Jesse Sublett's Blog, page 5

1960s Austin Gangsters invading BookPeople

Join us at BookPeople Monday, March 23, 7PM. At long last we’ll be presenting my new book “1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital.” The big story about the Austin underworld during the tumultuous sixties — the Timmy Overton Gang, Hattie Valdes, criminal lawyers, gamblers, bank burglars, gamblers, and the thug life… it’s all told right here in this new book. The Facebook event is here. We also made it in Michael Hoinski’s Texas Monthly/New York Times column “Six Must-Attend Events.” We’re No. 1 with a bullet! Cool.

Monday night, I’ll play a couple of songs, read a couple of pages, do a short interview with our MysteryPeople host, Scott Montgomery, and sign books. Refreshments will be provided.

Six Must-Attend Events: March 20-26

THE STATE’S TOP OFFERINGS, FROM GANGSTERS IN SIXTIES-ERA AUSTIN TO BRONCOBUSTERS IN PRESENT-DAY HOUSTON.





by MICHAEL HOINSKI

FRI MARCH 20, 2015 2:15 PM
Timmy Overton, center, flanked by Texas Rangers, being led from federal court, in Austin on May 17, 1967. He had just been arraigned for threatening federal witnesses in addition to the many other charges already pending against him and his pals.

COURTESY OF JESSE SUBLETT

AUSTIN

Gangsters’ Paradise 

It is quite possible that had it not been for the arrests of brothers Timmy and Charles Overton, two of Austin’s most notorious gangsters, Charles Whitman may have never opened fire from the University of Texas Tower on that fateful August day in 1966. The short of it, which the author-musician-artist Jesse Sublett will likely expound on during a hometown reading of his new book,  1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital , boils down to a poker game. The Overton brothers cleaned Whitman out during a game in 1961, while Whitman was a freshman at UT; he settled his debt in the form of a $400 check but promptly cancelled it, ticking off the Overtons and forcing Whitman to start carrying a .357 magnum for protection. The heat died down when the Overtons were arrested in Dallas, in 1962, for robbing tony homes in Highland Park. “This saved Charlie’s life,” Sublett said. The book follows the exploits of the brothers along with Jerry Ray “Fat Jerry” James and their cohorts in underground crime and vice. Sublett came across the story while researching the murder of his girlfriend, who was killed in 1976 and whom he chronicled in his 2004 memoir,  Never the Same Again: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Gothic. “They never pulled a million dollar score, but they were voracious and prolific—safecracking, bank burglary, prostitution, drug dealing, gambling, counterfeiting, you name it, 24/7,” Sublett said. “And they changed Cadillacs more often than you’d take a suit to the dry cleaner.”

BookPeople, March 23, 7 p.m.,  jessesublett.com

Published by History Press, March 9, 2015

 

 

1960s AUSTIN GANGSTERS gigs this week

Up the IQ and cool of your Spring break/ SXSW season by dropping by for a couple of murder ballads, Austin underworld anecdotes, and hotter-than-a-Dixie-Mafia-sawed-off-12-gauge “1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital,” by Jesse Sublett, brand new from History Press.

This week: South Congress Books in Austin 2 PM-3PM.

Next Week: BookPeople in Austin Mon. Mar. 23 7PM – 9PM. Facebook event here.

(also at SXSW bookstore 2-2:20 PM March 20, badge holders only.)

More info on where to get the book here; background info on the book here.

Did you know that the infamous madman in the Tower massacre August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman, died owing Austin white trash godfather Timmy Overton $400 in gambling debts? Yes! It’s all documented in Chapter 1 of 1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital.

 

 

 

 

 

1960s AUSTIN GANGSTERS ON AUSTIN 2015 RADIO

OK, bros, here’s the interview on Arts Eclectic with Mike Lee. Pretty cool clip, short, less than 2 minutes.

