Ed Gorman's Blog, page 69

Headlines that shouldn't be true but are

Florida man arrested by impatient cop as credit card verification
stalls at nightclub

Police departments using private funds to buy spy tech originally
developed for the CIA

Oft-cited ‘total *sshole’ physicist credited in scientific literature
is a fake

‘Grow a spine!’: Huckabee explodes at GOP for giving up as gays break
‘nature’s law’ of marriage

Man on week-long acid trip ends crime spree after victim takes him to
McDonald’s

NIH director: We’d have an Ebola vaccine by now if not for budget cuts

Wiwa Indians killed by lightning during a tribal ceremony in Colombia
to be left unburied

Oklahoma man will keep Obama tombstone in Halloween display despite
complaints

WATCH: NASA excitedly prepares for ‘once in a lifetime’ viewing of
comet narrowly missing Mars

Billions set aside for post-Saddam Iraq turns up in Lebanese bunker

Disgruntled employee steals train, goes on joyride before colliding
with another train

Alabama school makes 5-year-old sign contract stating she won’t kill or
commit suicide

Prescription drugs flushed into the environment could be cause of
wildlife decline: study

Blasphemy! Paul Krugman rates Obama’s legacy as more ‘consequential’
than Reagan’s

NY Comic Con embraces consent with zero tolerance ‘keep your hands to
yourself’ policy

Elizabeth Warren: Obama sided with Wall Street over people losing their
homes

Edward Snowden: State surveillance in Britain beyond anything seen in
the US

Britain to hunt for King Harold's body to test theory about his death

Texas health worker with Ebola wore full protective gear

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Thunderbirds Are Go! as remake launches with a bang

Hip-hop therapy is new route to mental wellbeing, say psychiatrists

Mom tried to kill daughters after receiving ‘end of the world’ messages
from estranged pastor husband

Elizabeth Warren: Obama sided with Wall Street over people losing their
homes

Fox News guest: Upskirt victims ‘made a conscious choice to wear
certain clothes’

SNL: Racist reporter interviews ethnic teens at a virginity pledge rally

Fox News host grills Tony Perkins: ‘What’s the damage to you’ if your
neighbors are gay married?

Next time your creationist friends reject evolution, show them this
video

People against GMOs most likely have no idea what they are



Ohio pastor forced vasectomies, abortions because kids divert money
away from church: report

Forbidden fruit: Red state Internet searchers more likely to hunt for
porn, study finds

Fox News host proposes Ebola quarantine ‘centers’ for every city in the
US

Five scary Christopher Columbus quotes that let you celebrate the
holiday the right way

Reality TV star Jim Bob Duggar pushes birth control falsehood: The pill
‘can be abortive’

Illinois man stabbed elderly woman in grocery store because she was
black, police say

Parent upset teacher not fired for attacking evolution, comparing
public schools to Nazi death camps

The NY Times is so broke it's offering poorly researched, potentially
dangerous tours of Iran


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Cop's threat to AZ immigrant caught on video: 'If you do something, I
will kill you right here'

Sears pulls Swastika ring after Twitter outrage

GOP congressman: ‘I’m not talking about guns necessarily’ to fight a
Bible-based revolution

Right-wing Jimmy John’s forbids employees from making competitors’
sandwiches for two years

Salman Rushdie slams 'Islamophobe' label: It's right to be hostile to
extremism

REVEALED: NBC medical expert violated Ebola quarantine to get takeout

Men’s rights activist says ‘men will have their dicks severed’ at
all-female Portland comedy fest

Colorado family stunned: Cop breaks in, fatally shoots man in back, and
‘no one knows why’

Animal rights activists victorious as Supreme Court leaves California's
foie gras ban intact

Italian nurse accused of killing 38 patients because they were
‘annoying’

Mocked by the conservative press, disabled man at Wendy Davis event
hits back on Facebook

Jon Stewart: Political fundraising emails like a ‘Nigerian prince
selling a Groupon deal for boner pills’

New Reviews for Riders On The Storm Published Tomorrow

Riders on the Storm - Ed Gorman     from Rough Edges
If you want to learn about small-town life in America during the turbulent era stretching from the late Fifties to the early Seventies, forget the history books. Just read Ed Gorman's Sam McCain series. It's as perfect a recreation of a time and place (Black River Falls, Iowa, the town where Sam works as a lawyer) as you're ever likely to find. The latest one, and the final book in the series, is RIDERS ON THE STORM, like all the others titled for a song that was popular when it takes place.

