Len Vlahos's Blog, page 7

Not The Scar Boys

Publishing is a slow process. I finished The Scar Boys two years ago, signed the contract with my publisher more than a year ago, and won’t see the book publish for another six months. (Five months and 28 days, but who’s counting?)

In that time I’ve finished a second novel (unrelated to The Scar Boys) which is currently being shopped by agent. In fact, I finished that earlier this year, in April. I’m now working on a third novel (unrelated to the first two) and thought it might be fun to share the first six hundred words here. (I’m already seventy pages into a rough draft.)

I think this is more fun (well, more fun for me) if I don’t provide any context. Instead, I’m putting it out here to see how you react on the merit of what it is. I will say that the rest of the story spins off this, but in a very different voice and in a hopefully unpredictable direction. If anyone is interested — if anyone is reading this (Hi Mom!) — I’ll post other select pieces as I write. It might be fun to get immediate reaction. (If it’s not fun, I’ll stop.)

What do you think? Worth pursuing? Don’t quit my day job? I’d like to know!

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The Red and The Blue

By A. P. S. Reyes

Author’s Note:

I knew Ant Ellis for only thirty seconds. That was exactly how long it took the life to seep from his eyes after I shot him. It was a clean shot, on the left side of his chest, through the center of the alligator on his Izod shirt.

I had been given no training on what it means to kill. Only issued a gun and told to use it when needed. I thought I would be ready, thought it would make me feel like a man. It did not.

The unexpectedness of it was like the slap of a jilted lover. I have tried many times to put this feeling into words and have never succeeded. The closest I have come is to say that it was the moment before a wish for absolution.

I was at close enough range that when I pulled the trigger, Ant’s body left its feet and flew backward as if blown by an unseen squall. I think I muttered something stupid—Dios mio! or just a simple, stunned Que?—and dropped my gun.

Unsure of what to do, I knelt beside Ant and cradled his head on my lap, keeping his face above the shallow mud of the nearly dry river. I didn’t know this person. I didn’t know his history or how he had come to be at the muzzle end of my revolver. I didn’t even know his name.

The only knowledge I had about Ant Ellis came from the thin wisp of beard and mustache on his face and the smoothness of his skin. He was just a boy, not more than sixteen years old.

My training said nothing about what to do with the body of the person, of the niño, you have just shot. I tried to soothe him.

“Todo estará bien—Everything will be ok.” He tried to answer, but no sound came from his lungs, only bubbles of saliva stained blood.

He forced himself up on one elbow trying to peer over my shoulder. His eyes found whatever they were seeking because the loco gringo laid his head back down and laughed. I turned to see what he was looking at, but saw nothing more than the gentle rustle of a sage bush. When I looked back down, Anderson Nathaniel Ellis, Ant to the world that knew and loved him, was dead. He died laughing, his blood on my trousers, his head in my hands.

I vowed then and there—swore it to Holy Madre Maria—that this boy, this teenage Americano with no name, he would not die in vain. That my taking a life would not be in vain. That I would learn how he had come to be in such a wrong place at such a wrong time. I swore it over and over and over again.

I have spent seven years fulfilling this vow—I have interviewed his family, his friends, and his co-workers; I have retraced the path he took to my river; I have walked through his town and felt his life—and now I am done. I have been like Ahab in search of his whale and it has cost me my money, my family, my vocation. And still, I find that rest comes no more easily than before. It is, I suppose, my just reward.

I have taken liberties with the telling of Ant’s story by allowing him to speak on these pages in the first person. In some small way, it has permitted me to bring him back to life.

It is obvious to say that this is a sad story. Any story that ends with a death is almost always a sad story. But there is hope here, too. And there is absolution, if not for me, then perhaps for the reader.

Armando Pedroso Sanchez Reyes—Juarez, Mexico

November 13, 2031

(And yes, this was actually written by me, Len Vlahos, copyright 2013)

Scar Boys Firsts

I have to admit that, to this point, I haven’t felt like much of an author. It’s more like I’ve been playing an author in a local theater troupe’s production of “Biff Writes a Book.” Case in point, the galleys’ arrive:

Kristen, my better (smarter, better-looking, generally nicer) half calls me at work:

“A box arrived. It feels like it might have books in it.”

