Retorna Me, O Lead Sled Of Dreams...

Been a year or so since the 1949 Ford left Wise Acres for a makeover. Bart, who works on it some weekends and a couple nights a week, is a methodical, ex-racer safety-minded dude with a good sense of design and car looks. Also wields a mean spray paint gun. He took on the Butchmobile for a low-mileage, 1984 New Evo Harley that had been retrofied to an Indian/WWII olive drab look. And soon it will be done, the Butchmobile.

Bart took this in Butler, MO. Soon, I will be ghosting the town square, oldies issuing from the radio, mellifluous tones from the smitty glasspaks, then the bluedot taillights will disappear like tracers in the dusk, down the two-lane blacktop...

The name comes from a similar-looking Ford I had in high school. A lowered, rumbling, primered, vapor-locking beast of a flathead V8 that attracted cops like a cow pie pulls flies out of a summer breeze. My name was Butch then. And the Ford was my car through thick and thin. Much thin. That Ford and I exploded the myth that cops couldn't chase you across the state line from Missouri into Kansas. Turned out they could, of course, would, did with impunity. One of many aha moments for me at that downy-cheeked, often misinformed stage of life.

The main apprehending cop's name was Rocky. He was a young man, and he laughed when he said "You actually believed that?"

Well, Rocky and I would meet often on the streets of Kansas City. First-name basis. His name was Sir. Mine was whatever came to mind and mood. He would search my trunk and glove box if I had passengers, just for the embarrassment it caused me. But I digress. This car is not that car, and I am not that callow youth. I'm a callow older guy.

Here it comes, out of the past, watch out...

This Ford, this Butchmobile II, has been upgraded in every possible way, from stronger solenoids in the door-openers, to a leak in the back window that eluded Bart for over a month. The fender skirts have been reshaped to fit more aerodynamically--they were meant for a Mercury, but I wanted them on this car. The parking brake cables rubbed the air bags. Fixed. Major things like the clunky C3 trans (out of a 70's Ranchero) replaced with a recent Mustang 5-speed manual. I can hardly wait to get my hands on that. The primer-looking dull matte paint job has been glossified just a bit, still a fresh primer look, but cooler. There were rust bubbles everywhere. Gone. The automatic windows stuck. No more. The gauges have been revamped and placed for more convenient reads of the 1988 Mercury engine's activities.

The gas tank sprouted rust that clogged the fuel pump, and that's been dealt with. There went a month. First was, why doesn't this #@%^$ start? The steering wheel locked and it wasn't even a GM product. Remove pin. And much more, much more.

Dino rode shotgun, as did Elvis, Jerry Lee, and Duane...

Anyway, in the words of Dean Martin, "Retorna me, cara mia ti amo, solo tu solo tu, mio cuore" which means, of course, "Return to me, lead sled of my heart, badass car, badass car, my cruiser of night beauty."

Remember that song? It was on the charts in 1958 along with Duane Eddy's Rebel Rouser. And it was probably on the radio of Butchmobile #1, up loud, the ducktailed driver shifting into second to make the smittys pop, a KCPD prowl car turning around, its driver craning to see what makes this robust sound. Ahh, that hot rod 1949 Ford, that's what.

Siren on.

Luck. Rhymes with.

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

I'm beginning to feel like that Lil' Abner character, the rain cloud guy. My Chevy, it seemed, was under a recall shadow. So was my wife's. I liked mine so much that I had them put a crate engine in it when it shot craps. That was costly, but less than a new car. And it still had the cheap shitty ignition that would turn off at inopportune times and kill you by shutting down the airbags and everything else.

It's still not fixed.

The parts trickle into the dealers at about three a week. Maybe they're waiting for everyone to die off so they have fewer ignitions to fix.

My wife's is fixed, but she still can only use the ignition key with nothing else on it. Seems they're not sure of their fix.

"Open wide. Your wallet, not your mouth."

Then my front tooth developed a problem wherein my body was trying to reject it. It requires a post, implant, temporary tooth, amazingly equal to cost of a crate engine for an HHR Chevy. Almost to the penny.

