Stranger than fiction, indeed

Don't even get me started on Gavin Newsom. There's so many reasons Californians want him gone, so many reasons he's been terrible for the state. Maybe some other time.

However, one of the more bizarre pandemic-related things he's done is going the lottery route for people who've gotten the vaccine. Hosted by him, of course.

With that in mind, this just popped up on my social media:

Okay, I totally get what the guy who posted it is going for, but just the oddness of it all is what's been on my mind lately. So I replied with this:

Unfortunately Serling is no longer with us and hasn't been for a long, long time. But I think it says a lot about his genius that decades later he's still our go-to guy for the bizarre, especially in terms of powerful political figures (or "the state" as Rod was fond of slyly referring to them). Tell me this doesn't look like a scene out of a Serling script.

We are truly living in bizarro world, but I'm still betting on the good guys to win. I just wish that day would hurry up and get here. I'm getting kind of tired of feeling like I'm living in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

We have cover art and a release date!

This is the cover of The Fish That Got Away, the anthology that includes my short story "The Legend of Bahama Bobby". This is the one that was supposed to come out in March but got delayed, and will now be available June 21. So far it's not listed on Amazon and the authors are waiting for instructions on how to order it from the publisher, so unfortunately no link for now.

I've avoided discussing this one because it wasn't the usual fun, easy-peasy editing experience that I've had with my other stories. First of all, I totally misread the editing schedule, which gave us an entire month, then seemed to indicate a second re-editing month. Turns out that there was only the first month. So that was a massive fuck-up on my part as I didn't finish editing by the deadline and I got reamed for it.

The other issue is that this is the first experience I've had where I had to delete a major aspect of the story because the editor didn't like it. I didn't realize that her comments about it weren't open for discussion, so I tried to explain why I had it in there and why I thought it was important to the story. The main aspect of the story was people keeping secrets, both their own and others. It turned out that by going to bat for this part of the story I just pissed her off some more after the deadline fiasco. I really got the idea that she just didn't like the story at all.

At the time it was only my third time getting accepted for publication. I had a great deal of confidence that the story as it had been submitted (and accepted) was strong, partly based on the fact that it was the co-winner in one short-story contest (Moondance International Film Festival) and also picked up an Honorable Mention in a genre short-story contest (Writers' Digest Annual Writing Contest). But at this point in my writing career I wasn't really in a position to dig in my heels to defend the story as written.

In addition, the genre is in some ways a very small community. You see a lot of the same names popping up not only in print, but also at conventions and in classes and newsletters, and I certainly didn't want to gain a reputation for being difficult. So I made the changes and apologized profusely, and tried to put it down as a learning experience, which wasn't easy as I'm pretty hyper-sensitive and it's hard for me to blow off a negative experience like that. But at some point you have to move on.

Luckily, about two weeks later, I had another story accepted and my experience with that editor could not have been easier or more pleasant, so that eased some of the sting. She was extremely complimentary about the story, the voice, and especially the ending, and had me re-write all of one sentence for clarity. It couldn't have been easier. That anthology, Avenging Angelenos, was the one that was supposed to be published in April, but it's also been delayed. Hopefully we'll get some news on that one soon.

Updated 6/8/21: You can order the book from Amazon here.

Honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice

My great-uncle Francis. He almost made it. Germany surrendered
a couple months after his death. His parents had immigrated to the
Boston area from Italy. The original family name was Massino.

Updated 12:45pm: Holy fucking shit, this headline from The Babylon Bee...this is in response to both Biden and Harris posting messages earlier telling everyone to have fun this weekend without mentioning one damn thing about military sacrifice or what this "holiday" is really all about. 

May Words of Wisdom

People confuse me. Food doesn't. --Anthony Bourdain

Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose. 

--James Ellroy

There should be special contempt for those who sit in safety and comfort, second-guessing at their leisure the split-second decisions that policemen had to make at the risk of their own lives. --Thomas Sowell

You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces, just good food from fresh ingredients. --Julia Child

Why is there so much effort being put into trying to find intelligent life on other planets, when there is a serious question about how much intelligent life there is here? --Thomas Sowell

"Finding yourself" is not really how it works, You aren't a ten-dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who your are. "Finding yourself" is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you. --Emily McDowell

You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. --Rosa Parks

To sit alone or with a few friends, half-drunk under a full moon, you just understand how lucky you are; it's a story you can't tell. It's a story you almost by definition, can't share. I've learned in real time to look at those things and realize: I just had a really good moment. --Anthony Bourdain

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and - in spite of True Romance magazines - we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely - at least, not all the time - but essentially, and finally alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness. --Hunter S. Thompson

I always want to give the victim a voice. One of my main tasks is to let the reader know the extent of the loss and what might have been if this person had been allowed to live. --Ann Rule

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. --Leonardo da Vinci

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle. 

--St. Francis of Assisi

 

With each new sunrise we are given the chance for a new beginning. Put your worries behind you, take a deep breath...smile and start again. --Unknown

 

The kids are alright

Well, some of them are anyway.

Somebody's raising their rugrats right. Take this kid, for example:

Character builder

This popped up on my Instagram feed this morning and I thought it would be helpful to get us out of our writing funk. And yeah, but "our" I mean "my". Not enjoying the dry spell.

Characters patiently waiting to spring to life, here I come!

Spaaaaaammmmm!!!

Now they're doing Chase:

Um, I don't have any accounts with Chase. So there's that.

In case you get something like this, the email address is a dead giveaway:

Obviously a fake address. Don't fall for it.

Mostly peaceful Death Star

So, in response to this story, The Babylon Bee offered up this headline: 

From the article:

Dateline: Yavin, LOL.

