Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 57

D.O.A. II

 

From Blood Bound Books.

Stories by Jack Ketchum, Wrath James White, and many others. Including li’l ol’ me.

Tagged: Books, Horror, Writing

The Dog Caught the Car

The Protectors anthology consumed so much of my time for the last few months that now that is available everywhere, I feel like the dog who caught the car. I have plenty of things on my plate, but I feel like there’s something that just needs doing, and I don’t know what it is.

So I threw myself into some ideas that I’ve kept on the backburner. I’m working on “Brown Sugar Brookdale” for Blood & Tacos, a paean to the men’s adventure serials of the ’70s. Brown Sugar grew up on the streets of Detroit and got sent to Vietnam, where his racist Lieutenant left him to die when he wouldn’t join in the massacre of a village. He fought his way through the jungle and was captured by the Chinese, and escaped and found sanctuary in the Shaolin Temple, where he became their most fearsome kung fu warrior. Now he’s back on American soil, ready to break his foot off in the ass of The Man.

(“Brown Sugar Brookdale” is also my porn name. Take the name of your first pet and the street you grew up on…)

I’m looking forward to some time off, a road trip with Sarah and some explorations in New England. I’ll be visiting the digs of Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Edward Gorey. So those haunted stories of the Pine Barrens and Appalachia will have plenty of fuel. My story in Protectors is “Black Shuck,” about a boy, his friend, and his dog encountering Blind Joe Death- a guitar player and hoodoo man condemned to wander the mountains and hollers. They mix it with moonshiners and the creatures of the haunted woods, such as the black dog of death who gives the story its title. It’s dedicated to folksinger Jeff Fahey (who created Blind Joe) and Manly Wade Wellman, whose stories of Silver John in the Appalachian mountains continue to captivate me. You can get Protectors here, and read Wellman’s Silver John stories for free, here: John the Balladeer.

A few upcoming publications. It’s been a slow year, and now everything is coming out at once. I’m not complaining, I’m rather stunned by it:

“Gumbo Weather,” a Jay Desmarteaux tale in the Big Double Summer 2012 issue of Needle: A Magazine of Noir. Jay is working collections in New Orleans and learns the hard way that there are consequences to meting out justice, but it’s a bar tab he is more than willing to pay in blood.

“Train,” a Denny the Dent tale, in Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels. Out October 1st, just in time for BoucherCon. Denny confronts a painful mistake in his past, and gains a powerful ally.

“Garbage Man,” a Denny the Dent tale, in Beat to a Pulp: Superhero. Yes, Denny is a superhero. You gonna tell him he’s not? Denny begins his slow descent from a misunderstood oddball who just wants to be “let be” to a junkyard loner and boogeyman that kids talk about and bad men fear. This one should be out soon. It’s in final edits. The biggest Denny story yet.

“Red Hot,” in Hoods, Hot Rods & Hellcats. This is a greaser noir anthology by my friend Chad Eagleton. Bikers, hot rodders, street gangs of the ’50s. My story is a noir about a mechanic and his wife dealing with a rich-kid racer, when an old friend shows up on his motorcycle and throws a wrench into their lives.

“Kamikaze Death Burgers at the Ghost Town Cafe,”  a Jay Desmarteaux yarn, in Feeding Kate. I’m hoping this will be available as an e-book once the Indiegogo campaign is over in 24 hours. If you want it, best go get it NOW. This is the biggest JD tale so far, and can best be described as Mad Max in the Utah desert, with Jay cruising in a ’57 Eldorado Brougham when he encounters a biker gang at war with a psycho trucker. The bikers’ sexy lawyer has a deal he can’t refuse. And they eat these:

“Rockridge Ringer,”  a Jay Desmarteaux yarn, in Hills of Fire: Bare-Knuckle Yarns of Appalachia from Woodland Press. In this one, Jay is looking for an old cellmate in West Virginia, a bareknuckle brawler at the mercy of a crooked sheriff. Jay deals with it the way he does best: with a wicked grin, his two fists and and an appetite for destruction.