This week, see you at SXSW on Friday; see you at South Congress Books 2 PM Thursday; see you at parties and night clubs and wherever they serve good espresso and double-pour rye whisky. Next week, similar story, but see you for damn sure at BookPeople Monday March 23, 7-9 PM for book release murder ballad extravaganza.

 

Coming March 9, 2015

JESSE PROFILED

Mark your calendars for Monday, March 23, 7 PM, BookPeople, when we’ll be signing and presenting “1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capitol,” out this week at quality bookstores like BookPeople and South Congress Books. [PS I’ll also be doing a pop-up gig/book signing at South Congress Books at 2 PM Thursday March 19, during SXSW; and 2 PM signing at the SXSW Bookstore in the Austin Convention Center – for SXSW badge holders only).

Thanks to to the Writers League of Texas for publishing this profile of my terrible self in their weekly newsletter:

 

MEET THE MEMBERS
Posted by Writers’ League Staff

Jesse Sublett has been a member of the Writers’ League since 1994. Jesse grew up in Johnson City and now calls Austin home.

Scribe: In what genre(s) do you write? 

Jesse Sublett: I write crime fiction novels, true crime novels, as well as history and memoir. My new book 1960s Austin Gangsters (History Press), publishing March 9, 2015, is a true crime chronicle of the Austin underworld in the 1960s. Last June, Texas Tech Press published Broke, Not Broken: Homer Maxey’s Texas Bank War, which was a combination history of West Texas and financial fraud and conspiracy. I wrote the first Austin-based detective novel series in the late 1980s, the Martin Fender novels, which were set in the Austin music scene starting with Rock Critic Murders, (Viking Penguin) in 1989.

Scribe:  What authors would you like to have coffee or a beer with and which beverage?

JS: I’ve always enjoyed having coffee with James Ellroy, as he is super intelligent and kind, despite his strange politics and brutal writing, and he is the only writer I know who drinks as much espresso as I do. I also love having a beer with my friend Michael Connelly. I don’t think I’d want to resurrect any of my hero authors like Dashiell Hammett or  Raymond Chandler because it would be a drag if they were in a bad mood and ruined my memories of them. But I’d love to hang out with Michael Ondaatje and Denis Johnson. Johnson doesn’t drink but I think he’d be OK with me drinking my usual stout or rye whiskey. Bulleit rye rules.

Scribe:  If you were stranded on a deserted island, what book would you want to have with you to keep you sane?

JS: Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett), Running in the Family(Ondaatje), The Big Sleep (Chandler), and Jesus’ Son (Denis Johnson) because those works are so fine they can be read over and over. I would also want Sibley’s or Audubon bird guide for the local birds, as birds make me happy.

Scribe:  What have you learned from your association with the Writers’ League? 

JS: I learn something new every day from writers all around me. Listen, because you never know what you may learn from others, because the person sitting next to you at the bar might be an expert on something you need to know about and might have an incredible tale to tell — things that you’ll miss if you can’t shut up and listen. One of the most important things I’ve learned over my years of writing is to be humble, or try to be so whenever appropriate.

Scribe:  Where do you see your writing taking you (or you taking it) in the future?

JS: I dream about being a travel writer. I yearn to write more true crime and history, because almost every great story starts with a dead body… or a pile of them.

Scribe: Is there anything else about you that you would like to share with the world? An opportunity for blatant self-promotion!  

They call me “Austin legend” because I’ve been around, playing music, writing songs, writing books and stories so long — starting in the 1970s when tires were made of wood and you could have an armadillo barbecue sandwich for lunch on the river, but even in the crazy times of the Austin punk explosion, when my band, the Skunks, was on the radio every day, I’ve not cracked the mainstream on anything I’ve done. I have a new EP coming out this spring to showcase my murder ballads and Austin lounge blues music. Music and art and writing are as important to me as breathing, and I’ve been fortunate that some people in this town have taken an interest in my work. If success means that you have people who follow you and are entertained and challenged by your work and express their appreciation and, sometimes, even love for what you do, then I have been very successful — to hell with mainstream.

