enjoyed going down there with $30 or $40 for a Saturday afternoon. Even if I came home with nothing it was still an inexpensive outing, and usually had a meal as well. Sometimes I'd come back with more then I arrived with, and that was always a bonus.

Condo was a local favorite. As a nine year-old, when this picture was taken, he won several races. He was a closer, which means he would often be back in the pack as they hit the final turn and he would come charging down the stretch, gobbling up other horses with huge strides. It was exciting and breathtaking. His personality was larger than life as he strode around the paddock, well aware that all eyes were on him. I really loved watching that horse run. This bit from his bio tells the story very well:

What is the source of Captain Condo’s tremendous appeal? It’s not just about longevity, for there have been other successful older runners, including his contemporaries Kent Green and Snipledo. Nor is it entirely about ability. Captain Condo never won the Longacres Mile, traditionally the most important showcase for talent in the Pacific northwest each year. And it is unlikely to be rooted in his versatility as a runner, though he won stakes from six furlongs to a mile and a sixteenth. Instead, it was the combination of all those attributes with something extra, a competitive spirit recognized by everyone who saw him run. Lonny Powell, general manager and chief operating officer at Longacres at the time, captured it best when he said “You kill for these horses. One of the greatest challenges of running a racetrack is finding a hero.”
A hero – a good description of Captain Condo, but there are others. The late Mark Kaufman, manager of racing and media relations at Longacres, tried to quantify it when he said “He is the only horse racing at Longacres that impacts the handle.” And rider Gary Baze gave a jockey’s view of him when he said, “The first time I rode him . . . I was surprised at how hard he goes after those last few horses. He’s so fiercely competitive. He really bears down hard on them . . . Most horses couldn’t care less if they won or lost, but he’s different.” Different, indeed. After he lost a race by a nose, trainer Ashby had to call the vet and have him tranquilized. “He just wouldn’t settle down,” according to Ashby. “He really didn’t get a chance to run his race and I think he knew that.”

Those were the days. I still have a Captain Condo button in my little box of "life memorabilia" that I've saved.

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

Who Gets Redemption?

2010-12-29T10:15:00.004-07:00

I watched the last quarter-and-a-half of the Eagles/Vikings game last night online. I don't really like either team, but I was on the computer anyway and had it on. Plus I was a little curious to see Michael Vick play, as the sports world has been abuzz with how great he has been this year. I listen to the local sports radio station when I am out driving around, and often during the day while I work, and all the pundits were talking about how this "easy game" should have been a perfect opportunity for Vick to seal up his claim to league MVP this year. Amusingly enough, he didn't do so well. A game which many said Minnesota had "absolutely no chance to win" actually turned out to be a win for Minnesota. That amuses the hell out of me. That's why I love sports radio. People are such loudmouth blowhards about shit I really don't need to care about. It's like political talk radio without the stakes in breeding ignorance that can ultimately hit me where I live. In other words, sports radio rarely pisses me off.

Most people know about Michael Vick. Even people who aren't sports fans know about the guy. His wikipedia page has an excellent breakdown on all of his problems with the law as a young man, which culminated in a conviction for his role in a dogfighting ring called Bad Newz Kennels. He was suspended from the league, served his time in prison, went bankrupt, and ultimately got out of prison and signed by the Philadelphia Eagles after two years out of the game. Many people thought his career would never be rekindled, that the rage over his involvement in killing dogs would never allow it, that the public would never accept him.

So this year the guy comes back big time. Lands the starting slot at quarterback for the Eagles when the original starter gets hurt, then proceeds to have his best season ever. At one time Vick had the most votes of any other player in the fan balloting for the Pro Bowl. Ultimately he comes in at #2 (last I checked) and will be the starting quarterback for the NFC when the game happens. Pundits and those around him talk about his comeback, how grown up he is, how he served his time and, as part of community service, has spoken to children about the evils of dogfighting. But is that enough? Has the guy earned redemption, which clearly he has in the eyes of many people, or were his crimes so heinous that he should never get a second chance? President Obama called the Eagles' owner and thanked him for giving Vick a shot at redemption. Does the guy deserve it?

I've thought about this a lot. I was never a fan of the guy in the first place, and his crimes were abhorrent. I don't have a stake in it, though I confess I root against the guy because I don't like the Eagles. Spiritually, I believe in redemption and forgiveness. It's not a Christian thing for me, which I'm definitely not; it's a human thing. This situation pushes the boundaries of that conviction, though, and it has been quite a journey for me to even get this far, where I grudgingly admit the guy has earned a second chance. Personally, I think his prison time should have been greater, but that is a different issue. Point is he did his time as dictated by Society, of which I am part, and if he keeps his nose clean and becomes a stand-up guy then I would agree it is an amazing story.