“Slice of Life,” in D.O.A. II: Tales of Extreme Horror, by Blood Bound Books. I’m pretty sure the book’s title will decide for you whether you want to read it or not. If you want to see my take on a serial killer, this is it.

“Tiger Mother,” in Noir Nation #2. An angry mother takes on the neighborhood kingpin in ’60s Harlem.

My poem “Just Ice,” will appear in The 5-2: Crime Poetry, Vol.1 by Gerald So.

Whew.

That’s a lot. Instead of dozens of flash fiction stories, all of these are bigger works, some nearly ten thousand words. So that’s what I’ve been up to. I also finished the first draft of Bury the Hatchet in July, and have been editing and rewriting it. It needs a lot of work, but I have the voice and the vision for it, and that’s all it needs. If anything, I’ll be finishing it so I can work on other projects that are dying to be written, and one I’ve been promising an editor for a year now, about a mixed martial arts fighter named Reeves, who finds that the old sword in his grandpa’s pawn shop is claimed by a fearsome clan of ninja warriors…

Tagged: Books, Protectors Anthology, The Lost Children, Writing

Protectors in Print

Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT is now available in trade paperback from Createspace. This generates the biggest donation to Protect, 50% of cover price.

It will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and online retailers within a week, and available to order from bookstores soon. Distributors vary. It will be available locally and through mail order from Watchung Booksellers in a few weeks. They also carry the first anthology.

dropping in to Wayne Dundee’s saloon

I’m honored to be interviewed by hardboiled wordslinger Wayne Dundee at his blog. If you don’t know Wayne, he writes westerns that pack more lead than a cannon full of grapeshot. He’s better known for creating Hardboiled Magazine and writing the Joe Hannibal, P.I. novels. Wayne wrote a story for the Protectors anthology called “Adeline,” which intertwines intriguing historical fact and great storytelling.

Head to his blog and check it out.

 

Tagged: Interviews, Wayne Dundee, Writing

Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT is out!

The anthology I’ve been working on since January, to benefit PROTECT and the National Association to Protect Children, is now available.

PROTECTORS includes a foreword by rock critic Dave Marsh, and fiction by Patti Abbott, Ian Ayris, Ray Banks, Nigel Bird, Michael A. Black, Tony Black, R. Thomas Brown, Ken Bruen, Bill Cameron, Jen Conley, Charles de Lint, Wayne D. Dundee, Chad Eagleton, Les Edgerton, Andrew Fader, Matthew C. Funk, Roxane Gay, Edward A. Grainger, Glenn G. Gray, Jane Hammons, Amber Keller, Joe R. Lansdale, Frank Larnerd, Gary Lovisi, Mike Miner, Zak Mucha, Dan O’Shea, George Pelecanos, Thomas Pluck, Richard Prosch, Keith Rawson, James Reasoner, Todd Robinson, Johnny Shaw, Gerald So, Josh Stallings, Charlie Stella, Andrew Vachss, Steve Weddle, Dave White, and Chet Williamson.

The book is now available for Kindle, and the pages at Barnes & Noble and Kobo will be live soon.

For updated order information, including how to order it directly through Paypal (generating the largest donation; you can upload the Kindle or ePub file to your reader, or read it on your PC) go to the PROTECTORS Official Web Page.

The book will also be available for the Apple iPad and on Smashwords. Our designer is working on the print edition, which will be available at Amazon and in bookstores.

The wait is over… go be a Protector!

Tagged: Andrew Vachss, Bill Cameron, Books, Charles de Lint, Charlie Stella, Chet Williamson, Daniel B. O'Shea, Dave Cranmer, Dave Marsh, Dave White, Edward A. Grainger, Frank Larnerd, Gary Lovisi, George Pelecanos, Gerald So, Glenn Gray, James Reasoner, Jane Hammons, Joe Lansdale, Johnny Shaw, Josh Stallings, Keith Rawson, Ken Bruen, Les Edgerton, Michael A. Black, Mike Miner, Nigel Bird, PROTECT, R. Thomas Brown, Ray Banks, Richard Prosch, Roxane Gay, Steve Weddle, Todd Robinson, Tony Black, Wayne Dundee, Zak Mucha

What Music Did You Grow Up On?