As usual, there's a well-plotted mystery for Sam to solve. A psychologically troubled, anti-war Vietnam vet is arrested for the murder of another veteran, a successful businessman and aspiring politician who had beaten up the accused man at a party because of his anti-war views. Sam is friends with the man and doesn't believe he's guilty of murder, so he begins his own investigation to find the real killer. It'll come as no surprise that things are a lot more complicated than they appear to be at first, and Sam puts his own life in danger by trying to sort everything out and clear his friend's name.

Over and above the mystery angle, though, the strongest appeal of the Sam McCain books is Sam himself, with his melancholy yet hopeful observations about life and the people he knows in Black River Falls. Plus all the mentions of the music, the books, the TV shows and movies, that make the novels seem so real for those of us who lived through those days. In so many ways, Ed is us, and we are him.

I've long since given up the pretense of objectivity where Ed's books are concerned. I've been reading and enjoying his books for more than 30 years, the same amount of time that we've been friends. But it's not like I'm the only one praising them, either. He's widely hailed, and rightly so, as one of the best writers of our generation. RIDERS OF THE STORM is a fine conclusion to the Sam McCain series and will leave you glad that you've been able to be a part of Sam's life for the past ten books. Highly recommended.
--------------------The Seattle Times
The title of  Ed Gorman’s “Riders on the Storm”(Pegasus, 208 pp., $25.95) is from a 1971 song by The Doors. It’s an appropriately doomy-gloomy tune released in the year of the book’s setting, when passions ran high over the horrors of Vietnam.Lawyer and sometime detective Sam McCain, the hero of the prolific Gorman’s long-running series, suffered a serious accident in boot camp and so never saw active military duty. But Vietnam was a different experience for many young men from McCain’s small Iowa town, who came back mutilated in mind or body — or didn’t come back at all.One who came back damaged is McCain’s friend Will Cullen, who suffers from what we now call PTSD. A rising local politician has a bitter fight with Cullen in public and is murdered soon after, making the vet an obvious suspect. McCain steps in as Cullen’s lawyer, exposing some nasty secrets while defending his friend.For some readers, the book may not go deep enough in addressing the era’s divisive events, but McCain — an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist — is good and thought-provoking company.--------------------Open Salon Matthew Paust      Sam McCain's Last Ride?

I will miss Sam McCain. He's the lawyer/detective who thinks he's Robert Ryan. Word on the street is that Riders on the Storm will be his final adventure solving murders in his Iowa hometown. If this is true I don't know what I shall do, because after accompanying him through all ten of his adventures I've begun to think I'm Sam McCain.Perfectly understandable, I think, identifying with this small-town hero, considering that I grew up in a Midwest town about the same size and character as Black River Falls. And I grew up in my town about the same time Sam does in his. The voice is nice, too. Sam narrates these cases, and by George if he doesn't sound a lot like me!I don't get the impression Sam wrote these books from today's perspective, either, trying to recall what happened way back when. They're fresh, as if he put the words down on real typewriter paper shortly after they happened. I can only assume novelist Ed Gorman, whose name appears on the covers, found a cache of manuscripts stashed in some dusty rolltop desk in an antique store and has simply been feeding them into a modern digital word-processing thingamajig. Either that or he is really Sam McCain. It can get confusing trying to figure all this out, just as it gets confusing for Sam trying to figure out who the killer is without getting killed himself.You see, one of the reasons I like Sam so much I sometimes think I'm him is that he doesn't pretend to be a hero. In fact he gets embarrassed with all the attention showered on him when he does happen to act heroically, which occurs at least once in every single case. He sometimes carries his dad's old .45 but I'm not sure he's ever fired it. He gets shot, twice, in Riders on the Storm. I shouldn't say any more about that, however, especially whether he makes it or not. After all, I've already leaked the rumors that this manuscript is the last one in Gorman's stash.This is not to say there isn't another one or two that might have fallen behind the drawer in that dusty old rolltop. Even if Sam buys it (as detectives said back then) in this one the stories need not be read in sequence. Each can stand on its own. Should Gorman find another one or two nothing really would be lost.I read them all out of order. The first in the series, The Day the Music Died, I devoured after reading three or four of the others. I started with the third, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, which takes place in 1959. You might be catching the drift here that the title of each story pinpoints the year it took place. Your catch would be right on the money. And it's not just the titles. The novels are chock full of real history. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, for example, opens with Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev's famous visit to Roswell Garst's Iowa farm.Your kids tell you their American history class is boring them to death? Get them the Sam McCain history series. They'll ace the exam for the period 1959-71, and be the life of any Rock-n-Roll theme party to boot.For regular McCain readers, Riders on the Storm has a somberer tone than the others, and that's even before Sam gets shot. It's set right smack amid the Vietnam War malaise. Sam and his friends, the whole town of Black River Falls—in fact the entire country—all are torn asunder by a war it seems only the politicians and those who make money off of war really want. A sad time. And Sam gets shot. Will he live to ride again? To write again?Or will we have to persuade Ed Gorman to thrust his arm back into that dusty old rolltop one more time?I sure as hell would miss never being Sam McCain again.
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Harlan Ellison New from Mark Evanier