The house needs painting. The ceiling has leak stains and bad places where several rains tested it and found it wanting. The soffits around the guttering are crap. Today I had the appliance guy (who I'm getting to know well--we're on first name greeting) over to look at a leak in the dishwasher. He found it easily. A rust hole. "Look here. it gushes right out on the floor."

A new one is coming from the appliance store. Sometime next week.

I was out cutting vines away from the gutters before I cleaned them, and cut right through the TV antenna cable. Looked just like a vine! I tried to strip and tape it, but something having to do with "impedance" impeded any chance of a picture. Guy came to fix it. Not Bill, the appliance guy. An impedance guy who also knows fixit stuff like bad soffits.

The hay is still uncut. Too much rain the last few days. Raining right now.

A sculpture bull I'm working on gave me fits and I had to cut a leg off, start over. Had to pay the vet for horses' shots (about as much as a dishwasher) and the lucking John Deere mower needed repairs at more than the new dishwasher.

Telemarketers call and blather on, the ones who get through caller I.D., and I tell them bad word bad word. They want money for every conceivable thing. Highway patrol fund. The home for blind mice. Drugs.

BUT. This week, BOOM, during all the shitstorm, I got a story accepted. Shortly before that, another story was selected to be in an anthology of Best New Writing of 2015. And Killer Nashville allowed me into their guest blog string. And, at the sculpture opening, early in June, we sold a couple sculptures at the gallery, plus another one sold even before the show started.

Good things are comin'. Positivos. Bueno haps. Boom chicka boom.

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful. Whiny, but grateful. For the writing and the sculpture that's selling. For beautiful days and happy old dogs and elderly horses that thunder up to get their grain in the afternoon, for coffee in the morning, the BLT's my wife gets me and which I eat while watching House of Cards season II, for the AC that's still working (shhh, don't tell the fates about that, it takes three units to do the house and the studio, and somehow, they're working) for the eventual slowing and maybe even shutoff of the streak that has been trying to make me crazy. I fooled it. I already am crazy. As those who know me will genially and emphatically agree. Luck. Rhymes with pluck. And luckily I have some. It runs low now and then, but dammitt, it's there.

Damn Good Advice. And some of it is.

Way back in the day, 1960 or so, I got to attend some Advertising Age ad workshops at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. The excitement and galvanomter level were about the same, I imagine, as at today's Austin SXSW; the giants were there. Bill Bernbach. Commander Whitehead. Howard Gossage. Maybe George Lois was there but if he was I don't remember him, and I think I would have. But the place was thunderous with the footsteps of real giants, and their shoes proved hard to fill in the decades to follow.

This was the beginning of something big...

Bernbach stands out as one who changed advertising forever, made it resonant with intelligence, meaning, lightning-like speed of benefit-recognition.  "Think small," was the headline that started it all, in a full-page newspaper ad for Volkswagen that showed the car small in a corner, surrounded by space. Wasted space, some would say. Ogilvy would have filled it with words, but that's neither here nor there--he was just another kind of giant, albeit in love with words. His. 

Heady times. I came back from that workshop and began my career in earnest. That workshop was the rocket booster that put me in my smallish orbit.

Oddly, the advice I remember from Bernbach was, "Keep your health." I took notes furiously, sat near him at his table at lunch, listened intently to all everyone had to say, but all I can recall from that career-fueling few days in Chicago was Bernbach advising, "Keep your health."

I remember puzzling over it when he said it. I was young, indestructible, smoked like a coal plant, pulled all-nighters, dove into impossibly stressful situations, and health was, well, not a factor.

It was the best advice, not just some throwaway. Of course I wanted advice on how to have great ideas. I didn't realize that good health was the linchpin for that and all else. I came to that realization gradually over many years.

Keep your health.

Oh, right, this was to be a review of Damn Good Advice by George Lois. And so it is. Somewhat.

And this helped George along the way...

