Jeff Johnson's Blog: Will Fight Evil 4 Food, page 19

Deadline Hollywood 1-2-19

Mark R. Harris Options ‘Darby Holland’ Crime Series, Kate Orsini To Adapt

by Anita BuschJanuary 2, 2019 12:24pm

EXCLUSIVE: Mark R. Harris’ Los Angeles-based production shingle, The Harris Company, has optioned the crime series Darby Holland from veteran tattoo artist and crime novelist Jeff Johnson for six-figures in a bidding war that took place over the holiday. Harris, whose credits include Gods and Monsters (which won Best Adapted Screenplay for Bill Condon) and the Academy-Award winning Best Picture Crash(2004), is producing. Kate Orsini (The Bold and the Beautiful, The Honor List) is on board to pen the script for a planned television series.

The first in the crime series is Lucky Supreme, which was released by Arcade Publishing in April of last year to critical acclaim and was named Best Crime Novel of the year by Medium.

The logline: “in the gritty urban wilds of Old Town, Portland Oregon, the series follows the eponymous fixer Darby Holland, who runs a venerable tattoo parlor and leads his talented crew of misfits into battle against hellish art dealers, criminal real estate developers and the creeping doom of gentrification.”

“I’ve been wanting to do this for many years. I made a stab at it a long time ago, a number of years ago, and then I dropped out of television to concentrate on financing my own films,” Harris told Deadline. “When Jeff told me the properties were available, I decided that in getting back into television, I wanted to do it with something as exciting as this. I go by material that is well written, never been seen in this kind of light before and tells a series of good stories. Kate Orsini and I agree that Jeff is one of the greatest novelists ever; he is one of the most lyrical writers, and his characters and storytelling jump off the page.”

Harris was the co-exec producer on the TV series spinoff of Crash for Starz as well as co-exec producer on The Black Donnellys for NBC. He was also in partnership with Paul Haggis on critical favorite E-Z Streets for CBS.

The Lucky Supreme paperback releases this month with the final book expected out next month.

Lane Heymont at The Tobias Literary Agency brokered the deal.

The Christmas Chicken Of Juarez

A hard frost had built up on the inside of the windshield. Eddie stared up through a patch he’d scratched out with his thumbnail. The predawn sky was heavy with slow clouds lit a fish belly white. The hazy yellow canyons between them led up to a full moon.

The Juarez Banty roosted on the rearview mirror. Its head was pulled in against the cold, majestic black and gold neck feathers ruffed. It shifted without opening its eyes.

Eddie sipped gin from a bottle in a paper bag. It had only been three hours and he already felt like a hobo. The Coup De Ville was parked behind the Ethiopian Episcopal Church. His house was probably on fire.

On the floor at his feet were three paper bags filled with small bills, everything he had to show for the last three years. The lights of a passing car flickered through the cab and the Juarez Banty trilled in its sleep. Eddie closed his eyes.

#

The Juarez Banty had been delivered earlier that evening. Eddie was in his ‘office’, the old hydraulic control booth on the second floor of the warehouse where he held the chicken fights. The room smelled like oil and tar. The rusted components of the old system had been removed years ago for scrap metal. Eddie had arranged a desk and some folding chairs around the odd stumps of machinery housing.

“So this chicken is some kind of psycho, eh? That right?” Ashcroft put his big feet up next to the cage on Eddie’s desk. Ashcroft was a fuel consultant at Toronto’s Pearson International airport. He moved contraband on the side. He was a big, red faced man, wearing a lurid Hawaiian shirt under his open parka. A heavy gold chain winked against his sun burned neck. “Looks kinda small.”

“It’s a Banty,” Eddie replied. Eddie was thin, with sharp features, Marcelled black hair and a diamond earring. He was wearing a silk shirt with an Italian coin print pattern, shiny sharkskin slacks and four hundred dollar Edmonds shoes. He counted out five hundred dollars in American twenties and slid the stack over the desk.

“Lot of money for a small bird,” Ashcroft said. He picked up the bills and started recounting them.

“The Juarez Banty is no average chicken.” Eddie lit a cigarette. “They’ve been breeding them down along the Mexican border for a hundred years now. Its small, sure, but so is a Leghorn or an Ancona. They cross those with the big boys all the time for speed and hybrid vigor.”

“Really,” Ashcroft murmured. His lips moved while he counted.

“Yep. Give ‘em fancy names, but they all come from the big families. Now this Banty here, take a good look at him.” Eddie leaned forward. Ashcroft kept counting. “Beak like a steel trap. Look at those spurs. Black as coal and long as a chicken twice his size. Massive chest. You must have noticed how heavy he is. Little guy feels like he’s made out of concrete. I’ll cross him with a Rhode Island or a Ross Brown, maybe a Wyandotte too. His offspring’ll kill dogs.”

“Huh.” Ashcroft finished counting and stuffed the money into his pocket. “Well, pleasure as always.” He rose.

“Stay for the fights?” Eddie asked.

“And give you a chance to win this money back? Nope. Got a little more business tonight anyways. I’ll stop back by at the end of the night.”

“Fair enough,” Eddie said. They shook hands and Ashcroft left.

Eddie reached down and pulled a beer out of the cooler at his feet. Ashcroft wanted to have a drink. It was probably the social preamble to some deal Ashcroft was going to propose. Eddie listened to the rising volume of the crowd below. There was an unsavory quality to it that made him wish he had earphones. He thought about Christmas music, and even hummed a little of The Eagles version of ‘Please Come Home For Christmas’, but he didn’t have enough juice in his head to make it loud enough. So he focused on the Juarez Banty and let his mind wander through the long string of events that led him to this moment.