I also understand why some people can't get there. But I wonder about the motivations beneath the surface of that position. We are a nation of dog lovers, absolutely. Is it because he essentially tortured and murdered dogs specifically, or just that he would treat any animal that way? For people who see themselves as animal lovers, are any of those folks consumers of factory-raised beef, chicken, etc.? There is all the testimony you could want available about the horrors of slaughterhouses; how does one justify condemnation of Michael Vick while tucking into a Baconator, prime rib or three-piece crispy with a side of mashed and gravy? Mike Vick just happened to be more hands-on in his destruction of life, but is it really any different?

I think there is some hypocrisy involved, but I'm curious in other people's takes on this. I totally understand folks who aren't willing to forgive this guy, but I'm also interested to know how they justify those feelings in light of their own actions . . . or if they feel they are even comparable. What do you think? Is Mike Vick irredeemable? If he is, then where is the line in what someone can be forgiven for and what they can't? Finally, am I off-base in my own take on this?

Don't Tell My Wife

2010-12-28T21:10:00.002-07:00

Watch this horse race. It's got one of the greatest stretch calls I've ever heard.

What are the odds of that happening?

Photo Finish Friday

2010-12-24T10:07:00.003-07:00

Took this shot at my parents' house on Thanksgiving. With all the snow we've gotten since, and with more to come according to the forecast for the next 24 hours, there's no doubt our Christmas is going to be white. Just like it's supposed to be.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and an excellent weekend!

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

That Might Hurt a Little

2010-12-23T11:09:00.002-07:00

More throwdown combat video for people who can't get enough:

It'll Do 'til the Mess Gets Here

2010-12-22T12:11:00.006-07:00

I'm sitting here poised on the brink of seeing the new True Grit movie. Was gonna wait until Christmas day, but I don't think I'm going to make it. I love the cast, I love the Coens, and I love a good Western. There have been some excellent ones released in the last few years, just not enough of them. I read somewhere a few years ago, or heard it on the radio, I don't remember for sure, but the idea was that the Western has been supplanted by cop and crime shows and movies. The case was made about the similarities and it made sense to me at the time, even though it saddened me. I like good cop stuff too, but the archetype just isn't the same in modern times, at least not to me. I want big hats, sixguns and thundering hooves!

Today I've just about wrapped up listening to James Lee Burke's Rain Gods, which I downloaded from audible.com. I liked it; thought it would make a great movie. It brought to mind Victor Gischler's novel The Deputy, which I read this year and enjoyed. It's a bit different from Burke's novel -- more action movie-ish, more pulpy -- but similar enough. It too would make an excellent film. I know they'd do well because the stories are strong and in the right hands a film version could be wildly successful. No Country for Old Men, also a Coen Brothers flick, was hugely successful. Hell, I thought the movie was better than Cormac McCarthy's novel.

What these stories all have in common is that gritty, overheated, life-on-the-border setting that I love, which really calls to mind classic movie Westerns. Why aren't there more of these types? In recent years we've had The Town, The Departed, Gone, Baby, Gone, etc., all movies with urban settings. New York/Boston/LA get enough love . . . why not more from the Southwest, eh?

So I'm looking for suggestions of more books and movies with settings from around 1970 on, that have some dirt and sweat in their DNA. Bring it, people!

It's the Best Of Time of Year

2010-12-20T20:58:00.005-07:00

As 2010 gasps its death rattle, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of the season for putting together Best Of lists. I've got a couple things planned for this blog; possibly a movie list, and possibly a return to a 2010 version of one for the ladies. So to get things kicked off, here are links to a couple lists I've had posted elsewhere.

Nobody Asked You -- The Best in Music 2010

My buddy Peter Farris has a rock solid heavy rock pedigree and has a debut novel being published by Tom Doherty Associates/Forge Books next year. On his blog, The Sentence Salvo, he asked a few of us to offer up our favorite music released this year, and I was happy to oblige.

Now, It was a down year for me for buying music this year for many reasons (mostly having to do with me being a jaded old bastard), though I did reload some back catalog stuff. It's not something I'm proud of, it has just been one of those phases, you know? So for my list I decided to note the records released in 2010 I DID buy this year (there are 13), and why I chose them. I'm not saying they're necessarily all great, they all just had something about them that made me want to buy them. Check out my list, as well as everyone else's, RIGHT HERE.

The Best of Whatever at Day Labor

Day Labor is the official blog of Crimefactory Magazine. When editor (and writer, and all around hardest-working-guy-in-crime-fiction) Keith Rawson asked if I would be interested in supplying a 2010 Best Of list, of anything I read or saw or thought about in 2010 (didn't have to be released in that year, it just had to be something I experienced in 2010), I didn't have to think twice. I stuck with books, and came up with eleven. You can check out my list RIGHT HERE. Then look at some of the other lists -- there is some great stuff being talked about!

Hardest part about these lists is leaving stuff. Who knows, maybe I'll mention a few more over the next week. There's just a ton of great stuff out there worth talking about!

Big thanks to Pete and Keith for giving a rip about my opinion enough to ask for my contributions!