How does a box with books feel different from a box with, say, magazines, or CDs, or I don’t know, diapers. “How can you tell, I ask?”

“Duh, genius. I used to work in a bookstore.” Okay, she probably says “I used to work in a bookstore silly,” but I’ll remember things my way, you remember things your way. “Plus,” she adds, “it’s from a printer.”

After some more back and forth, Kristen and I agree that she’ll bring the box with her when we meet some friends for dinner that night. Our friends, Ron and Julie, have kids the same age as ours (five and two), so dinner is chaotic. (If you have young kids, you’ll understand. If you don’t watch this.)

I’m the last to arrive and everyone is on pins and needles wanting me to open the box.

“Daddy,” my son Charlie says, “your books are in this box!”

“Maybe,” I say, “maybe. Let’s see.”

As you can see by the photos, the books were in fact in the box.

And here’s the part where I don’t quite know how to be an author. Our waitress, Shani (Sh-knee), oohs and has when she learns that one of her customers is a soon to be published author.

“Oh my gosh,” says Shani, “I’m definitely going to buy one when the book comes out! I can’t wait!”

I am so humbled and so flattered, that I believe here without any shred of doubt. It never occurs to me that she’s being nice because 1) she’s nice, or 2) she’s working us for a good tip. I’m so overcome with gratitude that I immediately give her one of my twenty galleys. I expect her to walk way happy, but she doesn’t.

My confusion deepens when Kristen asks, “Well?”

“Well,” I answer, turning to Shani “enjoy it.”

“No, you dumb-ass, sign it!” Okay, again, Kristen probably says something like “Aren’t you going to sign it Sweetie?”

So sign it, I do. All in all, it was a pretty amazing night.

And yeah, I had a glimpse of what it feels like to be an author. I like it.

Downloaded

I’m a person who likes charts. They bring order to complicated ideas, and that’s, well, kind of beautiful. No, really, it’s true. The next time you see a chart, stop to think about whether or not you would fully grok the underlying point without the visual. (If you’re a chart junkie too, you can get your fix at Chart of the Day.) But wait, I digress. Let me get back to my point, because I think I actually have one this time. (Really. I promise.)

My all time favorite chart is this:

This is the “Adoption Curve” chart. It’s probably a bit hard to read, so let me explain. The X axis (from left to right) shows time, from 1910 to 1999. The Y axis (from bottom to top) shows percent penetration into U.S. households, from 0% to 100%. Each line of data represents a different technology — the long squiggly blue line is the telephone; the first red line in the middle is television; the next red line is color television, and so on.

Successful technology is adopted in a measurable, predictable pattern: Early adopters fuel slow, steady growth until the utility of the technology in question surpasses what it is replacing (refrigerators vs. ice boxes), and the cost drops to a low enough point to allow for mass consumption. When utility (increasing) and cost (decreasing) meet, the percent of households adopting the technology makes that hockey stick turn up, and all heck breaks loose.

Of course, not all technologies succeed. The little blue line all the way at the right represents the adoption of telephone pagers. Project this chart forward just a couple of years, and that line turns back down in a sort of bell curve. Think about laser discs, or if you’re old or geeky enough to know what they are (I’m both), think about eight track tapes. But those were failures in execution, not concept. People wanted mobile communication, high definition movies, and portable music, and in each case a better mousetrap was waiting in the wings.

This is what I had in mind last night as I watched Downloaded, the new Rock Doc from filmmaker Alex Winter. The movie chronicles the spectacular rise and spectacular fall of the original music file sharing service, Napster.

If you’re one of the three regular readers of this blog (Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hi @cheapmedsforsale!), you know that I love rockumentaries. Downloaded, I’m happy to say, gets added to the list of my all-time favorites.

“I made the movie because I thought no one had ever told the full, honest story of Napster,” the director said in a Q&A session after the screening. “This is a story that deserved and needed to be told.” He’s right. It does.