There were some great comments on their Facebook page. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

This world has gotten so ridiculous, I kind of wish I was in a galaxy far, far away.

Ten years. A whole decade.

Last Saturday I was visiting my Mom's gravesite. Today is ten years to the day that my Dad passed away. It's been a whole decade. That's just mind-boggling.

Our tax dollars at work. And by work, I mean WASTE.

When I picked up my mail yesterday I noticed that one of the letters was from the Internal Revenue Service. Just dandy.

At least that's what it said on the envelope. When I got upstairs, I opened it up to see this:

Was this really necessary? Yeah, I got the payment. Thanks. It will go a long way toward patronizing stores and restaurants that aren't in business anymore thanks to the economic shutdown for a flu with a 99%+ recovery rate, even for people my age. It also helps now that gas prices are going through the roof with no end in sight. I filled my car the other day and paid $3.89/gallon, and that was the least expensive gasoline at a discount station. And now you're wasting our tax dollars on a stupid self-congratulatory and completely unnecessary letter and postage? As a taxpayer I'd like to know how much money was wasted sending these letters out. Then again, maybe I don't; it would be depressing.

Yeah, you gave the American people a mere fraction of what many of them lost in the past year, and that's only the losses that can be quantified in dollars. Thanks for the crumbs. Pat yourself on the back, big shot.

Mother's Day 2021

Paid a visit yesterday for Mother's Day. Crazy that it's already three years. On the 14th it will be ten years - a whole decade - since my Dad passed away, and that's even crazier. 

The Brother and I took one of Mom and Dad's friends from high school with us. Her parents are buried at the same place, as is my godfather, so we visited them as well. Lots of people and decorations at the cemetery, which really is a beautiful place. Then we went to lunch and had a pretty nice time. It's a treat to be able to go inside a restaurant again. Who knew that would ever be a thing?

All in all a good day. Hoping those of you who still have your Moms around have a wonderful day with them!

Screening: "Fargo"

In celebration of the film's 25th anniversary, Fathom Events presented Fargo on the big screen this weekend. You can also catch it on Wednesday evening.

Fargo (PolyGram Filmed Entertainment/Working Title Films, 1996)

Starring Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, John Carroll Lynch and Harve Presnell

Directed by Joel Coen

Written by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

Also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Macy), Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing

The perpetually inept Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) - the type of person my Dad used to charitably describe as "not one of life's winners" - needs money and lots of it, so he has come up with a hair-brained scheme to have his wife kidnapped for ransom. The idea is that his wealthy father-in-law Wade Gustafson (Presnell) will pay the $80,000 ransom, which Jerry will split with his partners-in-crime, and who will also get to keep the tan Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera that Jerry has stolen from the dealership owned by Wade, where Jerry is a salesman. What he doesn't tell kidnappers for hire Carl (Buscemi) and Gaear (Stormare) is that he plans on telling Wade that the ransom is actually one million dollars, the balance of which Jerry plans to keep after paying Carl and Gaear $40k.

The unfortunate Jean Lundegaard is successfully taken from the family home but things go awry later that night on the way to the remote hideout in Minnesota when the Ciera is pulled over by a state trooper because Carl forgot to affix the temporary tags to the new, stolen car. Carl makes a bumbling attempt to bribe the trooper that falls flat. When the trooper discovers Jean hidden in the back seat, Gaear shoots him in the head. While Carl is attempting to drag the poor man's body off the road a young couple drives by, sees the horrifying scene, and takes off...with Gaear in hot pursuit. The bypassers lose control of their car, crashing off the road, where Gaear dispatches them to the great eyewitness beyond.

Carl advises Jerry that "blood has been shed" and demands the full $80k ransom. To make matters worse for Jerry, Marge Gunderson, the visibly pregnant Brainerd police chief, is now working the triple homicide and she'll eventually catch up with Jerry and the kidnappers, culminating with the infamous woodchipper scene. McDormand's portrayal of Marge, initially presented as a sweetly competent woman but eventually revealed to be fearlessly relentless in her pursuit of justice, earned her a well-deserved Oscar.

Some Fargo facts and trivia:

• Fargo lost Best Picture, Director, Cinematography and Film Editing to The English Patient, and Supporting Actor to Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire).
• Despite being the main character, Marge Gunderson doesn't appear onscreen for a half hour, meaning she only appears in the last two-thirds of the film.
• Fargo was not based on a true story as claimed onscreen at the beginning of the film, but was inspired by the 1986 Connecticut murder case in which Richard Crafts murdered his wife Helle, then attempted to dispose of her body parts by running them through a rented woodchipper. However, there was no botched kidnapping involved in the Crafts case.
• Richard Jenkins and Bill Pullman were considered for Jerry. Macy originally auditioned for the role of the ill-fated state trooper, but campaigned hard for the role of Jerry.
• The Fargo body count is seven. Two were killed by Carl: Wade Gustafson and the parking booth operator. Five (the state trooper, the two people in the passing car, Jean Lundegaard, and Carl) were killed by Gaear.
• Norm's duck paintings were actually painted by "those Hautmanns" who are real-life brothers and friends of the Coens. They have won multiple wildlife stamp competitions.
• None of the movie was actually filmed in Fargo, North Dakota, and only one scene - the opening scene where Jerry is setting up his wife's kidnapping - is set there. All other scenes take place in Minnesota, except at the end of the film when Jerry is discovered near Bismarck, North Dakota.
• Fargo has a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which means there were actually critics who gave it negative reviews. Jerks.
• The woodchipper now resides at the Fargo-Moorhead Visitor's Center. You can take your picture with it, in fact they'll give you a fake leg so you can re-create that scene.

Sources:

Fargo on imdb - Fargo on Rotten Tomatoes - Helle Crafts Murder on Wikipedia - The Fargo Woodchipper