Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 44

The Big Eat: An Ode to the Vanishing Char-Broiler

I have a road trip to what used to be common on the New Jersey highway, a roadside foodstand. Many of them took on a colonial or frontier decor, and named themselves after obscure Revolutionary heroes like “Mad” Anthony Wayne. I found one still serving grilled ground beef simply and tastily, and remember many more.

An Ode to the Vanishing Char-Broiler, a Garden State Tradition, at Devil Gourmet.

 

Tagged: Burgers, Devil Gourmet, Elias Cole

Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hell Cats is live!

Chad Eagleton’s anthology of ’50s rockabilly and greaser noir is now live on IndieGogo.

I’m proud to be part of HOODS, HOT RODS AND HELL CATS, with my long short story “Red Hot,” about a  hot rod mechanic who has more woman than he can handle. Lovingly researched, you could call it “birth of a hellcat,” and it’s one of my most personal stories yet.

With an introduction by rock ‘n roll legend Mick Farren and stories by Eric Beetner, Chad Eagleton, Matthew Funk, Christopher Grant, Heath Lowrance, David James Keaton, Nik Korpon, and myself, you get a spectrum of the post-war experience without the veneer of nostalgia and mythology, a deeply human look at an era of social upheaval.

Chad has put together some great rewards to go along with these stories, including an original rockabilly tune, cheesecake pin-up art, art posters, and switchblade combs to slick your hair with butch wax. The e-book was designed by Jaye Manus, who truly turns the format into an art form that not only mimics print but exceeds its limitations. A print edition is also available to grace your shelves.

photo by StyleNoise

“Red Hot” is a gripping tale of desperate love between two broken people, a man with a knack for tweaking the best out of an engine and the worst out of himself, and a woman on the brink of discovery of her formidable powers. Corvettes and supercharged Silver Hawks and the chopped and channeled Detroit iron that roared brave souls to freedom, and a side of World War 2 we rarely hear of.

If you want a taste, fund Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hell Cats. If you can’t- please go to the IndieGogo page and share the campaign with your friends, and help spread the word.

Thank you.

Tagged: 50s, Cars, Chad Eagleton, Christopher Grant, David James Keaton, Eric Beetner, Heath Lowrance, Hoods Hot-Rods and Hellcats, indiegogo, Jaye Manus, Matthew Funk, Nik Korpon, Noir, rock n roll, rockabilly

Welcome to THE BIG EAT

Introducing my new greasy spoon, burger & beer joint column for Devil Gourmet, THE BIG EAT. Please drop on by to read about my visit to Krug’s Tavern, the Raging Bull’s burger bar.

My gastronomic explorations will be recorded there for your awe and bewilderment. You will be satisfied!

Tagged: Beer, Burgers, Devil Gourmet, Krug's Tavern

Steven Seagal Pooped Himself

Steven Seagal Pooped Himself

I was recently contacted by Dave N, promoting Steven Seagal’s new direct to DVD movie, despite my contact form stating that I do not do promotion for movies, books, music, flea circuses, donkey shows, or flatulent rhinoceros extravaganzas and anything in between.

His letter:

“Message: We wanted to inform you and your readers about the giveaway for “Deadly Crossing,” the Steven Seagal movie which hits Redbox May 14.

In exchange for posting their best Steven Seagal action pose, fans earn the chance to win an Aikidogi, MMA fight gloves, or a wooden bokken signed by Seagal.

Given your awesome movie content, we’d be honored if you could post about this. Below is a quick synopsis of the movie as well as a link to the contest page.”

So here is my favorite Steven Seagal pose: Pooping your pants after being choked for talking smack.

 

 

Video interview of judoka Gene Lebell describing the incident.

Tagged: Mixed Martial Arts, Steven Seagal Poops His Pants

Belly Up to the Bar with Reed Farrel Coleman

It’s 1967 and Moe Prager’s girlfriend has been beaten into a coma and left to die on a Brooklyn street. The same day, someone tries to run down his best friend. Moe, a college student, sets out to find the people behind these attacks, but is surprised at every turn as he pieces together the connection between the local mob, a radical student group, and an undercover cop. All roads, it seems, lead to ONION STREET.