I grew up essentially listening to three songs.

When me, mom and sis moved in with my Grams, mom left a lot behind. Her records were one casualty. We had the white album by the Beatles, Elton John’s first album, and Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell. In fact, I still have all those discs, and they still play relatively well, despite our grubby little kiddy hands smudging them.

Music was important to mom and it still is. She still introduces me to music I wouldn’t otherwise have heard. The latest is Alison Krauss. Back then, I remember trips to Mickey Music, a record shop in a Belleville strip mall. And looking for oldies shops in New York, where she hunted and finally found the Phil Spector Christmas Album and Elvis’s gospel album. My uncle Paul still has boxes of original 45′s from the early rock ‘n roll / R&B era, from “Speedo” and “Earth Angel” to obscure greats like the Jive Bombers (immortalized in John Waters’ Cry Baby). Unc ran a couple bars and would let us pick through the jukebox discs when they cycled through the latest tunes.

I think that’s how at age seven, I wound up with singles of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising/Lodi,” KISS “Detroit Rock City/Beth,” and Marvin Gaye singing “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” We played those platters until the grooves became distorted. Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” was also a favorite. The opening horns drove me and Danielle into dances of spastic joy. Detroit Rock City, Grapevine, and Bad Moon Rising are still three of my favorite songs of all time. Like mutagenic substances, my proximity to the record player altered my DNA.

Mom thought music was a necessity, like I said. I remember Styx’s “Paradise Theater,” Elton’s Yellow Brick Road, Donna Summer, Steely Dan, and albums we’d break out to laugh and remember when we thought this music was cool, such as Leo Sayer. Elton’s “Crocodile Rock” with its ’50s nostalgia was one we’d always sing in the car.

The first album I bought was A Flock of Seagulls. I still dig their B-sides and minor hits like “Wishing” and “Telecommunication.” They still play casinos on the west coast. Next time I visit, I’ll make sure I see them.

So, what music did you grow up on?

 

Tagged: Alison Krauss, beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elton John, elvis, KISS, Music, Phil Spector, Stevie Wonder

The Dark Knight Rises

I was in a cranky mood when we went to see this. I was in Editing Mode. Is it a horrible movie? Hardly. Is it a great movie? Definitely not.

I think Christopher Nolan did great things with The Dark Knight. Even that one has some holes in it, but I can’t say I don’t enjoy watching it, again and again. It’s the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy, and Rises … well, it’s not Return of the Jedi. It tries to go darker, and fails. But not without failing greatly, and giving us solid entertainment in the process.

What I liked/What I Didn’t:

Bane. Great villain, a big hulking menace for Batman to whale on. I really liked all the similarities to The Dark Knight Returns, the comic book that made me like Batman (and Year One, which Batman Begins cribbed heavily from). Topping the Joker may have been impossible, and Thomas Hardy- a great, rising actor- does the best he can with an idiotic mask that makes him look like Hannibal Lecter and sound like a kid talking through a paper towel tube. Hint: Darth Vader was INTELLIGIBLE. Bane needed subtitles. Coupled with “The Batman voice” by Christian Bale, the most important dialogue of the movie sounded like it was uttered while both men were trying to expel a twelve pound impacted fecolith. “Can I have a bat-lozenge?” Bane’s origin was interesting, and almost makes him a tragic antihero in the end, but his final scene is played for a very weak joke.

The parallels to current politics. TDK had the surveillance device that mimics Carnivore and Echelon (what the FBI is using to read this, right now) and Rises has The Dent (cough, PATRIOT) act, a heist on the Stock Exchange, and a Catwoman (never so named) who openly loathes and steals from the 1%. Anne Hathaway does a decent job, but lacked character development; the film suffers a bit from too many villains, including a surprise one in the third act. It’s not a perfect parallel, but it does make you think, something you rarely do in a comic book movie. The peace in Gotham is based on a lie, and this poisons the city. Sadly the villains reference the first film instead of TDK, for a couple of needless cameos; the poison lie of Harvey Dent is a brilliant bit of writing, but they don’t cultivate it. And finally, I found it very funny that a “failed energy project” was played as Wayne’s scandal, and I am glad that it doesn’t make sense now unless you followed politics very closely.