SUPPORT THE WRITERS LEAGUE OF TEXAS.

 

 

“Maps to the Stars,” Tragic Surrealism, Tainted Love

 

“Maps to the Stars,” a great David Cronenberg-directed film, starring Julianne Moore in yet another stunning performance with a script by Bruce Wagner, knocked us out Saturday afternoon. The film is a great, cynical, very film noir inspired look at the black, romantic heart of Hollywood and in its own way, a valentine to the beautiful, toxic paradise that is Los Angeles. Despite its wicked cynicism and satire, it made me miss life in LA terribly.

The review in the Austin Chronicle gave it four stars. Nice work, but I give it five stars. I loved this dark, smart, mean film. I haven’t laughed out loud so hard in a long time. Guess I needed a dose of this.

I originally composed these notes to send to my son, Dashiell, who saw the film with Lois and I and liked it very much. He’s 21. He was born in LA. I wanted to give him some notes on some of the great allusions and thematic threads of the film.

One of the great things about Los Angeles is driving through the canyons and across the hills on Mulholland Drive. Living in Studio City and often working in Hollywood or Malibu in the late 1980s and 1990s, I drove through Laurel Canyon in particular hundreds, maybe thousands of times. I was driving a convertible Karmann Ghia, and was always fascinated and haunted by some of those tumble-down Spanish mansions on the hillsides, including ones where Houdini hung his hat, along with Jim Morrison and other characters. So the consummation of the doomed love between the psychopath sibling lovers in the ruins of their awful parents’ home in the shade of the Hollywood hills Mexican fan palms was beyond perfect. There were also great ruins in Runyon Canyon, with spooky legends attached.

Tragic love amidst the ruins in a toxic paradise known as LA.

“Maps to the Stars” has many recognizable threads and allusions, one of which is the film “All About Eve,” in which a young, ambitious protégé, played by Anne Baxter, attaches herself to a great but fading star actress, played by Bette Davis, insinuates her way into the mentor’s life and takes over her role, like an alien life form or killer spider that devours its host. George Saunders plays the film critic who can make ‘em and break ‘em in rare form, but then again such lubricious and radioactive roles were his specialty. Laird Cregar played much the same character in the great bullfighting melodrama, “Blood and Sand,” with Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell and Rita Hayworth (which I have seen at least two dozen times; love that movie).

But I digress. Here are a couple of points I wanted to bring out.

The poem “Liberty” which is so often recited in “Maps of the Stars” was written by Paul Éluard, a leader of the Surrealist Movement. He had a very interesting life (understatement). Born in France, came of age on the cusp of World War I… contracted tuberculosis, met a Russian girl his own age in a TB sanitarium, Gala, they had an intense love affair, were separated after their release… corresponded a lot, got together…

You can experience Paul Eluard’s poem “Liberty” on youtube here.

In 1917, during the Great War, Eluard’s service included writing death letters to next-of-kin; he wrote more than 150 a day and at night he dug graves.

Gala, by Dali

Gala, despite the great love she had for Eluard, had an affair with his best friend, Max Ernst, the great surrealist artist (More about Ernst here).

And then Gala famously had an affair with surrealist artist Max Ernst, which is the subject of a book by Robert McNab called “Ghost Ships: A surrealist love triangle”.

And then, even more famously, Gala left Paul for Salvador Dali and she was Dali’s muse, forever immortalized in his work (read and see more in “Tales of Salvador Dali’s Demon Bride” here ).

“Maps to the Stars” also features John Cusack, wearing a suitably ironic hair piece,  Mia Wasikowska , Robert Pattinson, Evan Bird, and Olivia Williams. There’s something going on with eyebrows in this film, perhaps as an ironic wink at teen stud vampire Robert Pattinson’s rather oversized brows? I don’t know. Incest is another big theme in the film–and is probably of more interest to most viewers.