Harlan Ellison NewsPublished Sunday, October 12, 2014 at 6:56 PMYes, I've heard that my friend (everyone's friend, actually) Harlan Ellison has been hospitalized with a stroke that has paralyzed his right side. I just spoke with someone who'd spoken with Mrs. Harlan and Susan says his mind is sharp and the rest of him seems unaffected. Sounds like there is every reason for optimism. I'll pass on more news as it becomes available.

David Cronenberg: Why Frustrated Novelists Hate the Screenplay

 From  The Daily Beast by Craig Hubert
Q. The use of language in Consumed is fascinating. The main characters, both journalists, speak in a stylized way that is informed by the products they obsess over and fetishize.
A. It arises naturally because I’m responding to the zeitgeist. I think of it as realism. I mean, there you are [points down to my iPhone recording the conversation]. And these days I’m often doing interviews with guys that I’ve known for years who are print journalists and now they’re trying to do video for their newspapers website with their iPhone. They’re desperate; they’re required to start doing photojournalism, video journalism as well. For me, if I’m going to have two young journalists as my main characters they’re going to be plugged into the Internet, they’re going to be plugged into technology, in self-defense, or passion in this case. I don’t think they even think of it as anything unusual.
Do you think of it as something unusual?

No. I’ve been a techno-geek forever. I couldn’t wait for word processors to get rid of typewriters and I couldn’t wait for digital to get rid of film. I have no nostalgia for it whatsoever. I love the technology and I love the compression of time that it makes possible, and I love the fact that a word processor works much more like your mind works. Your mind doesn’t work in a linear way and neither does the digital world.

Go to The Daily Beast for the rest:

FORGOTTEN WESTERN: RED CANYON(1949)

