Réal Laplaine's Blog, page 4
September 27, 2024
How about giving Alaska to the Russians?
In a recent statement, Donald Trump said this about Ukraine:
“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
Of course, Trump is suggesting that Ukraine concede to the invasion from Russia and give up more of their territory as a concession towards peace. Besides the fact that this approach already proved a total failure in 2014 when Putin invaded the Crimea, part of the Ukraine, and commandeered it for Russia, and no one did anything because it was considered he would stop there, of course he didn’t - and eight years later he invaded Ukraine again.
Trump, besides being utterly naive about the mentality of a dictator such as Vladimir Putin, is casually suggesting that an entire nation of free people should just hand over a chunk of their nation to the maniacal dictator.
I would like to suggest that since Donald Trump considers this an acceptable “solution” for the Ukraine people, that on the same token, he should be willing to hand over Alaska to the Russians, since Putin wants it so badly - and in so doing, ameliorate tensions between the two nations. I am certain that the American people would agree with having a large part of their country carved out and handed over to a dictator to “avoid” the possibility of conflict. Right?
So, what do you say, Trump - sound reasonable to you? Is that a platform you could sell to your following? Would that win you a seat in the Oval? Or would the American people see you for the hypocrite you are?
Article by
Réal Laplaine
Author of high concept thrillers
September 10, 2024
What inspired your life?
I recently watched a video presentation about Expo ‘67 in Montreal, Canada, and this wonderful presentation reminded me just how impactful that event was on my life, and millions of others too. Some of you may have been there or remember it.
Two years later, when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, I knew that I had a mission in life, to inspire the world through the arts - and in my case, the goddess of writing became my passion.
Anyhow, to this day, Expo ‘67 is still considered the greatest of Expos.
Réal Laplaine
Author of high concept thrillers
June 25, 2024
Integrity: one of the most important words to teach our children.
Noah Webster, of Websters dictionaries, defined integrity back in 1828 in his American Dictionary of the English Language as follows:
“Integrity comes from integer, which is itself defined as “The whole of any thing.”
“Wholeness; entireness; unbroken state” … “The entire, unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind, moral soundness or purity; incorruptness, uprightness; honesty.”
The concept has lost considerable luster over the years when one considers corruption weaving our culture today where men in power abuse it to kill innocent children and civilians and hide behind religious ideology and pretense to do so; where corporate and financial greed and dishonesty dictate the quality of our lives; and where insane and narcissistic men can be voted into power and disrupt the very democracy and freedom that generations of our forefathers fought to give us.
If we analyze the word integrity, wouldn’t we come to the following semantical interpretations?
Integrity means doing the right thing even when nobody is looking.
Integrity means doing the right thing even when no one else is.
Integrity is doing the right thing because it resonates from within us and not because of rules, moral codes, laws, or even collective acceptability.
Integrity is doing the right thing even if it causes pain, loss or grievance to yourself or another.
Considering that the word integrity embraces the essence of who we really all are deep inside, that is, whole and perfect, not broken or born evil or corrupt as some would have us believe, it is a word that should be taught and embraced by new generations who will continue to build and develop society - and if they understand the importance of this word, they will, hopefully, be able to make an even better world, one where transparency dominates and where corruption simple cannot hide its ugly face.
Réal Laplaine
Author of high-concept thrillers
Integrity - do you have it?
The word integrity is very easily watered down, depending on what agenda it serves to soften up the edges of a word which represents an absolute, not a gray zone.
Let’s look at what Noah Webster, of Websters dictionaries, who defined the word back in 1828 in his American Dictionary of the English Language as follows:
“Integrity comes from integer, which is itself defined as “The whole of any thing.”
“Wholeness; entireness; unbroken state” … “The entire, unimpaired state of anything, particularly of the mind, moral soundness or purity; incorruptness, uprightness; honesty.”
The concept has lost considerable luster over the years when one considers corruption weaving our culture in politics, where politicians make vast promises in their campaign speeches which they do not intend to accomplish; where men in power abuse it to kill innocent children and civilians and hide behind religious ideology and pretense to do it; corporate greed and dishonesty, and even the middle of the road culture, where, for instance today, watching women and young girls being sexually abused in modern day porn, now dubbed “adult entertainment” an “acceptable” euphemism for an industry that manipulates people for money and has become normalized and acceptable in our culture, or where insane and narcissistic men can run for Presidency and be voted into office by the general public; and more. It’s time to add a little beef to this very important word.