For the final act, the entire city is held hostage for three months. I couldn’t suspend disbelief for this one. The Joker’s plan in TDK lasted hours. Bane’s siege depends on Commissioner Gordon making a terrible tactical mistake, which I didn’t buy. I did like how it made Gotham into the crime-infested hellhole that opens Frank Miller’s 80′s-era “The Dark Knight Returns.” It seemed a bit forced, but the images Nolan gets to use to depict it are stunning. So I’ll forgive it. The music throughout the film is a sledgehammer to the heartstrings, and became incredibly annoying. THIS… IS.. EXCITING! DUN DUNT!  OOH ANGELIC SINGING! SOMEONE GONNA DIE! Yes, that bad…

The setup in the first act is excruciating. As a writer, I have never felt the pain of backstory and exposition inflicted on me in such a manner. And yet I forgot why Bruce Wayne has a limp (he jumped off a building with Two-Face, to save Gordon’s son).  If I watch this on cable and skip the beginning, I know I will like it a lot more. I can’t even remember how Bane was introduced. That’s not good.

Michael Caine has an early scene that makes you wish the movie was better. He’s utterly gripping in it. Once again, I never liked Christian Bale in this one except for the physicality. He looks like Batman, and he looks like he can pull off the stunts. But I never care about him, ever. He never looks haunted, just tired. He plays the Bruce Wayne playboy parts perfectly, but when he’s supposed to be the haunted orphan… I don’t buy it. Never did. But I still don’t want a reboot.

The ending was fantastic. The fight with Bane was pretty awful- two guys throwing haymakers and grunting and grimacing, when they are martial arts masters, and Bane was originally a wrestler- but they pull a decent switcheroo on you, and point the story to a definite ending, with not all loose ends tied neatly. And you know what must happen next. I look forward to that story, and I hope Nolan gets to tell it. If anyone can make the story of the Joseph Gordon Levitt character compelling, it would be him.

So it’s flawed, sort of like Spiderman 3, but not as weak. It reaches for the heavens and doesn’t make orbit, but it wasn’t a disappointment. I commiserate with Nolan- he has a lot to say in this one, and he manages to get it all in there, but in places, it is muddled and we nod along, waiting for the good stuff.

Worth seeing if you liked the other two. Bravo to Nolan for writing a story with an ENDING, something Hollywood and Television are loathe to do. Stories don’t really end, I know. But the interesting parts do. They end this where it should be ended, and open doors for other stories that I want to see.

3/5 bat-lozenges

Tagged: Batman, Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan, Comic Books, Dark Knight Rises, Michael Caine, Movies, The Dark Knight, Thomas Hardy

Wanderer, by Sterling Hayden

Sterling Hayden was his own, conflicted, contrary man. Born in Montclair, a town split between affluence and working class, Hayden personifies it. He is lured to Hollywood, but continually fled to sail working ships, not pleasure craft. His father died when he was a boy, and Sterling was whisked away by his mother and her new husband, a swindling businessman who spent Sterling’s inheritance on showy automobiles and then fled, leaving them in debt. Sterling escaped on a sailing ship, before his stepfather ditched them, and working on the sea was all that brought him peace for the rest of his life. The book is about his life and the ocean, and touches barely on his Hollywood experiences, except to explain his personal fears, and how he refused to be beholden to the studios. Hayden lived in fear for most of his life. It drove him to name names to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and to make terrible decisions all through his life. He found himself attracted to unstable and overbearing women, and was never truly free of his mother. He bares himself warts and all, and shows true courage in doing so. He was an imperfect man, but a talented writer. On occasion he dips to purple prose, but some of his observations of life in America are quite astute, and expressed with deep reflection. Anyone with interest in the man should read it. He found his bravery when he picked up a pen.

He embodied his roles. Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove, Roger Wade in The Long Goodbye, Johnny Clay in The Killing, Johnny Guitar, Captain McCluskey from The Godfather. Larger than life. On screen, and off.

