Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 60

Rockabilly

Sparky & Cowboy, c.1962, Danny Lyon

I love me some rockabilly. I grew up with boxes of 45s from the ’50s, my mom’s and my uncle’s,  with everything from silly novelty records like “The Old Philosopher,” rhythm and blues like Fats Domino and the Jive Bombers, to Hank and bluegrass, and the true kings of rock ‘n roll, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. My uncle Paul also ran a few taverns, and when they dumped the hit singles for the latest batch, he’d bring home a trunkful of everything from KISS, Creedence, to ’80s one hit wonders.

On the other hand, I didn’t hear the Beatles until I was in high school, which is perhaps why I don’t buy into the worship. Great band; they changed history, yes. But it was more as a function of marketing, if you ask me. Same with Elvis. Love the guy, especially his early Sun Records work. But they stood on the shoulders of giants, and we must never forget that. Both of them found early success covering the R&B records that few would play, due to fears of mixing the races. They became their own men sometime afterward, when success allowed it.

Her expression inspired a character. c.1963 Danny Lyon

So, it was with great relish that I wrote a story for an upcoming anthology entitled “Hoods, Hot Rods & Hellcats,” that my friend Chad Eagleton is putting together. I dug deep for this one, through old family stories and ’50s hot rod history, World War 2 realities and human frailty. It’s a long one, at least it is before Chad edits it, and I look forward to sharing it. I could title it “birth of a hellcat,” but for now, it’s called “Red Hot,” after this gem by Billy Lee Riley:

Reckoning at Rainrock

Wayne Dundee brings a fresh dose of humanity to Western pulp. This hardboiled tale of justice gone wrong takes what could easily be a black and white revenge story and puts you smack in the middle of a living frontier town where the characters are as big and detailed as the Toadstool badlands where much of the action is set. We meet Lone McGantry when he picks up bounty hunter work for a lawyer, and what begins as a straightforward story of justice denied unfurls into the human failings of greed, jealousy and lust. Lone is a laconic and admirable hero, with as much character as his worn Colt. Even the baddest of characters we run into has their reasons, and when their desires cross, tempers flare and guns are drawn. Don’t let the opener fool you- this is no courtdroom drama, and Dundee leads us on a rousing chase for the truth as Lone gets tangled in a web of small town deceit.

Great reading for Western fans and pulp lovers alike.

Available from your local bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked

You’ve probably heard of Kickstarter, the crowdsourced funding site. Most commonly used to generate revenue and interest in media projects such as indie films, albums and books, it has also been used to fund everything from designing parks, building better earbuds, flashlights and other gadgets to a bluetooth wristwatch that puts your smartphone apps on your wrist.

Recently I’ve seen many authors use it, some to great success. The biggest one I’ve seen recently (and one I contributed to) was for Dinocalypse Now, a role-playing game universe. They surpassed their goals so superfluously that backers will be getting over a half dozen e-books by various authors for their donation. They had a huge audience, and writers with large fanbases, such as Chuck Wendig behind them.

Other friends have kicked off campaigns, and some are a great deal. When it is tiered like a pre-order, and you get the e-book for the same price as you’d pay when it was released, it’s very easy to jump in and support an author whose work you know you enjoy. Those are my favorites, and I usually end up buying a higher level goodie, like the very cool Ace Double paperback of Butch Fatale that Christa Faust is offering for her campaign: Butch Fatale 2: The Big Sister

Other writers have been just as successful, asking you to pony up $10 or more for an e-book that will go on sale for $4.99, and more power to them. Personally, I don’t want my readers and supporters to pay extra for me to write a book. I’d prefer to think of it as a true advance. How well this works, remains to be seen. The books haven’t been written yet. I trust professional writers like Ms. Faust and Mr. Wendig to provide quality reading on deadline. They’ve done it for years, and there’s no reason to expect them not to keep kicking ass.

I’m not sure I’d be so willing to pony up for a first novel or novella by someone without a proven track record. I’m not being self-effacing here, but having self-published and edited an anthology, if I used Kickstarter to fund my own story collection, I would keep the price very low. (Self-publishing is work, but it doesn’t require cash up front. That’s one reason everyone is self-publishing.)

What do you think?

American Me

I watched this excellent movie the other night. Released in 1992, starring Edward J. Olmos, it is a daring portrayal of the inception of the Mexican Mafia from prison gang to street presence.