It started with the Jamaicans. They had a grim side, very bummer, when it came to grifters crossing their web of activity. There were stories about machetes, that kind of thing, but the truth was that they were reasonable dudes in many ways. When Eddie robbed one of their mules, they invited him to dinner. Over curried goat, a mean old woman told him that he was going to run their chicken warehouse. Eddie protested and offered to return the money. She said no. He couldn’t even remember her name. He was more of a sparrow man, he explained. Parrots. Doves, maybe. But not fighting chickens. Not fighting anything.

“You be a luvah,” she’d said, licking her lips. Her eyes were glassy and yellow.

“Ah, no, not exactly, I’m not married or, I mean-” He stopped talking then. She explained that he was going to run the fights. He was the boy man for the job. They needed a luvah, she explained, rather than a fight enthusiast. Zest, in chicken fight administration, was evidently a bad quality. Distain was preferred instead.

The old school clock above the door ticked away to 10:00 and the first fight. Eddie finished his beer and went out.

There were at least a hundred people on the warehouse floor. The rafters were full. The first round of bets were already flying. Eddie watched his three runners from the doorway of his office.

The bets came out of the rafters and over the heads of the crowd in tennis balls, sliced down the side and stuffed with money and a bearer slip. Eddie watched the action, gauging the amount of money the runners were holding. It wasn’t their money he was after. That belonged to the Jamaicans. But no one said anything about running some action on the side. Case in point, the deal with Ashcroft. It had been a test of sorts. A trial run. If Ashcroft could get an illegal chicken all the way from Mexico to Canada, he could repeat the performance with any number of things. A road had been opened. All Eddie had to do now was decide what to put on it. And if it all blew up, as crime corridors often did, a nosy cop would have a hundred dipshits at an illegal chicken fight to get through before they ever got to him. It was perfect.

The chicken fights always smelled a certain way. Even though it was freezing outside, the inside of the warehouse was a steamy soup of sweat, cologne, and cheap beer. Condensation froze to the bare metal walls. He watched a skinny Laotian kid rev up his contender, a stocky Rhode Island Red. Across the sand pit from him was a greasy white guy in jeans and a flannel shirt with a green baseball cap, checking the feet of a Light Sussex. It was Christmas Eve. Everyone below had family of some kind. At the very least they had a bartender they were close to. And still, here they were.

Eddie narrowed his eyes against the burning haze of cigarette smoke. Part of running the chicken fights was reading the crowd. In the sea of shouting, jostling men, and island of calm was always a bad sign.

The island was Ashcroft, huddled with a group of Russians. Eddie cursed under his breath. The Russians were uniformly big and pasty, with long black leather jackets and greasy hair. It wasn’t hair product fashion grease, either. The one Ashcroft was talking to had the hooded eyes and flat nose of an unsuccessful street fighter. The rest of them were watching the conversation without expression.

The problem with Ashcroft doing business at the chicken fights was that his trading partners often hung around afterwards. It happened at least twice a month, and there was nothing Eddie could do about it. Keeping a low profile was paramount. Now another batch of uninvited gangsters would feel free to come and go as they pleased. And they would probably tell their friends too. This time it was worse. If Ashcroft himself had used the Juarez Banty as a test, then he could be setting up a deal with those Russians. Using the new corridor. That would mean Eddie was already out.

Ashcroft left with two of the Russians and the rest of them stayed and started placing bets. Not good. The room reached full volume as people jockeyed for a better view of the ring and a clear line to the runners. Eddie went down the stairs to the door.

“I see ‘em,” said Rupert the doorman. He tossed his head at the Russians. Rupert was window dressing. He was tall and fat, with beady eyes and a bald head, but his bad guy aura was just a show. Eddie kept him as a doorman because he never hit anyone.

Rupert rolled his toothpick to the other corner of his wide mouth. “Came in about twenty minutes ago while you were in the office with Ashcroft. He just left with two of them.”

“Ever seen them before?”

“Nope.”

“Let me know if they win.”

The Rhode Island and the Sussex were balled up in the ring, rolling back and forth. In the bright light of the hundred-watt bulb over the ring it looked like Siamese chicken twins having a seizure. Men were screaming and shaking their fists. Loaded tennis balls were flying.

Eddie went back to his office and closed the door, sat down on the edge of his desk and studied the Juarez Banty again. Its eyes were clear green, banded with black. The chicken stared back at him with the deadpan gaze of an experienced assassin. Eventually, Eddie draped a cloth over the cage and put it in the corner. There was a knock at the door, loud enough to be audible over the shouting below.

Rupert opened it, flanked by the Russians that had gone out with Ashcroft. They weren’t any more reassuring up close.

“What is it?” Eddie snapped. He blew water off the top of a beer and opened it.

“These guys are looking for Eddie,” Rupert said.

“Eddie Wainwright,” one of the Russians added. He had one hand under his coat.

“He’s downstairs watching the runners,” Eddie said.

Rupert shrugged and licked his thin lips. Beads of sweat stood out on his bald head.

“Show us,” the other Russian commanded.

Eddie got up and led them halfway down the stairs, away from the office to a point where the entire crowd was visible. He pointed down at a man with a full beard and a beer gut, wearing a grubby t-shirt, jeans and heavy snow boots.

“That’s him,” Eddie said. “Poor bastard’s had a rough night, so I hope you have good news.”