Back to the Surrealist clique and their shared doom (sorry to digress, but one of my favorite Spanish expressions these days is “Estamos jodidos!” which means “We’re doomed!”) Éluard and Picasso were tight… the Spanish Civil war had a huge effect on them, as it did so many artists of the pre-WW2 period; in fact these artists helped create the cultural narrative of the war and its horrors so that people might never forget the atrocities committed against common people (unfortunately, the atrocities continue). In the surrealist / Dadaist movement of this time period, several other artist-heroes of mine were involved, including of course Jean Miro.

“The Reaper” by Joan Miro.

 

And finally, the great Spanish surrealist poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca was in this circle, too, until he was more or less exiled by them, partially, apparently, because he was gay. Lorca also fought in his own way against the fascists in Spain, creating and producing plays, poems and social statements–which eventually sealed his fate. Lorca was executed by a gang of nationalist thugs in a cemetery in 1936.

Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain’s most prominent poet and playwright until his death in 1936

And I’ve been a huge fan of Lorca since high school, when my English teacher suggested that I read “Romance Sonambulo (Somnambulist Ballad),” one of Lorca’s “Gypsy Ballads” which, at first reading, seems so deep and strange and full of bizarre surrealist allusions and word play. It’s tragic and also and old, kind of universal story about the outlaw / rebel whose girlfriend waits for him, but the fascist cops find out about her and when the outlaw returns to see her, he learns that she committed suicide rather than betray him (an image of her appears above the cistern, hung by an icicle of the moon). Tragedy, mystery, doom, beauty… elements that “Maps to the Stars” shares in common in spades with the work of the surrealists.

Lorca’s original plan was to be a classic pianist. Many of poems tend to be intrinsically musical and have been set to music by a great many performers. I’ve written my own original arrangements of “Romance Sonambulo” and also one of his best-know great gypsy ballads, “La Casada Infiel (The Unfaithful Wife).” This latter work is the final song I’ve been recording for my EP, a work in progress since the summer of 2014. With some luck, the song will be finally mixed and mastered and released as one of seven songs, to accompany gigs and other appearances in support of my new true crime book, “1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital.”

“Estamos jodidos!” Long live surrealism!

Cheers,

Jesse, March 1, 2015

 

 

 

1960s Austin Gangsters

Happy Valentine’s Day 2015 and I hope your weekend wasn’t as stressful as it was for Bugs Moran in Chicago on Valentine’s Day 1929, as seen in the above images. Now, if we flash back just 50 years, we’re in the depth of the Overton Gang days in Austin, Texas, an era chronicled in my new true crime book, “1960s Austin Gangsters,” due from History Press on March 9. The Overton Gang burglarized dozens of small town banks between 1964-66 and reaped regular headlines such as “Gangsterism–One Night at Hattie’s, Gangland Style,” telling of the Overtons’ attempted armed coup at Austin’s biggest brothel on the night of  July 10, 1965.

If you preorder here now you can be confident of having a SIGNED copy ASAP. Order here by sending a message through the contact form below.

Tim Overton rec’d an engraved Hamilton Cotton Bowl Classic watch in 1960 when he played for UT. By Christmas, he was in prison. When he got out, he got revenge on Darrell Royal.

Our store is offering SIGNED copies for $19.99 + $5 S&H. You can also preorder through your favorite retailer such as BookPeople, Amazon, etc. But this is the only place you can preorder a signed copy (read more about the book on the Austin Gangsters page).

And mark your calendars for March 23, the first big party for Austin Gangsters at BookPeople, 7 PM.