The basic premise of the film is that the CEOS of the major record labels were too stupid — some might say greedy, I’m sticking with stupid — to understand and leverage what was a seismic shift in consumer behavior. People, who’d consumed music the same way for 50 years, had found a new, more facile, more interesting way of acquiring and listening to songs. We had moved from our Walkmans (Walkmen?) and portable CD players to something better. Napster was the engine that drove that change.

And that engine was operating at the redline. In a very short window of time, Napster grew from tens of thousands of users to more than 25 million worldwide. Napster’s success was so sudden and so unexpected that the music industry, in a kind of confused spasmodic response, sued the site into oblivion.

Take a look at this chart (see, I told you I like charts):

When Napster reached 15 million U.S. users, a federal judge issued a court injunction shutting the service down. Look at that peak in spring of 2001. The growth had been following the predictable pattern of explosive adoption we saw above, then WHAM! External forces reversed the trend. But they didn’t, they couldn’t, change the underlying cultural shifts that allowed for that growth in the first place. The genie was out of the bottle.

There’s an old adage in the world of innovation: Pioneers get slaughtered, settlers prosper. (MySpace, anyone?) And that’s what happened here.

Unfortunately for the music industry, by killing young, lovable, upstart Napster, they created their own worst nightmare. Napster’s success, and the vacuum left by its abrupt departure, spawned iTunes.

The story of what happens to music after Napster — Downloaded takes us through the end of Napster — is chronicled in an excellent book, Appetite for Self Destruction by Steve Knopp. But before you read that book, see this movie.

(I read something else recently about the folly of corporate copyright holders… If only I could remember where I had seen that? Oh yeah, right! It was here on this ol’ blog!)

At its heart, Downloaded is more than a story about technology or business. It is first and foremost a story about people. The protagonist is Shawn Fanning, the father and founder of Napster. Winter’s movie makes you fall in love with Fanning, cheering his victories, fleeting though they were, and feeling the pain of his eventual defeat. The cast of characters — those who fought for and those who fought against Napster — is fascinating. As much as films like The Social Network are fun (and I love that movie), it’s so much better to hear a story like this told in the words of those who were there.

Downloaded is playing in limited theatrical release now, and will be available on DVD soon. Don’t miss it.

The Scar Boys gets a cover!

My publisher, Egmont USA, commissioned a graphic artist to design a cover for The Scar Boys, and I L-O-V-E the result!

Actually, Egmont offered two alternate covers (see below) and enlisted the help of America’s indie booksellers to choose a final treatment. Nearly 100 booksellers voted, and while I would have been incredibly happy with either cover, I’m thrilled with the final choice.

Thank you booksellers… You. Are. Awesome!

(I can’t wait to see it actually in print…)

Here’s the winner:

What do you think?

Aw Dee Oh!

The Scar Boys is going to be an audiobook! Listening Library, Random House’s audio publishing unit (and one of the best regarded audio publishers on the planet) has acquired the rights to publish the audiobook version of The Scar Boys. The audio will publish simultaneously with the hardcover — February 25, 2014.

Woohoo!!!

And in case you’re wondering… Yes, of course I’ve already asked if I can narrate. That will be up to the producer, and that conversation won’t happen until this fall. It’s a long shot to think that they’d cast a first-time author rather than a professional actor, but hey, it never hurts to ask. Right?

Next up for The Scar Boys, the book cover reveal…coming soon.

Straight to the Queen

A few years ago, HarperCollins had embarked on a project to publish essays on each of the fifty U.S. states. The essays were to be collected in a series of regional guides, but only two were published before the plug was pulled. This was a shame, because I had submitted the (embellished but mostly true) essay below for their New England edition, and it had been accepted. Dang.

I stumbled across this piece when I was trolling through old writing projects looking for inspiration and I kind of still like it. So, I thought, what the heck, let’s share it.

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Straight to the Queen

By Len Vlahos

©April 2010

October 28, 2003

The beast’s blood-soaked fangs buttress four alabaster teeth, each etched with a different suit from the deck. The diamond has a little stud at its center that twinkles when it catches the light just so. His soulless eyes stare down at me through polarized lenses—from their seven-foot-two-inch perch they look like meteors falling to Earth. He has a silver cross dangling from one ear, its bottom sharpened to a lethal point. A two-day growth of steel-tipped stubble spreads across his chin like a plague. When he speaks, it’s as if demons have been called forth from the deepest reaches of hell, steam seeping slowly from his nose.