Buy it: Wanderer

Tagged: Books, Hollywood, Reviews, Sterling Hayden

The Protectors Anthology is coming…

For a year, I’ve been working on a follow-up anthology to Lost Children, the charity anthology inspired by Fiona Johnson‘s flash fiction challenge, hosted at Ron Earl Phillips‘ Flash Fiction Friday. It is nearly complete, and will be available September 1st. Here is the full list of contributors. 100% of proceeds will go to PROTECT and the National Association to Protect Children – the army fighting what Andrew Vachss calls “the only holy war worthy of the name,” the protection of children.

Protectors: Stories to Benefit PROTECT

Stories by:

Patti Abbott

Ian Ayris

Ray Banks

Nigel Bird

Michael A. Black

Tony Black

R. Thomas Brown

Ken Bruen

Bill Cameron

Jen Conley

Charles de Lint

Wayne D. Dundee

Chad Eagleton

Les Edgerton

Andrew Fader

Matthew C. Funk

Roxane Gay

Glenn G. Gray

Jane Hammons

Amber Keller

Joe R. Lansdale

Frank Larnerd

Gary Lovisi

Mike Miner

Zak Mucha

Dan O’Shea

George Pelecanos

Thomas Pluck

Richard Prosch

Keith Rawson

James Reasoner

Todd Robinson

Johnny Shaw

Gerald So

Josh Stallings

Charlie Stella

Andrew Vachss

Steve Weddle

Dave White

Chet Williamson

40 stories. One cause: PROTECT

In a few weeks, the e-book will be available across all formats. The print edition will follow.

Cover art by Kim Parkhurst. Interior design by Jaye Manus. Cover design by Sarah Bennett Pluck. Print design by Suzanne Dell’Orto. Edited by Thomas Pluck.

I would like to thank everyone who submitted stories for the collection, and everyone who assisted me with this project, and everyone at PROTECT.

Tagged: Amber Keller, Andrew Fader, Andrew Vachss, Bill Cameron, Chad Eagleton, Charles de Lint, Charlie Stella, Chet Williamson, Daniel B. O'Shea, Dave White, Frank Larnerd, Gary Lovisi, George Pelecanos, Gerald So, Glenn Gray, Ian Ayris, James Reasoner, Jane Hammons, Jen Conley, Joe Lansdale, Johnny Shaw, Josh Stallings, Keith Rawson, Ken Bruen, Les Edgerton, Matthew Funk, Michael A. Black, Mike Miner, Nigel Bird, Patricia Abbott, PROTECT, R. Thomas Brown, Ray Banks, Richard Prosch, Roxane Gay, Steve Weddle, The Lost Children, Todd Robinson, Tony Black, Wayne Dundee, Writing, Zak Mucha

Hills of Fire and Shotgun Honey

I’m thrilled to announce that my story “Rockridge Ringer” will appear in Hills of Fire: Bare-Knuckle Yarns of Appalachia later this year from Woodland Press, edited by Frank Larnerd. That one of my tales set in West Virginia passed muster with a native is honor enough, but sharing print with Frank in a Woodland Press book is even sweeter. I won’t tell you much about the story, but it involves two ex-cons fighting bare knuckle in a holler for a crooked sheriff. And there’s bikers, go-go girls and… well, you’ll just have to read it. And it stars Jay Desmarteaux, the lead in Bury the Hatchet.

And on Friday, my story “From the Heart” appeared in Shotgun Honey, one of my favorite online venues, and where I made my crime fiction debut (in this decade. My first was in Blue Murder, a long defunct online zine). It’s a short short (under 500 words) about the heart of a bluesman. I wrote the first version in 1999 or earlier. Though the story is utterly different, I was inspired somewhat by Harlan Ellison’s “Paulie Charmed the Sleeping Woman” and the down dirty Chicago blues from Andrew Vachss’s Burke series, the movie Thief, and so on. I rewrote it when I rediscovered it in May, but the basics and the voice didn’t change much. I think your voice is something you can develop, but not really change. You may have a few of them, with different tones, but the heart behind them is the same.

Tagged: Appalachia, Hills of Fiire, Jay Desmarteaux, Shotgun Honey, Writing