“Where is his chicken?” one of them asked. He glanced back up at the office.

“He doesn’t keep them here,” Eddie replied. “He breeds them at his place outside Thornhill. I don’t think he’s fighting any of them tonight, but if he is it’ll be out in the van.”

The Russians looked at each other and went down the stairs. The rest of their group had been watching from the far corner. They met in the middle of the room and huddled briefly, then made their way over to the man Eddie had fingered.

“You better go,” Rupert hissed. “Just sneak out now. I’ll bring the bird to your house later.”

Eddie stared at him. He hadn’t offered Rupert any money. They had a strictly business relationship. He wasn’t even sure Rupert knew where he lived.

“Great,” Eddie said. “Thanks. The chicken’s under my desk. I’ll leave it there and go out through the office window.”

Rupert’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Why not go out the front door?”

The Russians were waving money around, Eddie realized.

“Right,” Eddie said. “My keys are in my jacket. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll go with you,” Rupert replied.

There was a roar from the pit as the action heated up. Eddie wheeled on the stairs and stomped his foot squarely into the middle of Rupert’s face. As the big man tumbled backwards gunfire erupted around the ring.

The next few minutes were utter chaos. Eddie raced to the top of the stairs and looked down on a scene from an unlikely version of Hell, reserved for sinners with unique phobias.

Fighting had erupted everywhere. Beer bottles sailed through the air on long contrails of foam. Mad fighting cocks raced along the heads of the crowd in random melee, bounding off sweaty scalps here and there to clash in midair. The Russians were in the thick of it, bellowing and punching. One of them had the beardo Eddie had fingered in a headlock.

A bullet crashed through the plywood next to Eddie’s head. He ran into the office and slammed the door.

Cut off from the sounds from below he could hear sirens in the distance. He grabbed his coat and the cage with the Juarez Banty and went out the window.

The roof of the warehouse was slick with snow and ice. Eddie cursed and skittered along, his breath coming in white clouds. He made it to the back and dropped down on top of a dumpster. His Cadillac was parked up the street.

The runners had already made it out and were waiting by the car. One by one they thrust their bags of bills and bearer slips into the trunk as the sirens grew louder. None of them were willing to risk the charges that came with holding the bags.

“I guess it’s all over,” said a young Chinese named Pok. The other two shuffled their feet nervously.

“For now,” Eddie replied. “I’ll call you guys in a few days.” He gave them each a hundred dollars and they disappeared. A few men sprinted past as the exodus began. Someone screamed in the distance. More gunfire echoed through the night, at least six shots. Eddie put the Juarez Banty on the seat next to him, started the car and drove away, slouching low in the seat. He passed eight police cruisers on his way out.

When he finally turned into heavy traffic on Westcott he shook a joint out of his cigarette pack. After taking several deep breaths, he thought better of it and fired up a cigarette instead.

The Jamaicans were going to pissed, but they knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. He was their fall guy, and he’d fallen alright, but he’d saved their money and the runners had escaped, so there was that. He gradually calmed as he considered his next move. Maybe he was finally out. Free. Free on Christmas Even no less. Maybe the cosmos was giving him a present. He was ruminating along these lines when he turned on to his street.

Two Russians in black leather jackets were walking down the sidewalk carrying plastic bags. Eddie slid down in the seat and kept driving.

There were more in his house. He could see them moving around through the gaps in the blinds. He drove past without slowing. Ten minutes later he was parked behind a church, drinking gin out of a bottle in a paper bag and trying to figure things out.

#

At 5:38 the Juarez Banty let out a trumpeting crow that echoed like a megaphone blast in the close confines of the car. Eddie jerked bolt upright, his heart in his throat.

It was bitterly cold. A light snow was falling. Eddie opened the door and lurched out into the parking lot. He felt terrible. He had the kind of hangover that could easily be confused with an incipient brain tumor. He groaned and leaned against the car.

He couldn’t go home. His office was out. Whoever these Russians were, they had resources. It was clearly time to leave town for a while. He fished around in his jacket and came up with a bent cigarette. He didn’t have very many options. He smoked and let the freezing wind wake him up. First things first, he decided.

He got coffee and a newspaper at a Korean convenience store down the street called the Hello Happy Deli. He sat in the parking lot with the engine running and the heater on high, reading and sipping the foul black bean water as the sky gradually lightened to a dull gray that promised more snow.

The warehouse fiasco was front-page news, even worse in the end than he’d expected. Four people dead and seventeen arrested. Ashcroft was listed among the deceased. He’d been found in his car with his throat cut.

The worst news was on page three. A jewel repository in Houston Texas had been robbed two days ago. Four hundred thousand in rubies missing. Six people dead. The authorities suspected Russian criminal elements were responsible. Ashcroft had picked up the Juarez Banty in Houston on the same day.

Eddie got on the 401 and headed east.

#

“That stupid bastard,” Eddie snarled. The Juarez Banty was sitting on the rearview again, ignoring him.

It was pretty obvious what had happened. Ashcroft must have brought in the rubies for the Russians and told them to meet him at the chicken fights, where he was already making a delivery. It was good cover, Eddie knew. Something had gone wrong and he had implicated Eddie. They must have known about the business with the Juarez Banty and assumed he was somehow involved.

On impulse he took the Lawrence exit and found a phone booth at a Petro-Canada station. He called his house.

It rang three times and the machine picked up.

“This is Eddie. I’m not here to take your call. Leave a short message at the beep.”