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Monday, Feb. 16, 7 PM, join us at Noir At The Bar, for readings by published crime fiction authors & libations. Opal Divine’s Penn Field (South Congress). Join me and co-host Scott Montgomery, Trey R. Barker, Bill Loehfelm, Lou Berney, and by the way, it’s Scott’s birthday. I’ll kick things off with a couple of songs. Books available for purchase (I’ll have Grave Digger Blues & Never the Same Again, and you can preorder Austin Gangsters). Come out, check out these cool crime writers and start the week off right.

Preorder “1960s Austin Gangsters”

Preorder Jesse Sublett’s brand new true crime book “1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime That Rocked the Capital” here. Published by History Press in March 2015, the book can be advance purchased, signed and inscribed (or not) and shipped as soon as available for the special prepublication price of $24.99 ($19.99 + $5 S&H). Just send an email about your order using contact form below and we’ll send payment instructions. You can also order from Amazon, but if you want your prepublication date book signed or you’d rather bypass Amazon, order it here. Now.

You can also order a copy of Jesse’s memoir, “Never the Same Again,” the hardcover edition published in 2004 chronicling Jesse’s experience in the Austin music scene, the murder of his girlfriend, and his battle with Stage 4 throat cancer. Readers have called it uplifting and funny, despite having so much serious and often tragic content. $20.

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Atomic Blonde

I married an artist? Sometimes you can write a story with a few book titles, sometimes it’s just a series of interesting questions. Long Shot? Every time you try to create something, it’s a long shot whether your message will come out right and even if it does, you never know whether your message will connect. Sometimes the only sure thing is an Atomic Blonde.

Coming March 9, 2015

Soon we’ll start the countdown for 1960s Austin Gangsters, due in March from History Press, my nonfiction account of the Timmy Overton Gang and the Dixie Mafia in Austin in the 1960s (for more info click Austin Noir). We hope this new title will be worthy of our readers. We hope it will sell a few copies, too, but mostly, I hope it proves a worthwhile. I enjoyed writing it and researching it, or most of the time I did enjoy it. It was also a lot of work. Below, a photo of the residence of where Hattie Valdes lived during the 1960s.






The house has changed a lot since the 1960s. The current owners have been renovating for quite a while. At this time of year the trees are sufficiently bare that we can see it fairly well without bothering the people who live there. In a few weeks, the trees and other foliage will flesh out and it will disappear again. Hattie liked a little bit of privacy, except when she didn’t.

Hattie Valdes, Austin’s most infamous and successful madam

Hattie, who was a successful bordello operator for many decades, who had been in the sex business since the Depression, drove a pink Cadillac, wore furs and jewels, invested heavily in real estate and left a rich legacy in property as well as stories. We only had room for a few of them in Austin Gangsters.

Soon we’ll post information for preordering Austin Gangsters, and will post a few articles about its contents, along with news about book signings and other promotional gigs.

Cheers,

Jesse

Oil Company Drones Buzz Capitol During Inauguration

On an otherwise perfect day, terror struck from the skies.

An estimated 10,000 looked on helplessly today as remotely-piloted machines repeatedly buzzed the grounds of the State Capitol and downtown Congress Avenue. The objects have been identified as rogue oil company drones. It was Texas Inauguration day, and most people in the crowd had gathered to see the newly elected governor and lieutenant governor take the oath of office. Children squealed with delight but most of the adults were visibly shaken and disturbed when the robotic machines appeared, leaving unanswered questions in their wake. What did they want? What were their intentions? Obviously, they want more than the oil beneath Texans’ feet.

An FAA spokesperson identified the flying objects as remotely piloted drones of the type employed by oil companies during exploration, drilling and  routine oil field maintenance. The drones have been used for years, but recently mineral extraction industries have expanded the use of such robotics in areas of specialty such as overseeing state government, writing and passing legislation, stripping environmental controls, paying off elected officials to ease the way for hydraulic fracking in sensitive environmental regions, dumping toxic wastes and various functions previously performed by humans.

Even as the new regime celebrated taking over, the first new governor in 14 years faces a tall order — that is, making Texas even more economically unjust and beholden to corporate oversight.