The abrasive, audacious, self-congratulatory, legendary George Lois wrote a book of bite-sized and numbered recommendations, all illustrated, usually with some paean to his own wit and creativity. I'm not denigrating Lois for any of this--he can back it up with accomplishment. And I mean stellar meaningful accomplishment. He joins that company of giants, that pantheon of MVPs, because he performed admirably in the arena, time after time after time. He kicked marketing ass. And maybe an AE or two's butts along the way. I seem to recall that.

He fired a racist client. A big client. He stood by his principles, unwaveringly, without apology. Still does.  He's as free with compliments for others as he is for himself. He simply takes his own advice, number 91 in the book, "When you got it, flaunt it!"

If you're a "creative," you'll find yourself smiling, nodding and even laughing as you read this compendium of smarts and smart-ass. It's a, yes, must-read, for all of you in the arena.

And here's to your health.

Galveston. A beautiful kick in the ass. Really.

Not sure why I chose this book. But I'm really, really glad I did. I'm writing some semi-noir stuff, have been for awhile, and I say semi-noir because a steady diet of noir is like too many Edward Hopper paintings, or waking up with a hangover in Duluth on a hot Sunday, in a roachy room by the railroad yards.

So, Galveston. It wasn't the name. And it wasn't the white label proclaiming "From the creator, writer and executive producer of the HBO crime series, True Detective." Nic Pizzolatto, is the author. I hadn't seen his series, only read snatches about it, and thought, well, formulaic maybe, but then I saw "Edgar Award Finalist," and this blurb by Dennis Lehane:

"The best roman noir I've read in a decade. It's dark, brutal, sexy, sad, and filled with so much drop-dead gorgeous writing that I felt authentic envy while reading it."

Lehane, in my estimation, is a hellaciously good writer, and for him to say that, transcends blurbing. So I bought it.

It is, in one word, beautiful. The NY Times Book Review said, in part, "...fever dream of low-rent, unbearable beauty..." and how true that is. The other reviews were by people who obviously hadn't read the book and threw names like Chandler and Hammett around. Or said the book captured Galveston, which is so beside the point as to be odd.

Roy Cady, the protagonist, is a sort of enforcer, collector, odd-job guy. Big, intimidating, pretty tough, sliding into lushdom, forty and feeling older. He's deeper than he first appears, and this other Roy, while not prone to discussing philosophy or much of anything else, does become the conduit to the reader of breathtaking asides about the weather, the light, the feelings that things like dust and wind and refineries and motel ceiling stains cause in a sensitized, though often brutal observer.

Observer is the key word, and he is that, and it makes the pages so enjoyable. There's a nice balance between Roy as observer and some other voice, so one never gets the impression he is saying these brilliant things. That would be distracting, and this novel is so not distracting; I may read it again just for the writing. Mr. Lehane and the NYT nailed that, allright.

And the story is way beyond badasses doing awful stuff to one another and escalating consequences. At no time does the story become a matter of "get on with it," or bogged in its own intricacies or its own pathos. It's deftly told.

This fuel-injected, darkly powerful debut novel is so much better than most of what's out there. I trudged through a Pulitzer winner and just could not finish it. I won't say what year that one won, but it was like work to read. Galveston is one of those books that pisses me off to finish it, because I know that the next ten will be like that big prize winner; sailed across the room, pages flapping, to gather dust. 

What I'm saying is buy this. Enjoy it. It sets a high bar for your next read though.

The Counselor; a cautionary tale. The screenplay.

Ahh, something I can sink my teeth into. Cormac McCarthy's mindbendingly brilliant screenplay. There used to be an account executive at the ad agency where I spent 15 or 20 years at the end of my career, who would look at a campaign or single promotional effort prepared by my team, and say. "I don't get it." Fortunately she was overruled by those who did "get it" because they "got it" easily. 

The point(s). I'm getting to that. I was rather surprised by the reaction to The Counselor. Many said "no plot." They are woefully mistaken. Many said, too many loose ends to attend to mentally. They are the lazy ones, the ones who want to be fed the usual; some nudity, violence and cars blowing up. All I can say to them is, thanks for your input. Hrh hrh hrh. And then there were those who didn't "get it." Oh boy. I don't know what to say to them. Maybe what I said to the account executive, "How exquisitely sad."

