Ron Franscell's Blog, page 11
June 12, 2019
Before #MeToo, there was Fatty Arbuckle
Nine years ago, HBO announced that “Modern Family” star Eric (“Cam”) Stonestreet had been signed to play Hollywood’s most tragic funnyman Fatty Arbuckle in a new a biopic. Since then—and possibly because of the rise of the #MeToo movement—the project has been deep in “development hell” since 2011 and might never see the light of…
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June 4, 2019
A half-century of Helter Skelter … and it isn’t over yet
Leslie Van Houten, one of Charles Manson’s concubines and mesmerized butchers, was denied parole on Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Van Houten was sentenced to be executed for her part in the grisly slaughter of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their Los Angeles home in 1969, when she was just 19 and under the…
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June 2, 2019
Miss V’s closing arguments
In the beginning there was Miss V. That’s how Mary Vandeventer was known to her high school English students, partly because it was easier than pronouncing her last name and partly because they felt a kind of kinship, even then. Young and only a few years out of college, Miss V wasn’t terribly older than…
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May 31, 2019
10 Texas Crime Facts You Didn’t Know
Texas is so big that its long history of crime—from outlaw days to today—is damn near impossible to know completely. The hard part of compiling a list of 10 obscure Texas crime facts is eliminating dozens of others! But here’s a fascinating collection to keep even the most dedicated crime buff busy for a while.…
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May 25, 2019
This boy died far away for a country that wasn’t his
A few years ago, I was contacted by the friend of a friend of a friend. He had a strange request: Could you help this French guy find the descendants of a soldier killed in World War I? What the hell? Why me? “For god’s sake, you can find anybody,” he said. “You speak English.…
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May 23, 2019
The mystery of Harper Lee’s lost true-crime book
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep (Knopf) is actually two parallel stories: One about a real-life 1970s murder mystery, and the other about a beloved author’s frustrated dream to write her own version of her friend Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” Lee was uncomfortable with Capote’s “nonfiction…
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May 20, 2019
What’s in your DNA? Just a killer grandma? Or gold for exploiters?
At dinner recently with an IT professional, the conversation drifted into our inexorable plunge toward the mass retailing of our privacy—from intimate data collected by smartphones, Alexa, and your own TV to the government and corporate seizure of utterly innocent people’s DNA profiles. Soon, everything you know, everything you want, everything you talk about, everywhere…
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May 14, 2019
10 Songs for Every Writer’s Playlist
A lot of writers like background music while they tap out their stories. A lot don’t. So, for those writers who prefer silence, please skip to my blog about the “15 Best Places for Writers to Retire.” And fergawdsakes, don’t listen to the rest of this little ditty. But for those scribblers who prefer a…
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May 10, 2019
Rainbow’s End?
This is a love story desperately seeking an end. Almost every day for the past 17 years, Babe Rainbow has looked for one face in the crowd that passes his corner. He sees her face in his mind, framed against hazy memories of San Francisco’s Haight Street in the Sixties. That picture flickers through his…
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May 8, 2019
Mass killers often care less about ‘who’ than ‘how many’
At least one person was killed and eight others were wounded when shooters opened fire Tuesday inside a suburban Denver middle school. Two suspects—an adult man and a juvenile girl—have been arrested. During a wider-ranging press conference today, a visibly angry District Attorney George Brauchler implored the media to show restraint when reporting the names…
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