FORGOTTEN WESTERN: RED CANYON  (1949)
by Fred Blosser

This is an excellent technicolor Western from Universal-International, script by Maurice Geraghty, directed by George Sherman, from Zane Grey’s novel “Wildfire.”  I like stories that challenge F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famously pessimistic assertion -- you know the one: “There are no second acts in American lives.”  Handsomely mounted and well acted, “Red Canyon” is an engaging, unpretentious tale about second chances that should be better known than it is.                                       Drifter Lin Sloane (Howard Duff) and wealthy rancher’s daughter Lucy Bostel (Ann Blyth) are both intent on capturing and taming a magnificant wild stallion, Black Velvet.  Lucy intends to ride the mustang in the town’s big horse race, against her father’s (George Brent) wishes and against his own prized thoroughbred.  Lin catches and corrals the mustang, and Lucy tames it.  The two initially spar, then fall in love.  
Lucy doesn’t know it, but Sloane’s last name is really Cordt, and his father (John McIntire) leads a gang of horse thieves.  The elusive Cordts are her father’s sworn enemies: they were responsible for her mother’s death years before.  Lin, never a part of the gang, has spent years trying to steer clear of the old man by wandering across the Southwest and hiding under the assumed name. When Lin is outed as a Cordt, and his father and brother (Lloyd Bridges) steal Black Velvet, events move toward the inevitable showdown.
Geraghty was an old-timer who wrote everything from serials to episodes of “Annie Oakley” and “Buffalo Bill Jr.” on early TV.  His script for “Red Canyon” deftly streamlines Grey’s rather creaky old novel.  Uncommonly thoughtful, the script draws a subtle association between the outlaw horse Black Velvet and the outlaw-in-name Lin Sloane.  Duff and Blythe are charming in their starring roles.  McIntire and Bridges, abetted by Denver Pyle in an early role, are fine bad guys.  
Geraghty upends a cliche on its head, the old chestnut about the devout father who tries to raise an upstanding son, only to be disappointed when the boy turns bad.  The evil Floyd Cordt shakes his head at his son’s sense of honesty: “The world is full of thieves and murderers.  I tried to teach him, and look how he turned out.”  Bunch of other familar faces in the cast too: Chill Wills, Edgar Buchanan, Hank Worden, James Seay, Jane Darwell, all as welcome as old friends at a reunion.
The film boasts beautifully photographed outdoor scenes of Lin chasing Black Velvet over the desert and through the canyons around Kanab, Utah, and a crackling good climactic shootout that rivals any of John Ford’s, Howard Hawks’, and Sam Peckinpah’s.  The final scenes, which hinge on turning points for both  Lin and Black Velvet, are sentimental -- but then, so were Ford’s movies, and that doesn’t seem to have caused any lasting damage to their reputation, in either a critical or popular sense.
A sharp print of “Red Canyon” runs occasionally on the Encore Western cable channel.  There isn’t a commercially available DVD, although unofficial DVD-R copies are available on the collectors’ market.  A Blu-ray edition is overdue that would do full justice to Irving Glassberg’s cinematography and Natalie Kalmus’ gorgeous technicolor palette.  
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013Seven Things to Know About "The Magnificent Seven" 1. The Magnificent Seven (1960) is a pretty faithful adapatation of Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai (1954)--except that the American Western is 79 minutes shorter! It does have a scene not in the original: the one where Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) drive the hearse to boot hill.

2. Yul Brynner was the only one of the original cast to appear in a sequel. He reprised the role of Chris for  Return of the Seven  (1966), which featured Robert Fuller (Laramie) as Vin. In subsequent movies, Chris was played by George Kennedy (Guns of the Magnificent Seven) and Lee Van Cleef (The Magnificent Seven Ride!).

3. Steve McQueen fidgets with his hat frequently during the film--allegedly in an attempt to draw attention to himself. He wasn't a star yet and, in fact, was still headlining the TV seriesWanted: Dead or Alive.

4. Brynner was already a star, of course, but four other Sevenactors went on to achieve film or television fame: McQueen, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson. In fact, McQueen, Coburn, and Bronson reteamed for the 1963 classic The Great Escape. As for the rest of the Seven, Horst Buchholz was already considered a promising newcomer and subsequently appeared in Billy Wilder's One Two Three. That leaves Brad Dexter--who played Harry--as the odd man out. Dexter never came close to stardom, but had a long career as a supporting player; he appeared in several films with best pal Frank Sinatra.

5. In his autobiography, Eli Wallach wrote: “The one regret I had in making The Magnificent Seven was that I never heard Elmer Bernstein’s musical score while making the film. If I had heard that score, I think I would have ridden my horse differently.” Wallach originally wanted to play the Buchholz role--until he read the script and realized that the villainous Calvera was the juiciest part.

6. Elmer Bernstein's music score didn't gain fame until part of it was used in Marlboro cigarette commericials. The Philip Morris Tobacco Company licensed Bernstein's music in 1963 for a Western-themed ad campaign and the rest is history. In fact, it became widely known as the "Marlboro theme." A 1967 album was released called The Music from Marlboro Country, which included musical tracks from The Magnificent Seven and Return of the Seven.

7. Robert Vaughn appeared in two other versions of The Magnificent Seven. He played a mercenary inBattle Beyond the Stars (1977), a low-budget remake that transplanted the premise to an outer space colony harassed by John Saxon's villain. Vaughn's character was "adopted" by the colonists' children (as Bronson's character was by the peasant children in the original). Then, for the 1998-2000 CBS TV series The Magnificent Seven, Vaughn guest-starred as a judge on six episodes.

Posted by Rick29 at 6:45 AM 10 comments 
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Mike Resnick New Books: Cat On A Cold Tin Roof

Ed here: I wish I'd known, back when Marty Greenberg and I were editing a series of shirt story collections called Cat Crimes, just how good a) a mystery writer Mike Resnick was and b) the brilliance he could bring to cat mysteries.