His name is Jim, and he is the most ruthless poker player in the room.

Of course, if you were to come across Jim, you would see a five-foot-six-inch picture of nerdish congeniality, his striped polo shirt stretched thin from too many Heinekens, his pants riding up over his ankles. Your first impression would be that Jim is an actuary or an accountant, but not the fun kind of actuary or accountant. The forgettable appearance is only part of Jim’s game—lull you into a false sense of security, then rip your throat out. Anyone who’s spent any time here knows this.

“Here” is Foxwoods, a mammoth casino hidden in the backwaters of Northeastern, Connecticut. The pride of the Mashanpequot tribe, Foxwoods is one of two grotesque compounds—the other called Mohegan Sun—lighting up the otherwise sleepy towns that dot the Rhode Island and Massachusetts border.

To most people, Connecticut conjures images of Greenwich mansions, Mystic Seaport, and Yale Univeristy. Of docksiders, khakis, and sweater vests. Of Joe Lieberman’s hang dog, droopy face that is just impossible to like. But for me, in 2003, Connecticut was all about poker.

Jim sees me walk up and smiles. I take his outstretched hand.

“So you playing in this thing today?” He’s referring to the $300 No Limit Hold ‘Em Tournament, a side event in the World Poker Finals taking place at Foxwood’s.

“I am,” I answered. “I see your face is on the wall of fame over there.” Jim had won a seat into the $10,000 No-Limit Tournament, the week’s crowning event, and they posted his photo alongside the other cardsharps. “Make the rest of us amateurs proud,” I tell him.

His smile is sly but unmistakable. We wish each other luck, joking that we’ll meet later that night at the final table. He heads off in search of his seat.

I say goodbye to Kristen, the woman I’ve been dating for the past month. She has perfect, porcelain teeth that stretch to the ends of the earth when she smiles, her cat-like eyes have a glint of mischief, and her chestnut hair falls on her shoulders like a flowing robe. She has tall, lean legs covered by black tights and a plaid skirt. In stark contrast to my vision of Jim, Kristen’s eye-popping appearance is not a figment of my imagination.

I start to walk away when Kristen puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me. She looks into the very center of my eyes. Her gaze is so intense I can feel it on the back of my head. “Kick ass,” she says with Pacinoesque intensity and kisses me on the lips.

A little light-headed I enter the tournament room in search of Table 34, Seat 3.

With a record number of people signed up to play—726—they’re dealing the game 11-handed instead of 10-handed. I’m literally rubbing elbows with the players in seats two and four.

Seat Two, to my right, is a burly man in his mid-thirties who doesn’t say a word, just puckers his lips like he’s sucking a lime. I silently name him “Eeyore.”

Seat Four, a garrulous young black man, plays Yin to Eeyore’s Yang. He’s talking a blue streak and he’s kind of funny, so I dub him “Chris Rock.” Chris is either the friendliest guy in the world, or he’s trying to distract the rest of us to throw us off our game. It’s not an uncommon tactic. Just yesterday, a salty old dog who called himself Hollis used the same strategy to bust me out of a single table satellite tournament. Chris Rock makes Hollis seem like Shields, or maybe Yarnell.

The first hand is dealt and I’m staring at a jack of clubs and three of hearts. Instafold. It goes like this for the next hour. In that time I have exactly one playable hand, Ace-Queen off-suit. I play it, and win a small pot.

A few hands later, I get six-seven suited in the big blind. I check my way into the pot and watch an open ended straight draw hit the flop. By the time the last card falls half my stack is gone, my straight unfilled. The other half of my stack disappears ten short minutes later, my Ace-Jack bested by quiet Eeyore’s Ace-King.

T.J. Cloutier, in his book on playing in No-Limit Hold ‘Em Poker Tournaments, says “to win, you have to win with Ace-King and you have to beat Ace-King.” It’s the fifth time in the last 48 hours that Ace-King has kicked me in the nuts. Everything in the way Eeyore bet SCREAMED Ace-King. He practically had a tattoo across his dull, wrinkled forehead that said, “Hey jerkwad in seat three, I’ve got Ace-King. Ace-King, Ace-friggin’-King!”