The movie begins with the ’40s Zoot Suit Riots, which to put simply, began with wartime racial hysteria and a hatred between soldiers and zoot suiters who flouted the rationing laws by tailoring flashy suits. Montoya Santana is literally a child of the riots, conceived during them after his parents are beaten and savaged by soldiers on leave in Los Angeles. The brutal beatdown turns his father bitter, and this poisons Montoya’s childhood. He runs with friends in a makeshift gang, and after a failed rumble, he and his pal J.D. break into a shop to hide, and are wounded by the owner.

Sent to juvie, Montoya is raped by a bigger prisoner on his first night, in a painful to watch scene. He immediately avenges himself, gaining a twenty year adult sentence, and an iron clad rep that brings him followers, and cements his presence as a gang leader when he is transferred to Folsom. Between the Aryan Brotherhood and the Black Guerillas, he builds his own gang, the Mexican Mafia, to protect other Latinos at first, then it becomes a full fledged criminal enterprise.

When he is released, he is faced with a world that has changed. He’s never been with a girl. He’s never driven a car. When he meets a beautiful neighborhood woman named Esperanza, he feels as innocent as the boy he was before prison, and she falls in love with that side of him, unaware that he commands La Eme, the Mexican Mafia. The Italian mafia runs drugs in their community; he moves to take it over, and in a brilliant and shocking scene, Olmos juxtaposes Montoya’s love scene with Esperanza with the rape and murder of a mafia don’s son in prison.  Montoya has never made love to a woman, and once he is excited, he flips her over to take her like a jock would a prison punk, until she slaps and pushes him away.

It is very hard to watch, and three consultants to the film were later murdered for disrespecting the machismo and ethics of the Mexican Mafia, by contributing to this film. By not shying from the foundation of brutality that creates a man who can lead a murderous gang, Olmos does what Scorcese, David Chase, and other directors who’ve portrayed crime bosses were afraid to do. Show the monsters they really are, instead of feeding the glorification we give them.

While the movie gets confusing in the third act, it follows fact and makes Montoya almost a tragic and symbolic figure for the rebellion against hatred of his people. While he can never be called a hero, when thrown in the “animal factory” of prison he did what he needed to survive, protected his friends, and attempted to move from gangster to liberator, only to die before his redemption could begin. This is one of the best gang movies of the ’90s, and is still powerful today.

 

Final day of the raffle – mail your receipts!

Today is the final day to buy Lost Children: A Charity Anthology to Benefit PROTECT and Children 1st and be entered into the raffle to win 1 of 3 signed first edition Lawrence Block books, donated generously by Seamus Bellamy.

Anyone who buys the anthology, either for Kindle or in paperback, is entered to win WHEN THEY EMAIL ME the Amazon or Createspace receipt to this address: tpluck+lostchildrenbooks@gmail.com

Amazon (US)
Amazon (UK)
Createspace
Watchung Booksellers

Indiebound (from your local independent bookstore)

According to the sales figures, we have at least seven buyers who didn’t send me an email to enter. You have to be in it to win it, so please do so. The winners will be announced on Monday.

Noir Nation #2 is coming…

I’m proud to announce that my story “Tiger Mother” will appear in Noir Nation #2, the international journal of crime fiction, among some very fine company. I wrote “Tiger Mother” for Patti Abbott’s challenge last year to support a Harlem food co-op.

While you’re waiting, check out Noir Nation #1:

Noir Nation: International Journal of Crime Fiction

Stuck in my Head: Falling Slowly

I loved this movie, and tried to drag Firecracker to see the Broadway show, but she didn’t like the goofy buskers dancing with guitars and chairs. Now that they’ve won 8 Tony awards, I have a feeling I’ll be buying tickets. I’m the same way. Something new and hyped? “Bah, humbug! It’s a scam!” is my first reaction.

This song is utterly infectious due to the glorious harmonics of the two singers, and what’s worse is the chorus is so easy to insert your own lyrics to. So any time it’s on, you can hold a conversation in the song.

“Take this bag of shit and throw it in the gar-bage caaaan!!”

“The cat just puked up on your shoes and don’t put them ooonn!!!”

etc.

Try it.