First of all Cat On A Cold Tin Roof is a fine formal whodunit.  It is also smile-bringing throughout. One of my favorite albeit a short scenes is when our detective dreams he's a young photographer who just happens to be spending the day on an isolated stretch of beach with famous model and lust-babe Betty Paige. Betty Paige! Short but sweet with Eli Paxton telling her how much he loves her. I also love the set-up--Fluffy leading various chases while wearing a few mil in diamonds around her neck. If you like flat out fun reads this is for youse.


Publisher's Weekly:
With no email, GPS, or cell phone, Eli Paxton is, as they say, doin’ it old school in Resnick’s entertaining third mystery featuring the tenacious Cincinnati, Ohio, PI and ex-cop (after 2013’s The Trojan Colt). Jim Simmons, a cop buddy of Eli’s, figures the police can handle the murder of wealthy Malcolm Pepperidge (formerly Big Jim Palanto), “the financial adviser to Chicago’s biggest Mafia family.” But Pepperidge’s widow, according to Jim, wants a private detective to track the victim’s cat, Fluffy, who fled the crime scene wearing a collar studded with diamonds worth millions. When Eli finds Fluffy—sans collar—the grieving widow all but tosses the feline to the hounds. That’s when a little game of cat-and, er, louse gets serious, with the involvement of Bolivian drug lords. Good times ensue for fans of Cincinnati or old-school PI yarns or both. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary Agency. (Aug.)Mike Resnick:

I’m known as a science fiction writer, which makes sense. Of my 74 novels, 71 are science fiction, and according to Locus I am the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction.         But I also don’t have tunnel vision, as a reader or a writer. I grew up loving not just Bradbury, Asimov, and that whole crowd, but also Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Fredric Brown’s mysteries as well as his science fiction, even the Milo March mysteries of “M. E. Chaber” (Kendell Foster Crossen). When Lawrence Block and Ed Gorman hit the scene, I became a fan of theirs as well. Ditto, a few years later, James Elroy.         I suppose it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at a mystery novel. I wrote titled Dog in the Manger back in 1991 and offered it to Ace, which was one of my science fiction publishers back then. They wanted it, but would only agree to buy it if I signed a contract to write two sequels. (Why didn’t I? Because they were paying me literally five times as much for my science fiction. Would youhave taken an 80% pay cut?) I thanked them, pulled it back, and sold it as a stand-alone a few years later – and promptly got so busy I didn’t even consider writing another mystery.         Until 2012.         At that point my science fiction editor at Pyr, Lou Anders, told me that Prometheus, the parent company, had started a mystery line called Seventh Street. I didn’t really have any more time on my hands, but I had just turned 70, and I realized that it was now or never, so I sold them reprint rights to Dog in the Manger plus a new novel with the same detective, The Trojan Colt. Then, a year later, I sat down and wrote a third one, Cat on a Cold Tin Roof.         By the time I wrote my mysteries, I had very strong ideas about detective stories, circa the present era. My detective wouldn’t consider the police his rivals or his enemies. A former cop, he’d let them know where he was and what he was doing, if for no other reason than to save his ass if it became necessary. He would never be hired to solve a murder. No way a lone detective can compete with a massive police force equipped with the latest forensic technology. There were always murders, of course – I had a readership to consider – but they were unearthed only in the process of solving the seemingly easier and less dangerous jobs he accepts.         I gave my detective some personal quirks – he doesn’t own a cell phone, can’t use a computer, doesn’t like his dog (which of course is named Marlowe), and cetera – and so far the critics seem to enjoy that, though they keep pointing out that he’s living in the 19th Century. (Note: so is the author, who also refuses to own a cell phone, and has never played a computer game in his life.)         I currently owe 4 science fiction books, so there almost certainly won’t be a mystery novel out next year, but I enjoy writing them, and I’ll put another one on the schedule as soon as it’s economically possible.
-      Mike Resnick      

Len Levinson Part Two

Available on e books


The survivors in writing are often more interesting to me than the stars who flame out and disappear.William R. Cox the pulp writer died at ninety two at his typewriter. He'd never been a big star but he'd written pulps and paperback novels for sixty-some years. Ryerson Johnson graduated from the pulps into paperback originals and worked for almost fifty years. Margret Millar had never been a big seller but she finished two novels in the last four years of her life after beating lung cancer and being declared legally blind. Survivors.
Last year or so I became aware of a writer named Len Levinson. I'd seen his name on various blogs but not until I discovered Joe Kenny's truly unique and amazing blog Glorious Trash did I begin to learn about Len. Talk about a survivor. He's been working steadily since 1971 without getting either the promotion or recognition he deserves. Joe convinced Len to write about some of his books and in so doing Len has given us a finest record of the free lance fiction writer I've ever read. And not just because of the ups and downs of his writing career but also the ups and downs of his personal life. 