Integrity should encompass the following:
Doing the right thing even when nobody is looking.
Doing the right thing even when no one else is.
Doing the right thing because it resonates from within you and not because of rules, moral codes, laws, or even collective acceptability.
Doing the right thing even if it causes pain, loss or grievance to yourself or another.
That would be a more complete conceptualization of the word, and anything less is simply a compromise with a word which speaks to the wholeness of who we really are.
Réal Laplaine
Author of high-concept thrillers
March 18, 2024
When Cowboys Fall in Publishers Weekly
My newest book, When Cowboys Fall, is now available through Publishers Weekly, in their February 2024 print publication and at Publishers Weekly Booklife (online).
Inspired by actual events.
It wasn't meant to be a near-death experience - it was meant as a get-away, a chance to make sense of his life, but the Universe had other plans for him. Trent McCallister, a born and raised cowboy from Western Canada, finds himself cast on a road of self-discovery, trying to reconcile his forgotten dreams, and contending with a woman who suddenly changes everything in his life. When Cowboys Fall is an inspirational journey of rediscovery, love and following one's dreams. A story about the cowboy in all of us.
February 19, 2024
Author, Réal Laplaine speaking at the University of Buffalo Burchfield Art Center
Author, Réal Laplaine speaking at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, part of the University of Buffalo, about his book, the 9th Divinity.
Burchfield Penney Art Center Book Club website
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltLaY0wzmL8&list=PLMzPAMD2dGZYZMLLOb_G0beZac4RkTbhG&index=42February 6, 2024
Tired of police story drama?
Turn on the television and watch most any police or crime thriller series or film and typically, “Hollywood”, or the movie industry in general, typifies the main characters as broken or dysfunctional people.
The American stereotype usually shows police or crime fighters routinely retreating to a pub or bar somewhere, imbibing whiskey like it is a soft drink, and drowning their sorrows or stress or whatever, in alcohol. This is typical 101 in such series/films - which suggests that they have a deal with Jack Daniels or some other producer to advertise their product.
Almost always, police or crime fighting personalities are depicted with plagued marital or intimate relationships which inevitably go sour because their partner find themselves feeling unattended by their crime fighting partner, who is forced, by the nature of their work, to spend late nights and long days away from home. It’s so stereotyped that you can predict with accuracy at the beginning of the film or series, that one of them is going to start complaining that their partner is “not there for them” - and so begins the downslide - as if being a cop or crime fighter is suicide on relationships.
The other stereotype is that police or crime fighters are presented as being plagued by some trauma in their past; whether mishandled or abused as a child, the loss off siblings, or some other event which the writers and producers feel compelled to include in some bid to make the characters “more human” by giving them a dysfunctional side, something that drives them or haunts them. Apparently the idea is to make it so that the viewer can identify with them better, but really, do viewers watch crime thrillers for that reason - or for entertainment?
Personally, I find it tiring to watch such series and films because I am interested in the crime fighting aspect, the policing, the procedural “follow-the-clues” to get to the murderer - you know, Sherlock Holmes - get the bad guy. I don’t care about whether the main character has issues with his wife, or had a bad childhood, and yet, we see these films and series turned into semi-soap operas with the same scenarios played out - different words, same tune.
When I set out to create my own crime thriller series, I laid out certain parameters to ensure that my stories didn’t fall into the same matrix which Hollywood typically uses.
First of all, my main character would be in love with ONE woman, JUST one woman, who understood from the outset of their relationship that he was involved in a life-and-death career, riding the edge, and while she would naturally be concerned that he didn’t come back in a body bag, she wouldn’t bitch about his lifestyle because she loved HIM, and she knew exactly what she was walking into and she would support him. It’s a refreshing twist knowing that when he comes back from some near-death-encounter, the woman he loves is only interested in seeing him alive.
My main crime fighter in this series would not be dysfunctional. He would have, at most, just one event that occurred in his past which catalyzed his decision to become a crime fighter, but it wouldn’t define him or haunt him or affect his mental state.
My crime fighter wouldn’t rely on going to the pub to drown his sorrows with whisky, in fact, beyond a few beers here and there, alcohol played absolutely no role in his life because I fail to see Hollywood’s fixation with depicting police/crime fighters as people who rely on alcohol to get by. His ONLY daily fix would be coffee and a Canadian pastry (also available in the USA) called a bear-claw (crispy pastry filled with real apple filling).
He would be a maverick - someone who broke the rules and pushed the envelope, but with only one agenda, to get his man.