The tournament is likely to run until midnight or later. My goal, as a new player, was to make it to dinnertime. I am gone by 11:30 AM.

As I make the walk of shame out of the poker room, I spot Jim. He’s already so far ahead that he looks like a disembodied head floating atop a mountain of poker chips. I shrug my shoulders and smile at him, as if to say “Oh well, happens to the best of us.” Jim nods at me, but then whispers something to the player in the next seat, who turns his head in my direction. The two of them laugh.

Wankers.

I wander out of the casino shielding my eyes from the bright Connecticut sun, and before I know what’s happening, I’m sitting in my car headed for I-95 and the long trip home. It’s then that I remember my date. I double back.

To her credit, Kristen laughs when I tell her that I drove away without her. It’s a transformative moment in our relationship. She had every right to punch me in the nose, but instead, she plays the hand I’ve dealt and finds the humor in it.

When we finally get on the road for real, after I have apologized for the fifteenth time, I pour over the details of my early exit from the tournament as she listens patiently, right up to Jim’s mocking glare. “I guess poker isn’t for me,” I tell her.

“Whoa,” she says, and this time there’s an edge to her voice. “Busting out early, or being in such a fog that you drove off, those things I can understand. But quitting? One small setback and you give up? Is that really who you want to be?”

Who is this girl?

We careen past New London and the Navy’s fleet of nuclear subs. I wonder if the fish in the Sound are glowing. I’d kind of like to see that.

“They have this tournament every year, right?” Kristen asks.

“Yeeeeah,” I say, drawing the word out in hesitation, not sure where she’s taking this conversation.

“Then practice. You have a year to practice, a year to get good. To come back and win.”

“It’s not that simp—”

“Ahp!” She holds her hand up, “No excuses.”

I’m not sure why this woman, who I’ve only been dating for a few weeks, is so interested in my poker career. I wonder if she has some mob connection, or if she’s part Mashanpequot Indian. (It turns out she is part Indian, but not from a tribe that owns a casino. Too bad.) But at the end of the day, I figure she’s giving me encouragement because she knows I want to play.

“I’ll come back with you,” she says.

And just like that, with no vote of cloture, the debate is ended and the deal is done.

Halloween, 2004 – One Year Later

The drive to Foxwoods—a 100-mile stretch of the 2000-mile-long I-95—alternates between devastatingly boring and colossally ugly. The highlight is the bend in the road at New Haven, which is perpetually under construction; traffic clogs this main vehicular artery of the northeast like too much cholesterol. Eisenhower would be proud.

I’ve made the trip up 95 a dozen times or more in the year that’s passed since my early exit from the $300 No-Limit tourney. Today, on the trip back, to tempt fate a second time, I’m quiet, contemplative. Kristen, as she promised, rides with me. She stares out the window, singing softly along with Angel of Harlem.

For 365 days, I’ve focused on all things poker. I played at Foxwood’s and in Atlantic City. I found home games, and I discovered PartyPoker.com. I played ring games and tournaments—Limit, No-Limit, Omaha Hi-Low, and Stud. I played thousands—tens of thousands—of hands. I saw every conceivable combination of cards. I filled flushes and houses full. I made straights and flopped quads. I watched my rag cards turn to riches of chips. I ate, breathed, and crapped poker.

And while all that was going on, I fell in love.

Kristen and I went on dates. Innocent, simple dates. Dinner-and-a-movie dates. The relationship we build is subtle, quiet, and confident. It’s not a fueled by the hot passion of New York’s fire, nor does it luxuriate in the burning glow of a California sun. It’s a steady, stable, and deep Connecticut bond we’re forging. There’s nothing ostentatious or garish about it. It’s like a heated pool on a cool night. Surprising at first, but so comfortable so quickly in the way it envelopes you, that you never want to get out.

Halloween is the day before Kristen’s birthday, so she’s forsaken her annual right of both demon worship and personal celebration to join me on this sojourn. It gives me that much more incentive to win.