Len Levinson:

I worked in advertising and PR for ten years after I graduated from college, Michigan State University, class of 1961.  First I wrote direct mail letters and brochures for Prentice-Hall, a publishing company in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.  Then I was pressbook editor for Paramount Pictures, which involved writing articles and feature stories based on information supplied by publicists assigned to movies being filmed.  Next I was pressbook editor for 20th Century-Fox, but soon was promoted to trade press contact, which involved writing daily press releases and dealing with reporters and editors who worked for publications like VARIETY, BOXOFFICE, MOTION PICTURE DAILY, FILM DAILY, and others that I don’t remember.  Finally I was a press agent with Solters and Sabinson, an agency that had many clients in the entertainment industry such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Flip Wilson, Bob Hope, Benny Goodman, the Playboy Organization, all the David Merrick Shows, numerous movie clients, Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Holiday on Ice, Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and others that I don’t remember.  I resigned my position at Solters and Sabinson to become a novelist.

About The Bar Studs




I wrote The Bar Studsbecause I liked to go to bars when I lived in NYC. And I was drawn to bars not because I liked to drink, but because that's where the action was, where I could meet single women interested in romance, the female counterparts of myself. 
During my 42 years in New York City, I went to all kinds of New York bars, from the Oak Room at the Plaza, to singles bars on the East Side, to Village hangouts, to Bowery dives, to gay men's bars in the Village out of curiosity, and even one jaunt to a lesbian bar called The Duchess, where I was made to feel very uncomfortable. 
I guess I should amend what I wrote above, because ultimately I didn't go to bars just for romance, or to get laid, although those were my primary objectives. I also went because I met many interesting people of all types who were great storytellers. 
I especially enjoyed a Village bar called Bradley's that featured live jazz. I'd give almost anything for another musical night at Bradley's, but Bradley now is dead and the bar no longer exists, as far as I know (I no longer reside in NYC). 
Since my writer's mind was and is always tossing up stories, a novel about bars coalesced in my mind as I sat on those bar stools around 1972. I conceived it as the varieties of bar experience, about all the different kinds of New York bars I went to, and the different people I met there. 
Before arriving in NYC, I worked as a bartender at various joints in Lansing, Michigan, when I was a student at Michigan State University. So I knew what it was like on the other side, rushing back and forth on the floorboards, mixing, pouring, collecting money, making change, becoming embroiled in conversations, and learning that inebriated people often spill their secrets to bartenders, while certain women, after a few drinks, tend to flirt with the bartender. 
My working title was "The Bartenders", and the developing novel told the stories of six bartenders. Adrian and Johnny worked in a bar similar to Bradley's in the Village, Leo in an East Side singles bar similar to Maxwell's Plum, Teddy in a Village gay bar similar to Ty's on Christopher Street, Jake was a Bowery bartender, and Houlihan served martinis and other libations to the upscale crowd at the Oak Room at the Plaza. 
Actually, the novel was about more than bar life. Like all my novels, it also was about love, hate, violence, anger, crime, frustration, and the pornography of everyday life. 
Fawcett bought publication rights, changed the title to The Bar Studs, and gave it what I considered a great cover. It became my best-selling novel, around 95,000 copies bought by unsuspecting readers. I hope it gave them a good ride. It certainly was a great ride for me. I love that book and always will. It's about a New York City that's gone forever, but never forgotten by people who were there. 
Of course, the novel includes examples here and there of my occasional awkward writing, and egregious bad taste. But I was a sleazy character myself in those days, and couldn't help myself. Now I'm trying to be a dignified elderly gentlemen, without much success, I'm sorry to say.