The following tone was almost a minute long, indicating he had more than a dozen messages. He cursed softly. The tone ended.

“Its me,” he said. “Pick up. I know you’re in there. This is Eddie.”

The machine clicked off and there was a rustle as someone picked up the phone.

“You have our merchandise.” It was a deep voice with a thick Russian accent.

“I have a Mexican chicken!” Eddie shouted. “A Juarez Banty, for god sakes! I don’t know what kind of business you had with Ashcroft and I don’t care!”

“Ashcroft said you have our merchandise. He was in no position to lie to us.”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Look man. All I have is a chicken. Ashcroft delivered it to me last night. It came in a wire cage. There aren’t any secret compartments. Figure it out. Ashcroft lied to you.”

“We don’t want the chicken,” the man said. “Ashcroft said you were his partner. Give us our package and we will leave. If not we find you and we take it.”

“I’m not Ashcroft’s partner!” Eddie screamed. “I don’t even know his first name! I hired him to bring me a chicken! I run the chicken fights!”

“We found the safe in the floor under your bed. We destroyed your business,” the man said. “Think of what comes next.”

Eddie slammed the phone down.

#

The Cadillac purred through Pickering and east toward Ajax. The urban sprawl gradually gave way to open industrial spaces lined with leafless trees that looked like skeletal hands poking from the white ground. Every few minutes Eddie ran the wipers to clear the salt grime collecting on the windshield.

“Fresh coffee,” Eddie said aloud, reading from a passing sign. The Juarez Banty opened one eye.

“That never inspires me. Sort of implies they served old coffee at one time. It’s like advertising live dancers. Makes you wonder what kind they have when the sign isn’t flashing.”

The heater was going strong. Warmth seeped into his feet and hands and for the first time that day Eddie felt almost normal. He lit up a cigarette and turned on the radio. Quiet jazz filled the car. The Juarez Banty ruffled its wings.

“You’ll like Port Perry,” Eddie said. “We’ll lay low there until this blows over.”

He hadn’t been back to his hometown in ten years. His mother and sister still lived there. His mother was retired and living on welfare and the cash Eddie mailed from time to time. His sister was a maid at the Motel Six.

He knew he’d be back some day, but he’d put it off as long as he could. Eddie had good memories of growing up in Port Perry, but as he’d gotten older he’d stayed away from the place. He didn’t want to diminish his vision, the near fantasy way he remembered things. In ten years he’d changed as much as the road back, slowly, incrementally, without really noticing it. The new construction boom of tract houses along the highway filled him with a sad sense of foreboding.

Either way, he’d return much as he left. Nearly broke and with no clear future. The thought didn’t cheer him up. He had three thousand in angry Jamaican chicken money, a car and the clothes on his back.

And the Juarez Banty, riding on the rearview and shitting on the dash. Eddie had to smile at the irony of it all. He finally had the perfect chicken, the legendary product of a hundred generations of patient breeding, and he’d probably never get to do anything with it. He never intended to, but this situation was different. The chicken was as worthless as he was. They had a bond now. A strange one, too.

“Hungry, little hombre? Me too.”

He pulled off in Ajax and got a burger at a drive through. He pulled the top bun off and put it on the seat. The Juarez Banty hopped down and pecked at it. Eddie watched him while he ate.

He wondered what his mother would think when he showed up with a miniature rooster. She had no idea what he’d been doing. He patted the chicken on the back. It ignored him.

Whitby looked much the same as it had ten years ago, with the exception of a few ugly mini-malls and outlet stores. The snow came down heavier as he passed through Oshawa. The chicken settled down on the passenger seat.

He could probably get a job at the Motel Six doing janitorial work. The thought made him frown. Eddie didn’t mind work, not really. He just didn’t like working for other people.

Of course he wasn’t qualified for anything but the lowest level shit work. He wasn’t looking forward to being reminded of this every day. Lack of foresight was one thing, but demeaning labor often conveyed something else, an implied stupidity. Vague scenarios of being yelled at over a mopping incident unfolded in his mind. Being scorned for improperly cleaning a toilet. Laughed at for his rookie chops at prying gum out of carpet.

“I have changed,” Eddie said aloud. He looked over at the chicken. “It’s happening right now. With every kilometer we drive we get more worthless, hombre. You’re turning into a ridiculous little foreign bird, and I’m turning into a janitor. Merry Christmas mother fucker. Me and you, we, ah. Shit.” He shook his head. “I guess you’re the best friend I have in the world. That was the Christmas present the cosmos had in store for me.”

The Juarez Banty bocked once, sharply, signifying nothing.

“Yep. We’ll wind up in a trailer somewhere eating TV dinners and watching hockey. I’ll get drunk all day. You’ll scrabble around in the trash and junked-out cars we’ll keep in the front yard.”

The Juarez Banty reared up and flapped its wings. Motes of dust and down filled the air.

“Maybe we can find a dog for you. One with a missing eye and a skin disease. You can ride it around in the trash and finally kick someone’s ass. I can find a nice fat chick that has a few teeth left and we can have some dirty, potbellied kids.”

The Port Perry exit sign loomed out of the snow. Eddie put the blinker on and slowed down. Beside him the Juarez Banty let out a mighty squawk. Its chest swelled and it shook its head.

“I can see the bright lights of Hell, boy,” Eddie murmured. The snow fell harder, obscuring almost everything.

The Juarez Banty arched its back and opened its beak wide. Eddie glanced over at it. The hamburger bun had been a bad idea. It was about to expel the messy contents of its gizzard all over the seat.