9 a.m., November 1

“Shuffle up and deal!”

The very first hand I’m looking at a pair of kings, two cowboys ready to lasso a nice phat pot. They easily best a busted straight and I’m up more than five grand only a few minutes into the tournament. Last year’s “nojo” is this year’s “mojo.”

I manage my money well and play for hours. And hours. And more hours. My legs cramp, my back stiffens, and my ass-bone turns to rock. I imagine this is what it feels like to be 80 years old. But I achieve in year two what I failed so badly to do in year one: I make it to the dinner break.

There are fewer than 200 of the original 856 players left, so I don’t have to last a whole lot longer to ease my way into the money. The prize for the bottom rung on the payout scale—the top 80 players will earn a paycheck—is nearly double this year’s $500 entry fee, and I could use the money.

I call Kristen during the break. She’s back in the hotel room taking a nap, something she loves to do. Kristen is a mystery at the center of a riddle wrapped around an enigma, with an outer shell of beauty and grace. She has cage-danced (sort of), has been arrested (in a manner of speaking), and has won big at the poker table (this is true). I could spend a lifetime with this woman and still be surprised almost every day. For a gambler, this is a huge plus. I need uncertainty, unpredictability, and action. With Kristen, I’ve hit the trifecta.

A few more hours pass, and we’re down to 90 players. Only 10 more to go, and I’m a winner.

I’m under the gun (the first player to act) with a pair of tens. No-Limit Hold ‘Em is all about position, and my position is as bad as it gets, so really, this isn’t a very strong hand. But with the remaining players so close to cashing a check, the table is playing very tight; I decide to gamble. I raise the blinds and bet more than half of my now meager stack. This is my first mistake.

Everyone folds around to the button and I’m thinking that I’ve just stolen the blinds and antes when the last player to act reraises me, all in. He has a square head and a greenish tint to his skin. I’ve silently nicknamed him “Gumby.” He must be a good poker player, because his face is a blank slate. I just can’t put him on a hand.

Gumby raises enough—his stack is three times mine—that to call, I have to risk all my chips. I have no choice. Too much of my money is in the middle, and I’m not going to see anything as good as 10s again for a while. I make the call. This is my second mistake.

If you’re paying attention, you should know which two cards Gumby flipped over. Can you guess? That’s right, Ace-King. Truth-be-told, a pair versus Ace-King is, for all intents and purposes, a draw. No one has an edge. But I know these cards and know that my fate is sealed. The flop shows a King, and I’m dead in the water. There’s a second King on the river, just to make sure.

It’s 10 p.m. I’ve been playing for 13 hours, but I’m playing no more. And I have nothing to show for it but a sore butt.

When I tell people this story, they say “wow, 90th out of 856, that’s great!” But it’s not. In some ways it would have been easier to finish 700th. To come so close and have been so far, well, it stung.

Kristen woke up when I made it back to the hotel room and gave me a big hug. It was one of the best hugs of my life. You never know how much you need a physical connection until you get it. Then you can’t figure out how you lived without it. I didn’t waste anytime giving her the birthday surprise I’d planned before we left for Foxwood’s.

It turned out that in all my poker practicing, I’d gotten kind of good—I earned more than two grand playing ring games online. I’d cashed most of that out, and booked a trip for the two of us to spend a long weekend in Rome a month later. She was floored, and I was happy.

Present Day

Kristen and I are now married, and we’ve returned to the scene of the crime: We live in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I haven’t played poker in a few years, so now when I think of the Nutmeg state, I’m not dreaming of mountains of chips and wired aces. Its fall leaves, early tee times, and the smell of barbeque that come to mind. It turns out that the casinos are a Connecticut anomaly, because this place, more than any other I’ve ever known, feels like home.

But sometimes, very occasionally, I think I can hear a distant, muffled call of “Shuffle up and deal” and I find myself wanting to take a seat.

Listumentary

At the recommendation of a few different friends, Kristen and I recently rented Searching for Sugar Man. It’s the story of recording artist Sixto Rodriguez (known simply as Rodriguez), the best folk/rock singer you’ve never heard of. Rodriguez made two albums in the early 1970s, Cold Hard Fact and Coming from Reality, neither of which found an audience, and then he faded into oblivion. At least that’s what happened here in the U.S.