Review: American Gods

American Gods: A Novel

 

I have a bad habit of not reading lauded books until a decade later. (I also tend to not watch beloved TV dramas until their final season ends). This is one I regret putting off for so long. For a bookworm who nestled in the pantheons of every mythology as a child, this book is a true treasure, and a fantastic story besides. I like circles. I like the old stories, which circle back on themselves, showing us what was there all along. Neil Gaiman does this with several looping rings, juggling them like the master grifters he describes. You see it coming, but his distractions are deft and satisfying. As a writer, you often find it difficult to truly enjoy a book purely as a reader. You’ve seen the innards, and they are unpleasant. When you read a masterful storyteller, the mechanics are so smooth, you don’t mind. This is that kind of magical story, and one I wish I’d read ten years ago, and savored it since.

41

It is time for the annual Plucker year in review.

What have I done this year? It’s never enough. I always feel like a slacker, even when I sit at my writing desk every night from dinner (or after Modern Family) until bedtime.

I began the rewrite of my novel “The Garage” in earnest on approximately June 15th last year, and I wrote 135,000 bloated words, currently entitled “Bury the Hatchet.” I begin editing in July, and Imagine it will be 100k or less, as I wrote three concurrent storylines, two of which were backstory, and they will be incorporated into the main one, after all the fat has been cut. I find it easiest to write the scenes that define the character in detail and then cut them out later.

I’ve written (and had accepted) around 22 stories since last June, from little humorous pieces to a 7500 word monster. Flash fiction is still my favorite challenge, but my ideas are more character based lately, and I’ve been writing long. The latest is a 3500 word Denny story for the Watery Grave Invitational, at Naomi Johnson’s Drowning Machine, entitled “Train.”

I broke two personal records in the weight room in December- a 555lb trap bar deadlift, and a 260lb bench press (I have two torn rotator cuffs). This is nowhere near my max potential, and we have reset after my Achilles tendon became inflamed, but I am lifting heavy again. There are setbacks. You don’t quit. You do the most you can do.

In September, my story “Black-Eyed Susan” won the 1st place Bullet award. I forgot to enter for the Derringer, and would like to have seen how I would have done. It was a tough year, and some great stories won that one. The e-book Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled, in which “Susan” appears, won the Spinetingler for best anthology. I’ve had a lot of readers compliment my writing, including one who compared me to Andrew Vachss, and I can think of no greater honor.

I published Lost Children: A Charity Anthology, a collection of 30 flash fiction stories inspired by my friend Fiona Johnson’s writing challenge. Together we’ve raised over $1600 for PROTECT and Children 1st. I have a second volume in the works, set for a September 1st release.

Sarah and I celebrated our first anniversary of marriage, and a great year it was. We’re both fiercely independent, but fit together so well. It’s only been a few years together, and I can’t imagine not being with her. Her support has been essential to all these accomplishments, and in the next issue of Hardboiled Magazine, you’ll get to read a little tribute to her, when my story “Firecracker” is published.

Thanks for a great year, Firecracker. Here’s to 41 more.

RIP, Ray Bradbury: Dreams never die

Photo by Alan Light

Ray Bradbury, one of our greatest writers and fantasists, died yesterday at age 91.

Most famous for Fahrenheit 451, an all too prescient future where books are burned because every idea offends someone, somewhere, Mr. Bradbury leaves behind a body of work that taught generations how to dream, and defined wonder in a world where miracles and accomplishments have become commodotized and only appreciated for the money they make.

I’d read his short stories before, and the first was either “All Summer in a Day,” about kids who live on a planet where the sun is only visible for a few hours every seven years, or “There Will Come Soft Rains,” about an automated house left running after humanity has wiped itself out in a nuclear war. Neither is about what I just said, really. They are fantastic embodiments of the world he imagined, for the story to exist at all. Summer is about being a kid, and Rains is about what we leave behind. Bradbury was a genius, and I leave it to better writers to explain it.

Something Wicked This Way Comes changed forever how I think of carnivals. The Martian Chronicles, which I bullheadedly avoided for years because I was “burnt out on space travel stories,” amazed me, and haunts me still. To read Ray Bradbury is to be a child again, exploring a world of wonder with an adult’s understanding. He has left such large footprints that I won’t say that the world is a lesser place for his passing. It is a better one, for having been trod upon by his gargantuan imagination.