Reed Farrel Coleman has been called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the “noir poet laureate” in the HUFFINGTON POST. He is the author of sixteen novels, three time recipient of the Shamus Award and a two-time Edgar Award nominee, winner of the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards and a founding member of MWA U.

TP: Hi, Reed. Welcome to Belly Up to the Bar. In honor of your Brooklyn roots, I’ve got Sixpoint Sweet Action on tap. But we’ve got a full bar. What can I get you?

RFC: I’m a big fan of Brooklyn Brown ale, but if you don’t have any of that on tap, I’ll take a pint of Blue Point Toasted lager.

TP: Man after my own heart. Let me crack you open a longneck. For readers who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Moe Prager, give us the lowdown on him, and what he’s up against in ONION STREET.

RFC: Moe is both what you’d expect from a hard-boiled ex-cop turned PI and nothing you would expect from one. He’s a deep thinker and has a longstanding struggle with the subjects of God and religion. He has aged through the course of the series and undergone all sorts of growth, change, and tragedy. I thought it was a good time to tell the story of how he went from being an aimless college student in the late ‘60s to a cop. And that’s where we find Moe in ONION STREET. Unlike in the earlier books, this is Moe with no law enforcement experience. We watch him come to grips with the harsh realities of crime.

TP: With the Moe Prager novels, you dive into the past with great realism. When I read THE JAMES DEANS I thought you’d written it in the early ’80s. It really sparked my nostalgia for dirty old Times Square. For ONION STREET you go deeper into Moe’s past, into the turbulent late ’60s. What draws you back, do you see us making the same mistakes, or is it just a richer canvas?

RFC: I grew up in the ‘60s, but I wasn’t yet a man. Oddly, in recounting it, I was shocked to recall just how many earth shattering events happened in such rapid succession. In the first six months of 1968 alone there was the Tet Offensive, the Pueblo incident, Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. However, what people forget or people who didn’t live through it tend not to realize is that life went on. What I wanted to do was to focus on that part, how in spite of the world going to hell around Moe, what concerned him was his own small world. I also wanted to show how his small world and the larger world bled into each other.

TP: I’m looking forward to reading your recreation of the Lower East Side. You have a great ear for dialogue and a fierce emotional undercurrent runs through your work. What stuck out for me were the struggles and family crises Moe endures. I bet he yearns for the day a PI just got a tire iron to the back of the head. Do we see a less battle-hardened, more vulnerable Prager in ONION STREET?

RFC: Exactly. I wanted to show the readers a Moe stripped of his worldliness and experience. Moe has always been a stumbler, but I wanted readers to see his first stumble as a parent might watch a child’s first step. The funny thing is that Moe never really loses his vulnerability. No matter how many blows he takes, he is never hardened to the emotional impact of the events in which he is either a witness or a player. I think that’s one of his great appeals to me and to readers.

TP: I like that Moe sees his wife’s Irish family dynamic as an outsider. The character of his father-in-law, the defanged power player, is intriguing. Where do you get the inspiration for the pay-to-play corruption you detail so well? Do you have a background in law enforcement or politics?

RFC: I don’t actually have any law enforcement background at all. I have many cop friends and I find them interesting characters. They live in a world apart and a part of our world. I love that tension and inherent drama in that. As far as corruption, that I know something about. I grew up in Brooklyn during the height of Mafia influence and I worked in the cargo area at Kennedy airport for five years (see Goodfellas). I worked with guys just like the people in the movie. No kidding. And when I was young, my dad owned a supermarket. He used to buy his meat from Paul Castellano, who later became the head of the Gambino Family and was gunned down in front of Sparks Steakhouse.

TP: I worked at the docks in Port Newark for a time, myself. It’s an experience, isn’t it? You’ve said that you hate research and THE JAMES DEANS was written without outlining, with very few edits. I’ve “pantsed” one novel, and I’ve taken to outlining, in pencil at least.  Do you write as you go, or do you work the story out in your head before you attack it?