A thin string of wet bun shot out of the back of the chicken’s throat, along with a glistening red gizzard stone.

Eddie pulled over and turned on the hazard lights. He leaned closer to inspect the sputum, then picked up the red stone and wiped it off on his pants.

It was a ruby, with brilliant facets, about the size of a caper. He reached over and felt the chicken’s gizzard. It was hard and full.

“I’ll be damned,” Eddie whispered. He looked out at the snow. The Port Perry off ramp was just ahead. The Cadillac surged forward as he hit the gas and tore past it.

Ashcroft must have put the stones in the chicken’s feed at some point to hide them, and the Juarez Banty had taken them. They were the perfect size for gizzard stones, and they were shiny to boot. The bird had no choice.

The business Ashcroft wanted to discuss probably entailed taking the chicken back at gunpoint after he threw off the Russians. They must have twisted the information out of him and left him dead in his car.

Eddie whistled. A new sign appeared through the snow and a huge grin spread across his face. He unconsciously rolled his shoulders into the tailored fit of his Italian shirt and checked the buff on his shoes. The dark vision of cleaning toilets and pulling gum out of carpets gave way to the bright dream of a nightclub with a full bar and a jazz band, big-chested waitresses and long, smoky nights that ended in a hot tub with a scenic dawn in the background.

Montreal, 444 kilometers.

 

I Can Almost Taste The Color Of That Song

I was walking back from the store this morning thinking about the hypothetical Fourth Industrial Revolution and paradigm shift and I got lost in my own fucking neighborhood. When I realized I was lost, it took me a few minutes to become ‘unlost’. I did this by listening for distant traffic patterns and then triangulating my position. Then, I got lost again.

Patterns. There was something there that got me lost that second time. I thought about specialization. I wrote about it in Tattoo Machine, and I think about it off and on to this day. Economics is one of the driving forces in human specialization. There are people who make their living, sometimes for their entire lives, doing one very, very small thing that is part of something far, far larger. Take a person who works in a capacitor assembly plant. Those capacitors will find their way into any number of things. Specialization is where everyone is increasingly making one tiny piece of a vast puzzle, over and over, without ever gaining a comprehensive view of the Big Picture.

At least that’s one way to look at it. Economics is also responsible for laying the foundation of what may be the paradigm shift that will drive elements of a shift in the arts that might coincide with the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution. That foundation is (drum roll) multi-specialization. I have an interesting case study for it conveniently located inside me. A film producer or two hypothesized that a guy (me) who had a background in music, a 30 year career as a visual artist, and solid book reviews might have the ingredients of a director. More, those ingredients had been fired in separate kilns, as it were, so the results could well be interesting.

That may or may not be true, but it got me thinking about that elusive ‘Big Picture’ I’m always wondering about. I know many musicians, and almost all of them are multi-specialists. They are driven to be because of our current revolution, the digital one. Pandora, etc. They don’t make shit off music anymore, but they still do it. It pays half the bills, so they also do something else. Some of them are visual artists. Some are chefs. You get the picture. The point is that a great many ‘creatives’ (what a stupid word) are multi-disciplinary professionals nowadays. That number is growing. And growing. And growing.

 

par·a·digm shift

noun

a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.

 

Fourth Industrial Revolution (Wikipedia)

The Fourth Industrial Revolution builds on the Digital Revolution, representing new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the human body.[10] The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, computing, biotechnology, The Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing and autonomous vehicles.

Well I’ll be. Look at the fields in that revolution. Each has in its design ancestry the constituent components of an encyclopedia of other fields. So I wonder… What if the economic pressure that drove multi-specialization in the arts is similar. Maybe, just maybe, we’re on the cusp of something grand because of it. Everything is linked in the puzzle of The Big Picture. Is it possible that right alongside the above revolution we’ll see an explosion of new forms of creativity? Arts that don’t yet have a name?

That’s why I got lost the second time. Happy Holidays!

 

Film Update

This wasn’t even my idea. But it seemed like an okay deal at the time. I was in LA, helping pitch a project I’d written to a famed producer we’ll call Brian. He was delighted and as luck would have it, his gal likes my books. We go back too, Brian and I. He likes the same kind of food and I have many culinary pen pals. He’s one of them. “Why don’t you direct this?” Brian asked. “Take a few classes and then get in the big chair. You can see this.”

I took those classes. The film project in question was not mine, however. I’d written it for another producer, a good guy too, but the contract was clear. I make things for money. Its what I do for a living. Books these days, but I still do some art. This project had minimum wage written all over it. Even Brian warned me after he looked at the contract. It was a five dollar an hour deal I did in the middle of winter in between paying writer gigs and it didn’t look like it would get any better. Those deals were all dead ends, and using my new connections to sell them struck everyone as insane. So, I wrote something new.

Short Bus! It was an idea that had been percolating in my head for a few years. It came out fast and easy. We presented it to Brian, a very busy man, and low, it was not developed enough. I had a script, and we had some ideas on what to do next, but… what we actually had was a script and some very vague ideas. He was not impressed. What seemed easy was going to be not so easy.