In South Africa however, unbeknownst to anyone connected with Rodriguez, the man had become a rock star on a par with Elvis Presley. His albums, which carried a strong anti-establishment message, helped fuel the soundtrack of the anti-Apartheid movement.

Beyond Rodriguez’s poetic and incendiary lyrics, South Africans also became infatuated with the legend of Rodriquez’s death. There were varied and conflicting reports about the manner in which he had died on stage, each more outrageous than the one that preceded it. This brilliant film follows a South African journalist and a South African record store owner as they try to unravel the mystery of Rodriguez. The beauty of this uplifting story of triumph, passion, and compassion, is not only what you’ll see on the celluloid, but what you’ll hear in the soundtrack. I pretty much guarantee that by the time the ending credits roll, you will be downloading something from Rodriquez on iTunes.

So, in keeping with the spirit of this blog, Searching for Sugar Man got me thinking; what are the best rockumentaries of all time. Here’s my short list:

The Filth and the Fury — Brilliant and gritty Julien Temple-directed documentary about the Sex Pistols, where surviving band members each tell their version of the band’s history. I love that the Pistol’s notorious (and allegedly crooked) manager Malcolm McLaren does his interviews in a bondage mask.

End of the Century — Any fan of the Ramones will love this. (And really, who’s not a fan of the Ramones. You? Really? No, that just can’t be true. You’re wrong. You are a Ramones fan. You just don’t know it. Watch End of the Century and you’ll see what I mean.)

Searching for Sugar Man — See above.

Gimme Shelter — Dark tale about the Rolling Stones appearance at the 1969 Altamont Free Music Festival at the Altamont Freeway, and how it all went terribly wrong. Captivating and a bit disturbing.

Athens, GA — I have a soft spot for this film, as I knew half the bands featured from my time in Athens. (I was there in 1985, this was made soon after.) This is a very homey movie and does a great job of capturing the Athens scene in the mid-80s.

Honorable Mention:

This Is Spinal Tap — Yeah, most rockumentary lists include Spinal Tap, but it’s not actually a rockumentary. It’s a mockumentary. Still, it’s more than funny, it’s genius.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains — This is neither a rockumentary or a mockumentary, just the best little rock and roll movie you’ve never heard of. An incredibly young Diane Lane runs away to be a rock star. The film features Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Paul Simonon, too. Click here for a good short documentary about the making of the film.

And here’s the film’s trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, what are your favorites?

The Insomniac Playlist

A brief science quiz:

Matter is to Antimatter as Len is to:

a) Work

b) Parenting

c) Sleep

d) All of the above

e) None of the above

If you answered A, B, or D < sarcasm > hey, thanks a lot. < /sarcasm >

If you answered E, Hello, pleased to meet you, I’m Len.

No, really, the answer is C, sleep.

I’m a lifelong insomniac. It’s not that I have trouble falling asleep, though that happens sometimes too, it’s that I have trouble staying asleep. I once read a book on the science of sleep. It suggested that human beings sleep in four hour cycles. We cross from consciousness to unconsciousness, move through increasingly deeper stages of sleep, fall into the deepest stage, REM sleep (where we dream), and then we crawl our way back to the edge of consciousness before starting the whole process over again. Do it twice, and you have a nice, tidy eight hours of sleep. (I’m pretty sure the book suggested that different people have different circadian rhythms, but I’m choosing to ignore that right now. Hey, it’s my blog.)

So here’s the thing. These days I fall asleep pretty easily, but I almost always wake up four hours later. Not approximately four hours later. Not three to five hours later. Not three and a half to four and a half hours later. Four hours later. Some nights, about half the time, I’m awake for a few minutes before falling back into a fitful, restless sleep. The other half of the time, I’m up.

Just. Up.

I’ve tried many remedies over the years: I’ve taken Ambien, I’ve sipped Valerian Root Tea, I’ve quit caffeinated beverages more than once (I’m off them right now and have been for more than a year), I stopped reading in bed (“your bed should be a shrine to sleep,” says my doctor), I’ve even altered my nighttime diet. And still, four hours after I first fall asleep, almost to the minute, I wake up.