RFC: Each book is different. Sometimes the whole plot to a novel appears in m head. Other times, I’ll read something in the newspaper and that will spark an idea and that will get me going. Sometimes I only know the ending. Sometimes I only know the title. I go with it. There have been times when I’ve just sat down, started writing, and went with it. Although my writing process is always the same, I let keep my mind be open to any good idea or any spark. Although I don’t outline, I am not an anti-outline Nazi. I just have a mind that works the way it works. I don’t enjoy writing an outline because it destroys my enjoyment and surprise.

TP: I was out in the Rockaways a month after Sandy, helping gut people’s homes. It was as bad as everyone says, but people are standing strong. How’s Coney Island holding up? James Lee Burke’s The Tin Roof Blowdown told how Katrina punched a ventricle out of the heart of New Orleans, will you be writing about Sandy or is it too close to home?

RFC: I don’t write message books. If I have an idea to write a book that involves Sandy, I’ll write it, but it would never be my starting point. I don’t live in Brooklyn any longer, haven’t for three decades, but my childhood friend’s house got flooded and he lives a mile away from the beach. Coney Island got slammed.

photo by Val Bromman.

TP: I haven’t been to Coney recently, except for a pilgrimage to Nathan’s before the storm. But your description of Brennan & Carr’s roast beef dip is killing me. If you could only visit New York one last time, where would you grab a bite?

RFC: That food question is tough, man. Brennan & Carr would be right there with Nathan’s (only from Coney Island) French fries, Grimaldi’s pizza, Katz’s pastrami.

TP: Grimaldi’s. I waited two hours in the cold to get in once. Still better than pizza I had in Napoli. One thing I noticed, and admired, was that your bio doesn’t punch up your past, and try to find some link to law enforcement or crime. It gets amusing when a writer or publisher feels they have to “grit up” their background to make the stories authentic, like you can’t write what you haven’t lived.  

RFC: People don’t really know what tough is, so why bother. I drove a home heating oil delivery truck for almost 7 years. You try doing that in bad weather in bad neighborhoods for a while. That’s tough. Working at the airport. That’s tough. Carrying a gun? Not so tough.

TP: You have quite a few other series. Gulliver Dowd, Joe Serpe, Dylan Klein. What’s next for Moe, and the rest of your rogue’s gallery?

RFC: Alas, for Moe there is but one more book, THE HOLLOW GIRL. It will be out in 2014 and then Moe and I will part company. The first book in the Gulliver Dowd series, DIRTY WORK, came out in March. The second in the series, VALENTINO PIER, will be out in the fall and I’m in the process of re-upping to do more books. I am also writing the e-book exclusive Det. Jack Kenny series for Hyperion with retired NYPD Detective John Roe. BRONX REQUIEM, our first, came out last November and we’re working on our second, HARLEM NOCTURNE, right now. I’m afraid there won’t be anymore Dylan Klein books, but there may be a big surprise for fans of the Joe Serpe books. Tyrus Books and I are negotiating to e-publish GUN BUNNIES, an alternative second novel in the series. Gee, I wish I was busy.

TP: As for Moe, all good stories have endings. I’m eager to catch up so I can see the finale. Thanks for taking the time to drop by with so much on your plate, Reed. See you at the release party!

Reed Farrel Coleman has a website at www.reedcoleman.com and ONION STREET is published by Tyrus Books.

Tagged: Interviews, New York City, Reed Farrel Coleman

Happy Mother’s Day

My mom teaching me something important, 1975.

Tagged: mothers

RIP Ray Harryhausen

I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s growing up, Sunday afternoons with bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, my aunts and uncles drinking coffee around the table while we kids sprawled on the rug watching creature features on the boob tube.

Classics like Island of Terror. Mothra. And anything by Ray Harryhausen.

My mom’s favorite was Mighty Joe Young, a remake of King Kong where Joe gets to be the good guy. It’s not as popular as Kong, and is a lot more kid-friendly- no dozens of explorers chomped by dinosaurs, and the ape gets to live- but I like the message better. They find a wonder of the world and try to make money off him, and should have left him alone. Joe is less frightening, he’s no a stand-in for our fears of *cough* “darkest Africa” getting its mitts on a pretty white woman. In fact, this time he is raised by Jill, and is very protective of her. My favorite scene is when he rescues kids from a burning orphanage. They had to throw that in so the authorities wouldn’t kill him for beating up a bunch of strongmen who bully him.