Q. This really a mainstream novel that combines the kind of large cast novel so fashionable in the 70s and 80s with the kind of journalistic tone you'd fine in the Village Voice. You do a great job with the sociological strata of pour people and your bars. Were you ever tempted to do another book with this kind of range? 
A.  I never wrote another novel quite like THE BAR STUDS, but most of my third person novels tell their stories from varying points of view like THE BAR STUDS.  I wrote HYPE! by Leonard Jordan right after THE BAR STUDS, and there are certain similar stylistic points of view.  My editor for THE BAR STUDS was Harvey Gardner at Fawcett, who used to refer to it as THE BAR STOOLS.
Q. You mention the women you met in the bars. You write women very well. Do you make a special effort to do that?
A.  I make a special effort to write everything well, but must confess that women fascinate me.  They’re very different from men, and every woman is different from every other woman.  I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, so my women characters are based on what I observe, hear and read about.  A departed friend of mine named Mike Nichols, who was a significant influence on my life, told me once that “Women just want to be loved,” and I think that’s true.
Q. In the same year or so you were writing The Bar Studs were you also writing other books because of economic necessity?
A.  I wrote THE BAR STUDS in the early 1970s.  As near as I can remember, I had accumulated enough money from writing other novels to take time off to write it, and felt certain it would make me rich and famous, which, needless to say, it didn’t.
Q. I'm not sure what you mean by "the pornography of everyday life.”
A.  I agree with Freud that sex underlies all aspects of life, whether we’re conscious of it or not.  If the women I see every day could know what’s going on in my mind, they’d dial 911.
Q. Do you think your mentor Peter McCurtin could have helped you with a book of this depth and scope?
A.  Peter could have helped with anything I wrote.  He was a very skilled writer, reader and editor.  But we weren’t close friends who hung out together.  He was very busy with his own obligations, so I couldn’t ask him for help with novels that he hadn’t contracted me to write.  Actually, I never asked him for help with anything.  He told me what he wanted, I wrote the novel, submitted it, and that was the end.  He never asked me to re-write anything. 
Q. One of your novels was recently optioned for the movies. Tell us about that.
A.  The novel is THE LAST BUFFOON by my pseudonym Leonard Jordan, published by Belmont Tower in 1980, which is a very strange, vulgar and kind of disgusting story here and there, about a pulp fiction writer struggling to stay alive economically, sort of autobiographical one might say, and played for laughs.  The cover shows a photo of me standing in a trash barrel in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, which I always thought appropriate.  I’ve received much fan mail for THE LAST BUFFOON, and many people have found it amusing.  It was optioned twice previously for movies but no movie ever was made.  I’m hoping this one will appear on the silver screen so that I finally can have a big payday.
Q. I should have asked you last time. Are you working on a book now? 
A.  I’m working on four books:
1.  A mystery/romance set in New York City 1961, first year of the Civil War.
2.  A mystery set in NYC 1995, about a disgraced NYPD cop charged with a murder he did not commit.
3.  A romantic comedy set in New York City and Miami during the mid 1980s, based loosely on my first disastrous marriage.
4.  A non-fiction memoir of my three years as caseworker with the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (1997-2000), which totally disillusioned me about the ability of government to solve poverty and related social problems.
All these four books are in final editing stages.

Headlines that shouldn't be true but are

Black teen in white foster home pepper-sprayed by police who mistook
him for burglar
(nothing racist about cops)

Duck Dynasty clan candidate claims ‘YOLO’ motto is an atheist
conspiracy ‘brainwashing a generation’
(a collective iq off 42)

NC pastors on Jimmy Carter’s 90th birthday: He could ‘go to hell’ for
making Jesus a gay-loving ‘hippy’

St. Louis Cardinals fans clash with Ferguson protesters: ‘Let’s go
Darren!’

Tea Party gadfly can’t back up his Obama conspiracies, even on a
conservative network

CNN legal analyst explodes over ‘inherent’ police racism: ‘This is what
it’s like to be a black person’

Bernie Sanders: Forbes 400 shows ‘incredible and obscene’ wealth gap in
‘Walmart economy’

NYPD cops pistol-whip cowering teenage pot suspect after foot chase

During Clay Aiken debate, GOP rep. claims US was ‘founded on’ man-woman
marriage

Catholic League chief Bill Donahue: Liberals defend Islam because they
don't like Jews
(four or five years in Arkham Asylum this sweaty old bastard'll be fine)

Ebola case in Spain fuels fear of European outbreak: 'People are
freaked out'

Colorado Supreme Court clears way for same-sex marriage in the state

Open carry enthusiast robbed at gunpoint: ‘I like your gun. Give it to
me.’
(member that nra line--the only thing you need to stop a bad guy with a
gun is a good guy with a gun?)