Rumors that rich shale oil reserves are located directly underneath the capitol grounds and the Governor’s mansion have led to speculation that we may soon see hydraulic fracking operations in downtown Austin. The nineteenth century granite gothic capitol dome would be imploded and replaced by a combination legislative-corporate headquarters-food-trailer court on the I-35 access road.

 

Veteran capital observers said to expect increased reliance of drones in place of government officials in the future.

 

Eddie, Rick, Bonnie & Clyde

Bonnie Parker had her moments, but even in the best of them, not nearly as pretty as young Faye Dunaway

Congrats to Richard Linklater, Patricia Arquette and everyone associated with Boyhood, recognized at Golden Globes 2015. Oh, let’s not forget Marco Perella and Barbara Chisholm, who have parts in the film and whom I have worked with in the past (Marco Perella: I cowrote Deep in the Heart, which we adapted from the stage play; Barbara Chisholm: I wrote the original play script for “Marathon,” which has gone on to other permutations and which is legally supposed to be unrelated to my original work). And I’ll always appreciate Richard Linklater’s blurb for my memoir Never the Same Again. He wrote:

Jesse’s odyssey of growing up in a small Texas town with a head full of big ideas, and his relentless drive to take them in the direction of his artistic intuition, is a moving story that captures an important cultural moment. Having grown up in Huntsville, Texas, I can really relate. Surviving the horrible murder of his girlfriend in 1976, and going from punk rock to fatherhood, his story becomes a universal one, and he makes it sing with authenticity. — RICHARD LINKLATER, director of Boyhood, Slacker, Dazed & Confused, etc.

But Austin is still a small town in a lot of ways and sometimes it seems like everybody in one business or another knows everybody else and we’ve all worked together, yukked it up backstage together, had each other’s toddler throw up on our fresh-pressed black suit. By the way I loved the photo book on Boyhood, which I reviewed last month in the Austin Chronicle.

Bonnie Parker, the infamous outlaw partner of Clyde Barrow, had been an aspiring actress and continued penning poetry even during her violent career on the road with the Barrow gang. Among the many difficult-to-categorize items in Eddie Wilson‘s 500+ catalog of Armadillo World Headquarters, Threadgill’s and other related concert posters, beer signs, handbills, neon signs, and other stuff (see previous posts here and here) is this framed letter from Bonnie, her own lyrics to a song called “Morphine,” something which we think she knew a bit about.

The auction is January 17, 2015 at Burley Auction Gallery in New Braunfels. The Burley site has details on the auction, preview hours, and the full catalog. To see the listing for “Mother Morphine,” click here.

Here’s another interesting item, the poster for the Joe Gracey benefit show in 1978, by Micael Priest. The Skunks began recording an LP with Joe in the KOKE-FM basement in April 1978, when our band had been together just four months, and Joe was knocked out, so we started recording and having a ball. Joe was just starting out on his adventures with cancer and went through the brutal ordeal with an astounding kind of grace and aplomb. He partied a lot and never stopped making music. Anyway, The Skunks shared the stage with an unlikely bill of Asleep at the Wheel, Jimmy Vaughan & the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Alvin Crow & the Pleasant Valley Playboys. I was moved. To me this gig was one of the first and biggest coming-together of tribes in Austin, and it meant a lot to me. Plus, I realized that Ray Benson is taller than me. Being a six-foot-three guy, I get a little freaked out when I have to stare up at someone.

Thanksgiving 1978 benefit for Joe Gracey

CultureMap Austin did a cool slide show preview of the auction, and Kevin Curtin wrote up a piece in his Playback column in the Austin Chronicle last week.

One last self-promotion plug: Soon we’ll start the countdown for the release of 1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital, my documentary book on the safecrackers, pimps, gamblers & prostitutes who ratcheted up the decibels, dope & dollars in Austin during the peace & love decade.

Cheers,

Jesse