This is so important to me that several years ago I started a blog, the goal of which was to help bring siesta to the United States. If I could just grab an hour or two in the middle of the day, I’d be golden. Sadly, no one ever visited that blog. (Hey, you could be the first! Click the link!)

Of course, there’s an upside to insomnia. First, I get a ton of stuff done. Aside from this < self deprecating sarcasm > brilliant blog < /self deprecating sarcasm >, I’ve written a parenting blog, two novels (I’m really proud of both) and something like five screenplays (none of which will ever, thankfully, see the light of day.) But it’s not just that. The middle of the night is magical.

The next time you find yourself up at 3 a.m. — and I don’t mean stumbling-home-drunk-up-at-3 a.m., I mean up — if the weather’s good, step outside. Draw a deep breath of air into your lungs. There’s something about the air in the middle of the night. Maybe it’s the first hint of moisture that will form the morning dew; maybe it’s the knowledge that it’s your air.

If you’re far enough from a city, look up. The first time my son and I camped out in the backyard, this past summer just after he had turned four, we stayed up and looked at that late night sky. He literally gasped the first time he saw all those stars. (And we’re not out in the sticks. We live in a city in suburban New York with a population of more than 100,000. And still, that sky.)

Finally, listen. Just. Listen.

Of course, maybe I’ve romanticized the whole thing so I’ll feel better about my failure as a sleeper. Maybe it’s just cold and quiet and creepy outside, and that’s whey everyone else is in bed. Maybe, but maybe not.

All of this got me thinking (which is what insomniacs do way too much of) about music (which is what I think way too much about). What are the best songs about sleep? Not songs to help you sleep, songs about sleep. What is the great Insomniac Playlist?

Here are my top five. And check out the two covers of my number one pick. I’m not sure which one I like more, but I like them both, a lot.

1. I’m So Tired — The Beatles

2. Bad — U2

3. 3:45 No Sleep — The Cardigans

4. Dream Weaver — Gary Wright

5. Mr. Sandman — The Chordettes

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What are your favorite songs about sleep?

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Huh? What? Oh yeah, right. Good night.

The Scar Boys Has a Pub Date!

The Scar Boys will publish on February 25, 2014!

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Len Vlahos

These days, every book I finish reading gets added to my GoodReads library. I’ve made a point of reserving five star reviews for only those books that manage to rise above the white noise of the world, that impact me in some meaningful and lasting way. It’s a fluid list, with some books getting better and some books getting worse over time. Kind of like wine.

I look through my library every so often, and it seems that I always find some five star review to downgrade. To get five stars, a book has stand up and slap me in the face, over and over again. Or, in the case of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, it has to pour me a drink and let me tell it my troubles.

I won’t use this space to tell you what Harold Fry is about. You can read the description for that. I will, however, tell you how this book made me feel: Inspired.

A friend once recommended I read the The Alchemist. Her experience with the Coelho book was that of a spiritual journey. While I appreciated The Alchemist, it didn’t really speak to me. Harold Fry did. I found myself examining my own life, contemplating the small victories and defeats of my time on this planet. I tried to understand what I’ve done well, what I’ve done poorly, who I’ve treated well, and who I’ve let down.

I made 24 distinct New Year’s Resolutions this year. As I did last year, I taped the resolutions to my bathroom wall. I figure if I have to look at them everyday, maybe they’ll sink in. (Of course, having to look at the bathroom wallpaper for five years hasn’t made me change it, so go figure.) Most of my resolutions are benign — read more, finish such and such writing project, slouch less, exercise more, blah, blah, blah. But a few — don’t sweat the small stuff; be less loud, always — get at the heart of who I think I can be.

I told a friend about this, and she said “24 resolutions? Dude. If you need 24 resolutions, maybe there’s a lot wrong with your life.” And this is what Harold Fry is all about. There’s a lot wrong with everyone’s life. Maybe we can make it better, and when we can’t, maybe we just need to give ourselves a break.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry may not be for everyone — it’s quiet and introspective (no exploding rocket ships or car chases) — but it is beautiful.