The first Ray Harryhausen film I remember is The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, about an underwater dinosaur wreaking havoc on San Francisco. Chiller Theater played this one a lot. I loved this scene in particular. You really feel for the poor little guy who gets chomped.

 

The Sinbad movies were delightful adventures. We loved all of them. Jason and the Argonauts felt a little dated by the time I saw it, but the skeletal warriors are iconic. So simple and so terrifying, the grinning skulls of the dead hacking and slashing at you without emotion. And who can forget this guy?

 

It may not be his best, but I must say my favorite, probably from the relentless exposure on HBO in the ’80s, is Clash of the Titans (full review here). It’s his biggest film, with Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite, Burgess Meredith in a very memorable role, tons of mythological beasties from giant scorpions, Pegasus, medusa, to the original Kraken. A friend of mine was making fun of the mechanical owl Bubo, and I wanted to punch him in the mouth. Don’t mess with Bubo, man. I wanted that owl!

Today with CG, things still don’t look real to me. Some movies transcend the effects- the Hellboy movies, Life of Pi. But most directors can’t direct actors on green screen well enough to make it seem real. Evil Dead used real effects, and I hope it becomes popular again. Some of the best combine both, like Jurassic Park. But it all comes back to Mr. Harryhausen’s meticulous stop motion effects and King Kong. When it comes to movies, Ray Harryhausen was a true wonder of the world. He helped me unleash my imagination, and seeing his unworldly creations alive on the screen made it okay to dream about fantastic worlds.

Tagged: death, Mighty Joe Young, Ray Harryhausen

Thank a Teacher Day

Today is National Thank a Teacher Day. A great teacher makes all the difference. I’m going to call out two who made a difference for me.

In 2nd grade, I had a crush on Miss Foote. Periwinkle eyes and long brown hair, I will be honest and say she probably reminded me of Pam Dawber on Mork & Mindy, a show I was obsessed with at the time. I was (and still am) a rather chaotic whirlwind who wants to make the world better through discovery, laughter and silliness. While many of my teachers saw this as challenging their authority, Ms. Betsy Foote found ways to channel my energy into productive endeavors. One of which was my first book.

Komodo & Dragon’s Adventure was an action revenge thriller I wrote in the 2nd grade, after Ms. Foote gave us manila paper to draw the stories on, then sew & bound them into little hardcover picture books. In the story, two Komodo Dragons–cleverly named “Komodo” and “Dragon”–and their iguana, owl and other critter pals learn there is a Poacher on Komodo Island.

So they kill him! I haven’t changed much, have I? They rig an elaborate booby trap to fling him from his Jeep into quicksand. He lands in it headfirst. The reader can only be left with the conclusion that he drowned and his body was never recovered by authorities.

I blame HBO.

Ms. Foote also rolled her eyes at my little idiosyncrasies and daydreams, like when I decided that my new name was BJ, and I would sign all my papers that way. That was inspired by the TV show “BJ and the Bear,” about Sheriff Lobo chasing an outlaw trucker and his pet chimp, and it is immortalized here in Pathetic Geek Stories:

School was a bit of a wasteland until college. Teachers such as Mr. Annett, Mr. O’Dell, Mr. Chapman, and Ms. Stolfi were memorable and taught enjoyable classes. But i was off in a world of my own until college, when I took David Hoddeson’s American literature courses. Mr. Hoddeson edited my first short story collection, Avondale, set in a small Italian neighborhood in Nutley, the town I grew up in. He was patient, encouraging, and a gifted editor. A story I wrote for that collection appeared in [PANK] Magazine many years later: “We’re All Guys Here.“

The story was going to be published in Pulphouse in 1996, but the magazine folded. Finding venues was a lot more difficult back then. I sent stories off to various journals and never heard back. Eventually I got a story published in Blue Murder, but I didn’t stick with it, and my idea for a novel about a heroin junkie hired to find a runaway girl who fled to New Orleans, never went anywhere.

My wife gave me the kick in the pants that got me writing again, but I never would have put my crazy daydreams to paper at all if it wasn’t for Ms. Foote and Professor Hoddeson.

Who were your favorite teachers? How did they inspire you?

Tagged: Teachers

Misery Loves Company

A lot of adages are bullshit, but “misery loves company” proves itself true time and time again. 

After my Grams died, I decided to become a different person. I was a grumpy obese guy who played computer games and blamed the world for my problems. There are a lot of losers like that out there, who buy the media bullshit and assume as middle-class white guys, they are due riches and success from the world without much effort. When they turn out to be mediocre, and realize that success is hard work, they blame it on affirmative action, reverse racism, feminists and anyone else who after years of struggle is making some of the progress that the Loser has been denied. 

Because we mostly speak in pop culture reference these days, let me reference a favorite film, UNFORGIVEN: 

‘Deserve’ has got nothin’ to do with it.

If everyone got what they deserve, we wouldn’t need fiction. What most people forget is that what they think they deserve and what they actually deserve are usually two very different things. I don’t believe there’s a Cosmic Santa with a naughty/nice list tallying what we deserve. I don’t believe in karma as a force. But I do believe your negativity wears you down, and may as well follow you like a vengeful spirit. It informs your actions in secret. If you’re angry, envious or resentful enough you will sabotage everything you do, because deep down you know you don’t deserve to succeed. And you project this self-loathing on the world, as paranoia. 

You did this to me. Why did you let this happen. Why didn’t anyone tell me.

One of the best lines in fiction is from Cormac McCarthy’s No Country from Old Men:

I ain’t got all that many regrets. I could imagine lots of things that you might think would make a man happier. I think by the time you’re grown you’re as happy as you’re goin to be. You’ll have good times and bad times, but in the end you’ll be about as happy as you was before. Or as unhappy. I’ve knowed people that just never did get the hang of it.

Some people never get the hang of it. Misery becomes a comfortable safe haven that shields them from trying, because trying means failure. But you don’t succeed without building up a callus fro failure. It’s easier to blame the world, to quit at the first sign of adversity, to find similarly bitter men who will share your opinions and never make anything of themselves, because we were supposed to wake up kings of the world. It wasn’t supposed to be work. 

Success is what you define it as. I don’t think I will ever consider myself a success, because that way lies complacency. But I have got the hang of being happy, and I don’t allow the miserable to pull me down anymore. I help people when I can. I learned from reading the Bhagavad-Gita in Mr. O’Dell’s class that there are no selfless acts, so I don’t get hung up on why I help others. I do it because I can and because it feels good to see someone else succeed, even if they surpass me. 

And I will confess, when I first started writing, boosting others made me worry. What if I don’t succeed? I wasted energy helping someone else that could have gone to me! Now, frankly I just don’t give a shit. I feel blessed that people like reading what I write. That is success, to me. If I compared myself to Stephen King, or Harlan Ellison, or Glen Cook, writers I admire who are at differing levels of success, I’d be miserable. But here’s the thing, I haven’t put in the work that those writers have yet. And I know when I do, I will achieve some level of success- I have already, because you read what I write. 

And that’s all I ever wanted, was to put the wild stories in my head to paper and have a stranger enjoy it. And that’s already happened. Thank you, readers. After that, what else is there? Money? I have everything I want. (Except a ’71 Plum Crazy Challenger R/T, but you need to stay hungry).

There will always be miserable people whining about what they deserve and who has what they don’t deserve, and who’s gonna get what they deserve. They lack perspective. They don’t realize that we don’t get to decide what we deserve. If there is a form of karma at work in the world, it’s that minding your business and not concerning yourself with what others’ “deserve” frees you to fight for what you think you deserve.

But that takes way too long to say. Let’s just say “Misery loves company.”

Tagged: Cormac McCarthy, Rants, Unforgiven

Free Story Friday: White People Problems

Free Story Friday: White People Problems

My thriller-caper “White People Problems” appeared in All Due Respect last year. I thought it up on my honeymoon- it involves a nerd and a Louisiana girl, go figure- and love writing the characters of Hazeldeen and Bobby and the Five Fingers of Grief. They will return in a bigger story, so hit the beach with a rum punch and some mannish water and enjoy islander Hazeldeen and her ….

White People Problems

Tagged: All Due Respect, Antigua