Florida stripper attacks boyfriend with an ax: 'She drinks and drinks
at work'

Florida man sets terminally ill dad on fire: ‘The whole bed was burning’

Florida inmate found beaten to death one day after her aunt reported
guard’s threats

Another Comcast horror story: Accountant says cable company cost him
his job

Noam Chomsky: Rise of Islamic State stems from U.S. ‘sledgehammer’
against Iraq

Mayor calls off California City Council meeting over CopWatch
activist’s ‘F*ck the Police’ hat

Rep. Tom Cotton Says ISIS And Mexican Cartels Collaborating To Invade
Arkansas
(this guy was obviously alien abducted and anal probed at some point)

Watch How Racist St. Louis Cardinals Fans Treat Michael Brown Protesters

'Get Real!': CNN's Sonny Hostin Explodes At White Analyst Who Denies
'Inherent Racism' By Police

George Will Gets Cancelled From College For Offensive 'Rape' Op-Ed

Wingnut Lt. Col. Tells Cavuto Syrians Are Saying 'Please Bomb Us, We'd
Rather Be Bombed Than Dead'
(how about you parachuting in holding a bomb)

Homeland Discussion: Drone Queen “..Find Me A Way To Spin This!”

Colbert Frets That Media's Fearmongering Over Ebola Isn't Working
(he wants MORE fear mongering)

Mike Huckabee Threatens To Leave The GOP Over Gay Marriage
(how about leaving the planet you cynical creep?)

Conservatives outraged after college rescinds invitation to George Will
over offensive rape column

‘Republican’ punk rockers troll conservatives with ironic ‘Obama’ video

GOP backer attacks Florida Dem’s ‘work ethic’ for ‘having babies’ while
she’s in office

Road-raging off-duty Detroit cop arrested for brandishing Glock at
family in minivan

Fighting the wage gap: Sarah Silverman gets a penis to avoid $500,000
vagina tax

Scientists sound alarm over ocean acidification

Teenage foster son arrested after veteran Alaska public radio host shot
dead

Oklahoma Republican: Muslims can’t be trusted if they practice Islam

Anti-Muslim Florida pastor wears ‘Nuke ISIS’ shirt to court for ‘Koran
burning’ case

Minn. rep. confronts GOP opponent: ‘I don’t need an assault rifle to
shoot a duck. Maybe you do.’

Justice Anthony Kennedy blocks same-sex marriages from beginning in
Idaho

Alabama grandparents arrested after department store brawl with mall cop

NYPD cop takes $1,300 from man, pepper-sprays him in the face when he complains

‘Get it on film’: NYC cop under investigation for punching teen out over a cigarette

Attorney shuts down police stop of black handyman: ‘Now please leave our neighborhood’

Kentucky warns Noah’s Ark-based amusement park over hiring practices

Sports talk host mocks Mitch McConnell after ‘needlessly angry’ interview

Satanic Temple fires early shots in ‘war on Christmas’ to ensure time for legal challenges

White off-duty policeman kills black teen in St Louis, triggering fresh protests

Indiana man shoots and kills wife, himself on their wedding night

Georgia ‘sovereign citizen’ gets 4 life terms for raping 9-year-old girl

Australian woman survives for 17 days lost in rainforest

Gravetapping's Ben Boulden: The Way You Die Tonight by Robert J. Randisiy yo

byBen Boulden


It seems everybody wants something from Eddie G.—
“‘You’re the man everyone comes to when they need something in Vegas.’”
—and fortunately there is enough to go around. Eddie enlists the help of Danny Bardini, a childhood friend turned private eye, and Jerry Epstein, formerly known as the torpedo and current mob enforcer from Brooklyn, to help solve the murder. Eddie G. (really Mr Randisi’s execution) expertly shuffles between the murder and the “other Eddie G.” and Howard Hughes subplots—subplots that provide gentle nostalgia and smile inducing humor.
The Way You Die Tonight is as smooth as anything in print. It is heavy on dialogue, larger than life, and fun as hell. The Vegas that was is vividly described. The casinos: The Sands, The Desert Inn, Binion’s Horseshoe. The atmosphere: jittery, exciting, exotic. I was reminded of an especially good episode of the old Robert Urich television series Vega$. The open skies, faded mountains, wide streets, and hip celebrity sinsters.
In a word: Fantastic!You are subscribed to email updates from Gravetapping