Two critical things happened then. Our development producer got a better offer and off he went to greener pastures. The pivotal short film The Kinjiku, which should have been in progress according to Brian, was derailed in the same move. So I had to think about it. In truth, as I said, this was not my idea in the first place. I know a great number of people in Hollywood now, more every week, but in general I can’t say I enjoy the climate all that much. Writing is fun. Art is fun. Going to LA and yammering with bean counters and ever so slightly predatory people is only kinda fun. Sometimes not too fun at all. Sometimes tiring. I missed my gal’s last birthday on an unpaid pitch trip for that last producer, selling material I had no financial stake in, as part of a creative partnership that wasn’t what we all thought it was. It was just soul free mad dog business with artificial cake frosting. Before that fateful meeting with Brian, I’d decided to leave the screenplay material on my last computer and shelve it forever. Brian is a great guy. The Nelms Brothers, those are great guys and visionaries, a pleasure to interact with. They form the gold standard. At the other, bigger end of the spectrum are the hustlers, and in Hollywood they are everywhere. Money attracts them like flies. The creepy ambition of empty fame does too. Weirdly, even the ‘rich’ ones are among the most impoverished people I know. Beyond the smoke and mirrors, everyone is mysteriously, tragically broke. In addition, there is a deeply troubling Art Of Life scarcity in that environment. The whole perusing obscure cookbooks, bird watching at dawn, listening to music with your eyes closed, staring into the dream of a painting instead of a television, savoring bread you made from scratch… Nah man. Why the hell would I want anything more to do with it?

The tiring new sequence of events is thus- make the short film. No more meetings, no more talking in circles, no more maybes, no more delays. It’s a showcase and networking tool. I decided to do it, if it was easy, if it came together in a way that didn’t leave me doing my work and the work of everyone else. Amazingly, with one phone call it all came together. That opened a new floodgate, too. And a new set of problems I’m not entirely sure I feel like dealing with. Financiers all have opinions. Looking at Short Bus, the most common reaction is this- “Nice script. Solid. Inventive. Noir is hot baby. You need a casting director, DP, first AD, locations of course, and I mean researched ones that have been worked through, a line producer, insurance, accounting, contracts manager, all kinds of things. Looks like you have a couple of these but you’ve really barely even begun. First steps first. Presentation? Budget? No? Wow! Just this script? Well well well. What else do you have?” And then Short Bus is only one of three projects. And it isn’t winning. The modern urban fantasy script for Bauble and the neo noir script for Private Lingerie are more mobile, as in location, and those investors already have people in place who can develop them from page to screen. As soon as I’m done with The Kinjiku, of course. Which better be good.

“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” Albert Einstein said that. The question is whether to seize the opportunity or let it go. And am I in the middle? The middle of what, exactly? The best way to answer that question is with another question. I do well enough as a writer that my gal and I talk sometimes about getting a little ranch. I worked incredibly hard to get here. I endured much in the way of hardship. I really did the whole starving writer thing, like in real life. Would I rather be there in the country, tending goats and dabbling in pottery and painting landscapes and writing on the patio in the afternoon, or would I rather be fighting yet another creative uphill battle surrounded by destitute, often desperate people I have little in common with…

Sometimes I think I write so that I can read what I’m thinking.

 

Writing Advice I Found Useful

Top of the charts, the most valuable piece of advice I ever received came from KW Jeter. He lived in Portland at one point, and even though he didn’t especially enjoy being bugged by the obnoxious kids with pens (we did bug him, and we were mighty obnoxious), he always carved out a little time for us. He read a few of my short stories when I was ready, and on the pages of one of them he circled a paragraph and wrote ‘air duct’ in the margin. Blue ballpoint, I’ll never forget. My feckless protagonist had just found an easy way out of an impossible situation, but there was no air duct involved. I asked him what he meant and his stern reply will be etched in my mind forever. “This is not a Bruce Willis movie, Jeff. This is literature.”

Next up, cool guy Robert Sawyer. I took a workshop of his in Toronto. It was through the main library, and the deal was that you mailed your short story and he would check it out and give you critical feedback. Great guy it turns out, though as I waited my turn I was increasingly apprehensive. I sat in the lobby listening to him tear another proto writer a new asshole and I thought, shit, the story I sent is about tamales. I am so, so fucked. The other writer staggered out and I went in. Sawyer looked at me and then held up my printed story. He ripped off the first two pages and threw them away. Then he smiled. “Start with the most interesting passage. That often means throwing out your first few pages, even though they’re the ones you spent the most time polishing.” That story went on to be published, one of my early ones. The Tamale God, in On Spec.

Robert Sheckley. What a great guy. He lived in Portland for a few years and had a friendly relationship with any young writer who approached him. I was in a bookstore recently (I won’t be back to that one) and I picked up a copy of one of his books. The owner smiled slyly and then simpered on about how this kind and generous man had made and lost fortunes, how he’d had great ups and low, low downs, intimating that she was privy to many dark secrets. That pitiful bookstore also sells yarn. What a small human. Sheckley had so many glorious things to share, but at the top of the list was something this sour mouth gossip might learn from- “Have an interesting life. It’s makes creating interesting things much easier.”

I had the excellent good fortune to run into Kim Stanley Robinson at the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. I turned around and there he was, standing right behind me! Unbelievable! One of my all time favorite writers. We chatted, or more accurately I gushed, and after a few minutes we moved on to science and books and a great deal more. He didn’t really hold with genre constraints, it seemed. He had a great many ideas. What struck me most was his optimism. The take away from that conversation dovetailed perfectly with Sheckley’s advice. Explore ideas widely, and the looking itself will change you for the better if you let it. What good news! I read Phys.org every morning to catch up on the science news and I can’t help but feel hopeful when I do.