The series I created, The Keeno Crime Thrillers, had one other agenda - I wanted to put Canada on the map (where I originally come from) with its own crime fighter, because you never hear about Canadian crime fighters to amount to anything - probably in large part because Canada is not typically a matrix for crime. Nonetheless, it was time to give the Canucks their own crime-fighting hero, so Keeno McCole was born; a mix of Indigenous Indian (First Nation of Canada), Irish and French - who, with his partner in crime fighting (Jake Williams) since the days they both walked the streets as cops in Toronto, and their other two team members, Janene and Kelly, are a special unit in the RCMP or Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who take on special players in the crime arena.
It’s always high-tech, high-octane, and naturally, with Keeno, always a little unpredictable.
One thing for sure; the Keeno Crime Thrillers won’t assault you with the same stereotypes. It’s all about the action, finding the bad guys, and winning against all odds.
Four books have been published so far, and more coming:
Réal Laplaine
Author of Break Out Books
January 26, 2024
The Canadian Cowboy culture
My newest book, When Cowboys Fall, is inspired by the cowboy culture, both in America and Canada, and to some extent, the television series, Yellowstone.
Let's take a brief gander at Canada's cowboy culture - is it the same as the one we see portrayed by Hollywood?
The cowboy culture in Canada was born sometime around the 1870's when beef cattle were brought up from Montana and elsewhere in the States, and cattle ranching was launched on the wide-open plains east of the Rocky Mountains - vast sections of the province of Alberta.
Cowboys were hired on to herd the cattle, brand them and such, and that was the matrix of its beginning in Canada.
Today, roughly 80,000 people are still involved in ranching - that is, raising and selling beef cattle.
The Calgary Stampede, Canada's largest and most popular rodeo, put on the map in 1923, draws about a million people every year to see cowboys and cowgirls demonstrating incredible riding and roping skills.
In short, the wide open plains of western Canada, became the matrix for the cowboy culture, which continues to this day.
My book, When Cowboys Fall, follows a born and raised cowboy from this region of Canada, as he searches for reconciliation in his life and where he meets a woman who changes everything.
Available in eBook, audio book, Kindle, paperback.
eBook and audio book available at www.reallaplaine.com
Kindle and paperback available at www.amazon.com
More formats at:
And many more online bookstores...
Canadian author of Breakout Books, Réal Laplaine, a matrix of Canada's Indigenous First Nation, French and Spanish, has published fifteen novels. Besides his most recent novel, When Cowboys Fall, he also pens a Canadian crime thriller series, The Keeno Crime Thrillers - now into its fifth and upcoming book in this series.
December 28, 2023
When Cowboys Fall: An inspired story about the cowboy in all of us!
At some point in our lives, we all step across that proverbial line where the road ahead of us is suddenly, and sometimes, shockingly, shorter than the one we have been traveling. It's a visceral and profound moment, often times bringing on the mid-life crisis, where one realizes that over half of their time on Earth has passed. Trent McCallister, born and raised on a cattle ranch in Alberta, Canada, eventually morphs from the life of a cowboy to a white-collar job with the Canadian Embassy. A family man, whose children are now out on their own, Trent finds himself facing the specter of imminent death up ahead. He hasn't achieved most of his dreams and finds himself trying to reconcile his life. He decides on a reprieve to Rhodes, Greece, where he rents a boat and heads out for a sail, a day that would change his life. When Cowboys Fall is a story about rediscovery, following one's dreams, and love - a story about the cowboy in all of us.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_f39bd37676ac4d1b821cd37497fac63e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4The release price is $3.99 and the book can be found at most online book sellers including, but not limited to:
Barnes & Nobel
An inspired story about the cowboy in all of us!
The long awaited book, just kidding, but yeah, I've been playing with this concept for years, and finally, here it is.
When Cowboys Fall is a romantic contemporary fiction about a man, a very average dude, who finds himself looking at the shorter end of road in his life, and not having achieved his dreams, faces the proverbial mid-life crisis. He takes a break and goes to Greece in the hopes of finding some reconciliation, rents a small boat and heads out for a sail one day, but by fate or happenstance, ends up in the water, struggling to survive for fifteen hours, facing imminent death. However, the Universe wasn't done with him yet, and what ensues is an inspiring story about rediscovery, following one's dreams and love - a story about life.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/696416_f39bd37676ac4d1b821cd37497fac63e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4The release price is $3.99 and the book can be found at most online book sellers including, but not limited to:
