Benjamin Whitmer's Blog, page 24

Guns, Books, Etc.

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It's taken me awhile to get John Hiatt. But now I do. Got the complete catalogue, and I figure I'll bother with someone else about this time next year.
That is, if Leonard Cohen weren't releasing a new album this year. Which you can hear streaming from NPR in its entirety.
The patron saint of Slowboat Films.
Thinking of Tim Tebow: "Sexual innocence, which can be charming in the young if not needlessly protracted, is positively corrosive and repulsive in the mature adult."
Self-punishment tools.
I have one of these, only mine has wood stocks and was made by Winchester about 75 years ago. (File under: really stupid tactical shit.)
Bleeding zombie targets I can get behind, however.

My first Noir at the Bar, four reviews, a new knife

First, an announcement. On February 21st I'll be taking part in my very first Noir at the Bar in St. Louis. I don't know the name of the bar yet, nor who I'll be reading with, but I've been waiting for awhile for a chance to do this, and cannot wait. I'll post details as they come.

Satan is Real is still getting more press than I ever imagined it would have. The latest is that The Daily Beast picked it as one of This Week's Top Reads, the Hartford Courant was very kind to it, the Associated Press published a great in-house review that ran in a ton of papers, and Mary Colurso of The Birmingham News wrote one of the best pieces yet.

It has been a very good run, and I know I've been incredibly fortunate. Noting that, a couple of people have asked me how I've been celebrating. Well, the answer is that I haven't really. I've got another novel I'm working on, so I've been doing that. And I've been playing with a short story, which has been a lot of fun. But that's what I'm always doing.

So I finally went out the other day and did something specifically to celebrate.

I bought a new knife.

Here's a picture of it. With my carry gun, because, y'know, that's how you're supposed to do things.

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It's bigger than my usual Case knife, but not quite a tactical folder. I even went with the wood in hopes that it would look a little less tactical.

Frankly I don't have much interest in carrying a knife for self defense. I don't practice with a knife, and know next to nothing about fighting with one. Besides which, that's why I have the big L-shaped thing above it. But I wanted something a little larger, with a clip and a lock, so now I have one.

So far it's been hell on apples, cheese, sausage, and pencils — the staples of my diet.

Guns, Books, Etc.

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"'It doesn't appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she's not being charged with that,' said Lynn Kimbrough, a spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney's Office."
The Lego Book of Job.
"I'm not a scientist. I don't hold any degrees. I just keep my mind open and take the time to do the research. I've tried to piece it all together for you with "Conspiracy Cards" to help you understand the bigger picture. I remain optimistic and hopeful my Conspiracy Cards and Truther Toy concepts will be useful as a visual aid and help people discuss these uncomfortable subjects."
James Bond is a prick.
"Tebowing is the act of kneeling down for a moment of silent prayer. It is what Tim Tebow does after he scores touchdowns, and what other people do when they want to mask the horror and alienation of modern life by participating in a meme."
My favorite Jersey bullshitter doing the Louvin Brothers' "Satan's Jeweled Crown."
"A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city."

Mateo Romero, Craig McDonald, a Satan Is Real review and interview, a new true crime piece, the joys of Facebook, three great albums

I took my kids to the Denver Art Museum over the weekend, and we got sucked into a great exhibit by an artist we'd never heard of, Mateo Romero. There were two paintings on display, the first being Bank Job (Bonnie and Clyde, Series #2):

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And the second, Voices at Wounded Knee, Series #2:

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It was a great exhibit, and included a video rig by which you could see Romero talk about his process, influences, and what he does with his downtime. Which included reading comic books and shooting guns, two things near and dear to the Whitmer clan.

Anyway, if you're around the Denver Art Museum, I highly recommend it. Me and the kids have been talking about it all week.

Media stuff around Satan Is Real has still been happening, of course, I've just been lazy about posting. Knoxville.com gave the book a really nice review, and Chris Mateer of the Uprooted Music Review interviewed me. There are several more write-ups to come that I know of, and I'll post those sometime around when they show up.

I've also got a true crime piece in Crime Factory 9 about a punk rock star I knew who was murdered. It comes thanks to a buddy of mine, Paul Schenk, who was much closer to her than I was, and worked on the piece with me. You can download it here.

I also finally read Craig McDonald's One True Sentence, which Charlie Stella has been recommending for a long time. And, yeah, it's spectacular. Anybody who has read this blog for any length of time knows I have a complicated relationship with Hemingway. But not with this book. It's beautiful. And the more so because, for all it does everything a crime novel should do, it'll change the way you read Hemingway. Especially the story "Clean Well-Lighted Place."

Switching topics, I don't really know about half of the people I'm friends with on Facebook. Which is fine. I just accept anyone who wants to be friend and who ain't obviously linked to a porn site, and don't worry about it much.

As a consequence, I've gotten to know some interesting folks over the last couple of years. Like the gentleman who posted the following:

So, I became concerned about my son's anger about a week ago. He keeps posting right here on facebook statuses of angered responses, a picture of his bloody hand, and his bad language. These are things I didn't raise him to do. I call his mother about his issues. I ask her to monitor his online activity and to get him some counseling. By the way, his mother and I have been divorced for ten years. She kind of shuffles it off as no big deal. That night, my son unfriends me just because I love him and am concerned about his mental state. I saw him last weekend briefly and he ignored me! I want to be angry at him but I don't want to be at the same time. I want to give up my rights to him but I don't because I only have a year left of paying child support to him and I love him enough to reconcile with him in the future. What he doesn't know is I wanted to leave his mother before he was born. She had been raped by a black man within days before my son was conceived. I stuck around mainly to see if the child was mine. If he would've been black, I could leave. He was white instead. I've been grateful ever since. Due to his nearly 1 1/2 years absence and his hatred for my wife and me, I sometimes want to give up on him. I love him dearly. I want him back. But, he causes me too much pain right now.

I'm pretty sure I don't wanna know that asshole in any capacity. But, Jesus, how wonderful to have this social media world where everyone can let their ass can hang out, no matter how large or fucking ugly.

Lastly, somebody asked me recently if I'd posted a Best Of 2011 list anywhere. And the answer is no, and I'm not planning to. But I thought I would point to a few of the albums that really destroyed me this year. In no particular order:

Slim Cessna's Auto Club — Unentitled

Everybody knows Slim Cessna's Auto Club is the best live band in the world. But I'll make a case any day that they're one of the best bands in the world, period. And that Slim and Munly are the best gospel duo since Charlie and Ira, if I may say so myself.

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Josh T. Pearson — Last of the Country Gentlemen

This album fucked me up pretty good. There was one research trip to the San Luis Valley, where I don't think I listened to anything else, and I probably owe him royalties on my next novel I listened to him so much while writing it. One man, a guitar, and buckets full of heartbreak. In other words, perfect.

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Scott H. Biram — Bad Ingredients

Scott H. Biram's been one of my favorites for awhile, and this is, to my mind, his best album. It's rough, gorgeous, heartfelt, and lonesome. And if you spill beer on its guitars, it'll get down off the stage and kick your ass.

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That's all I got.

Quote

From Stephen Graham Jones, who's talking about music at his place.

And, working a library job cataloging media ten or twelve years ago, I finally got around to all of Bruce Springsteen, and lines like "her body tan and wet down at the reservoir," I'll fight for them if you want. Any day of the week. Enough that I'm currently trying to raise two kids on a steady background of Springsteen and Seger, just to guarantee they grow up to be good people. Because I sure don't know how to tell them what to do.

The rest.

In and Out of Harmony

All right, so this is one I've been sweating, but tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will be running a full review of Satan Is Real. Which you can read tonight on the internet. It is far, far nicer than I expected.

Novelist Benjamin Whitmer's contribution to "Satan Is Real" is unobtrusive and masterful. Without sacrificing Charlie's rambunctious, sometimes brutal style, he has shaped a collection of anecdotes into a graceful, coherent narrative.

The rest.

Peter Cooper On Music: Still loving Charlie Louvin

The Tennessean ran a review of Satan Is Real and the documentary Charlie Louvin: Still Rattlin' the Devil's Cage yesterday. It was really nice to see an article from somebody who knew Charlie.

The kind folks at JuddFilms and Neltner Creative sent me a copy of Charlie Louvin: Still Rattlin' the Devil's Cage over the weekend, and it's wonderful. You can learn more about it here.

Or watch the trailer:

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Look what I got in the mail

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That'd be Hell's Belles: Prostitution, Vice, and Crime in Early Denver: With a Biography of Sam Howe, Frontier Lawman, which I've been hunting in used bookstores for awhile now and finally gave in an ordered, and Theodore Roosevelt On Race Riots Reds Crime, which I found out about recently from a friend, and am told is just as insane as I want it to be.

Some days the mail is very good to me.

Satan Is Real: The Gospel Darkness of the Louvin Brothers

I'm over at the New Yorker's Book Bench blog, running down some of my favorite Louvin Brothers songs. Just so you know.

"…something scary and washed in the blood…"

Naomi Johnson was kind enough to review Satan Is Real on her blog, The Drowning Machine. This is the kind of review that means the world to me, coming from a life-long Louvin Brothers fan.

I could talk forever about the music of The Louvin Brothers, and how, like The Beatles' music, it has been a soundtrack to my life. The Louvins wrote and played the kind of country music that modern Nashville pretty well tries to pretend it has outgrown, somewhat like a self-conscious teenager who is ashamed of his uncool parents. Emmylou Harris may have said it best: "There was something scary and washed in the blood about the sound of the Louvin Brothers."

For those who know their music, beyond the melodies, beyond Ira Louvin's incredible songwriting talent, beyond the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, beyond all of it lie the most incredible vocal harmonies in American music. The two brothers sang gospel, folk ballads, bluegrass, honky tonk, and they sang all of it with conviction. And their impact on other musicians was bigger than they could have realized. From the Everly Brothers to Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Ray Charles, Elvis Costello, Raul Malo, Alison Krauss, and so many more — Vince Gill said, "You can't find anybody, I don't think, that was not inspired by them." My dad sure was. My dad had a beautiful old Martin guitar, a 00021 I think, from about 1947, and my siblings and I grew up singing old-timey gospel songs at home and at church as he sang and played along. There weren't many songs by the Louvins we didn't know, and their songs were always our favorites whenever we sang at revivals or songfests or just sat around the living room with relatives and friends, telling family stories and singing as the mood took us.

The rest.