John Irving. I had dinner with him and I was amazed on many levels. What a guy. A great writer obviously, but a great storyteller as well. He has this way about him. Youthful, it seemed, but in reality it was his incredible stamina. As I sat across from him I realized that this was a man who had no retirement plans. Not when it comes to the things that matter. Keep going was his message.

There’s much more of course, but those are the pieces of advice I’ve been thinking about most recently. Read broadly, outside of your comfort zone. All of them said that. Feed your passions healthy food. We all know the difference. Magnificent that all that great writerly advice applies to life itself. Check out greatpinkskeleton.com for updates as we close out a fantastic year. My favorite books by each of these great writers (and buy a NEW copy if you can)-

KW Jeter- Noir

Noir is a great book. So, so strange. Haunting. Dr. Adder, you have to read that book to understand the impact Jeter had and continues to have on the genre. Pretty much all of his stuff is a great buy at the bookstore, so stock up for the holidays. Jeter is one of the three protégés, or cosmic offspring, of Philip K Dick. Tim Powers is another. I liked his book Declare, and Last Call was a rippin’ read. The third Kosmonaut is James P Blaylock. The Last Coin is so damn good. So is The Rainy Season. Blaylock is a very gifted man, and he’s getting even better. But in my mind, Jeter is the closest to Dick in style and vision. If you enjoyed Philip K Dick, give Jeter a try if you haven’t already.

Robert Sawyer- End Of An Era

Science fiction is a tad pompous on occasion, and Sawyer is what he is. This book is where he rocks out with his eyes closed. Astonishing, but it appears that the great Robert Sawyer has left the field. Publishers squeezed him too hard for too long and he finally told them to fuck themselves and went to work for Hollywood. I bet he’s only the first to go, too. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Robert Sheckley- Soma Blues

I love this novel. This is the third book in the Alternative Detective series. Hob, the protagonist, is clearly Bob. The pacing is unique, with some chapters weighing in at a single page, but it’s the reflective moments that steal the afternoon. Also, Nigel and Jean Claude, two of the best characters in the three books, really rise to the occasion. Their dialogue, their thoughts, all superbly realized. Sheckley lived in Ibiza for years, and in Soma Blues you can feel his love of the place.

Kim Stanley Robinson- Escape From Kathmandu

This is a short story collection! I love all of Robinson’s work. The Science In The Capital books are so good, so educational, so beautifully crafted, that they merit a second and third look. The Years Of Rice And Salt is a masterpiece. The Mars books, incredible one and all. Loved them. Shaman. If I ever get lost in the woods and I survive, it will be because I read that book twice. But there is a special magic in the Kathmandu stories. In the movie Box of Moonlight, people are presented with aspects of themselves in the very different Bucky and Al Fountain. In the Kathmandu stories, you are presented with the best parts of yourself in the very different Fred and Freds. Jung would have freaked out like a motherfucker. Check ‘em out and you’ll see what I mean.

John Irving- Cider House Rules

I love so many of Irving’s books. Garp, Owen, great characters, great stories, superb craftsmanship. Irving won the Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of Cider House Rules. Impressive in the extreme. Garrison Keillor is a great storyteller. A friend of mine, the late Utah Phillips (himself a fantastic storyteller), was on his show more than once and said that when he did the Lake Wobegon segment, Keillor walked through the audience with a wireless mic and a single flashcard. The audience was so mesmerized that you couldn’t even hear them for long minutes at a time, and the story itself unfolded with five or six small notes Keillor had written on the card. Irving is a storyteller like that. Go to one of his readings if you get a chance.

The Three Phases of Portland Rain

One- I love this shit! Ridley Scott is right! When everything is wet, by God, I can see in the dark. A trillion small reflective surfaces… I am like a bat. And Fall. This makes me want to re read The Hobbit. Eat squash soup. Go mushroom hunting like those LL Bean Carhartt beardo dudes.

Two- The holidays! Man I can’t believe it! Its still raining! Noir Christmas! 24 hour black and white TV reality… Netflix. Better watch Daredevil season one again. Have to get an espresso machine too. Or take vitamins. Can’t wake up. Seems like this happened last year, but- I can’t remember.

Three- When I moved here I did it for all the wrong reasons. I don’t know what they were, just that they were wrong wrong wrong. That Chinese lady is staring at me. LA is empty these days, I’m sure I saw that in the middle of the night on TV. They have a palm tree there. I have to get out of this country entirely. I can change my name. Start over in… Chile. I am Enrique Sandoval.

Reporter John Hannibal Shore on The Nature of The News

“The truth about the news remained the only constant thing about it, year after year, century after century. When money changes hands for a story, some element of it became fiction. Journalism was a lie because of it, a useful tool because lies are useful, and at the heart of it was the relentless fiction that it was no lie at all. Without witnessing an event, the only true news was ever distilled from gossip. A story becomes popular about a graveyard, or mice, or unseasonable winds. The popularity, the way its told, who tells it and who listens, all can be used as markers on a map, and once your pins are pushed into it, you can step back and behold the tidal slush of a population, its humors and strange delights, and from the very nature of this fabric distill the essence of the day. Squeeze a handful of gossip and get one drop of truth. Squeeze a handful of newsprint and get a curl of papery smoke. Journalism will always be the misbegotten orphan of the science and passion of the word. The real news never left the world, but went into hiding, in the lyrics of songs and the rambling of the poets who could remain uncontaminated by the cute retardation of academia. Real news is in the lazy language of midwives and barkeeps, and in the opinions of those mad enough to enjoy a natural immunity to the brainwashing of my trade. The unbridled insanity of a concept like ‘circulation numbers’, and how even a child might intuit how it would lead overnight to clientism and propaganda, well. The fine and ancient art of storytelling suffers there.”

From Grand Estuary Grand

Reporter John Hannibal Shore on the nature of The News

“The truth about the news remained the only constant thing about it, year after year, century after century. When money changes hands for a story, some element of it became fiction. Journalism was a lie because of it, a useful tool because lies are useful, and at the heart of it was the relentless fiction that it was no lie at all. Without witnessing an event, the only true news was ever distilled from gossip. A story becomes popular about a graveyard, or mice, or unseasonable winds. The popularity, the way its told, who tells it and who listens, all can be used as markers on a map, and once your pins are pushed into it, you can step back and behold the tidal slush of a population, its humors and strange delights, and from the very nature of this fabric distill the essence of the day. Squeeze a handful of gossip and get one drop of truth. Squeeze a handful of newsprint and get a curl of papery smoke. Journalism will always be the misbegotten orphan of the science and passion of the word. The real news never left the world, but went into hiding, in the lyrics of songs and the rambling of the poets who could remain uncontaminated by the cute retardation of academia. Real news is in the lazy language of midwives and barkeeps, and in the opinions of those mad enough to enjoy a natural immunity to the brainwashing of my trade. The unbridled insanity of a concept like ‘circulation numbers’, and how even a child might intuit how it would lead overnight to clientism and propaganda, well. The fine and ancient art of storytelling suffers there.”

From Grand Estuary Grand

Every Day Should Be April Fools’ Day

The list of bad shit going down, written in small letters, could be penned on a roll of toilet paper that would wrap around the Earth. What, Dear Reader, are we to do about this? I myself cannot take down a corporation at this time. Same with the frat wad Supreme Court drunk. Monsanto. Big Oil. You can’t either. Let’s look to April Fools’ Day and our beaten, diminished, comical at this point patriotism.

We have to be ready, at all times, to run a comedy burn on The Man. Its only one answer, but if we can all get behind it, we can make a difference. Dildogate, where superhero Josie Butler bounced a pink dildo off the face of New Zealand MP Steven Joyce? That should have been the beginning. Suggestions? Email them to each other. Talk to your friends. Here’s a good one to get you started.

A guy I know here in Portland was visiting a bartender friend at an upscale place, a little out of his element among the rich, but smooth about it. In walks Night Man, five thousand dollars of suit wrapped around a human finance shark. His awe inspiring cologne was a mélange of crushed souls, enslaved blond, and testosterone, with a dash whatever a mountain of gold smells like.

My friend, henceforth to be referred to as Dudeboy, checks out Night Man and then watches as he chews on the staff, barks finance jabber to a lackey on his phone, and generally dominates. Then Night Man crossed the line and nibbled on Dudeboy’s gal, the bartender.

Dudeboy saw Night Man drive up in a Mercedes Extra Deluxe Stretch Supreme Omega. He went right outside and walked over to the bar’s cardboard recycling bin. Bums shit back there sometimes. Dudeboy tore a leaf of cardboard free, scooped up a really ripe dollop of bum squeeze, and went to the Night Man’s car and scraped it off under the door handle on the driver’s side.

Later, when Night Man touched it, then raised it to his nose to find out what it was, he screamed high and long, like a frightened rabbit.

Let’s get to work!

A Brochure For Three Days In The Lincoln Islands- Free Short Story Of The Month, Oct.

The year passed like most years, walking too far most days. Freddy Lincoln’s corduroy pants smelled like sugar pee after the machine broke. His tee shirt took on cat. Freddy was tidy and they had no pets. Sissy, who was cross eyed, took to their clothes with hair spray, but it backfired and made them sticky so they shampooed them in the bathtub once a month.

“Daddy call on the kitchen phone,” Sissy said. She was eating something black out of a bowl. Sissy had a fake fur coat that was getting small. “Tole me he ain’t comin’ home on the weekend.”

“He get the new CB?” They were small talking, like animals do. They were good at it.

Sissy nodded. “The big un. Says he pulls up to another rig real close it’ll turn their radio inta melted junk.”

Later that day at recess, Freddy kicked the red ball over the fence and the other kids watched it fly like bird for what seemed like forever. As Freddy slowly rounded the bases with his head down, watching his old flat shoes, everyone whispered about how his dog died that morning, and how he buried it himself in their pigsty of a yard, in a hole he dug with his hands.

Read the rest at http://www.greatpinkskeleton.com

There are, I am certain, ghostly memes that track through time along family lines, generation after generation. For example, take a man who was in many ways average but then fought in the Civil War and became a different man because of it. Not a good man, either. Violent, scarred, and broken in a way that made him capable of ‘evil’ great or small, in some way it can be said that he ‘caught’ something contagious. His sons will have it, as these aberrant behavioral characteristics will be taught to them at a formative age. Some of them break the cycle and some don’t. The unlucky ones treat themselves and the world around them as they were treated, and the ghost travels through them into the next generation. And so it walks, from a terrible birth on a battlefield into the present and the future. The strong offspring will be troubled, but if they sail into deeper waters, they can shear off the dark passenger in that stronger wind.

I have one of these in my family, rampaging through time on my father’s side. It was a sickly ghost as they go, diminished from its long trip through the ages, so it may have come into being before the example above. An old, old ghost. I won’t be passing it along, but scary enough, I appear to be the first of the line to be free. Happy Halloween!