Now to the meat. Cormac McCarthy never wrote anything that wasn't stupendous. Some books left me glazed-eyed and bummed, but they also wowed the shit outa me with The Writing. From The Orchard Keeper on. His Blood Meridian was the most powerfully poetic, beautifully written apocalyptic violence I have ever read. A classic often compared to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and named to the 25 best novels ever written. Many more beautiful books followed.

So, "no plot," "too much going on," and "I don't get it," don't signify. They just don't. Sweep them aside.

This is going to be a loooonnngg post, I feel it.

I first saw the screenplay on Amazon and passed it up, though I had a McCarthy jones that never goes away. I know the format and didn't want to read him that way. Big mistake. I saw the film on DVD, and had to replay the soliloquies for their dazzling beauty and philosophical pith. Then I sent for the screenplay. I read it oh, so slowly, savoring the descriptions, the dialogue, the metaphors, the lurking meanings in the shadows.

A word about evil. The screenplay is like reading some apocryphal forbidden church document. Evil is a character in The Counselor. Somewhere along the road, (pardon that,) McCarthy has run into evil. This is not to say he is, but he dealt with it along the way, either absorbed it or rejected it. But he knows It. My fancy is there was some sort of crossroads before his first literary efforts, and he came away with extraordinary powers, like Robert Johnson, the king of the Delta blues, another Faustian legend. Reading this screenplay is a goosebump trip.

"...anything you can say about a diamond is in the nature of a flaw."

There's an instructive passage between The Counselor and a diamond merchant early in the script, in which a large, impressive diamond is viewed from the underside and seen to be cut in a way that doesn't allow the crown and pavilion to be aligned. "Once the first facet is cut," says the dealer, "there is no going back." He also says that the forms of our undertakings are complete at their beginnings. The Counselor has already set his in motion, at about the same time he buys his beloved Laura (Penelope Cruz) an engagement stone.

In one telling sentence, the dealer says, "We are not looking for merit. This is a cynical business. We seek only imperfection." Something the prince of darkness might say, but the diamond dealer is not evil; he is merely stating fact, advancing the story subtly forward.

Many such instances occur.

Cameron Diaz's character, Malkina, is insatiably evil. She escalates, because evil is her drug, and she's totally addicted. She pumps Laura for information on how to initiate the telling of confession to a priest. When she does enter the confessional, what follows is truly unsettling. She may want to be forgiven for her sins, but she also wants to tell them to the priest, trophy depravities. She's also beautiful, but in a very hard-edged way.

The casting in this film is marvelous, direction superb. Perfection throughout, bit part to major. Javier Bardem must be an actor's actor. His role as Reiner, an increasingly reckless, though troubled, voluptuary is breathtaking. All the actors enjoy and "get" Cormac McCarthy's words and impetus to a T.

The Counselor naively decides to get in and out of a very dirty business, fast money to sufflate his investment exponentially--but the filth is a tar baby. A hit-you-on-the-head metaphor for the whole business is the drugs sealed in 50-gallon drums, then hidden in a septic tank pumping truck and covered with fecal matter. And suddenly everyone is in deep doo-doo, as they say, when a seemingly unrelated event pivots everything unnervingly to hell and gone.

Leading up to that pivot, plot point, is some fun dialogue: a motorcyclist has been arrested in Texas for going 206 mph. The Counselor tells the biker's mother, a hard mama played by Rosie Perez, "206. That's not a speed, that's a time of day. Or somebody's weight. Are you telling me he was going two hundred and six miles an hour? In what?"

She answers "On that Jap bike of his." Later in the conversation, she offers to fellate him for the $400 fine. He tells her, as he zips up his briefcase, "You'd still owe me three-eighty."

As Brad Pitt's character, Westray, tells The Counselor, "(The cartel) don't really believe in coincidences. They've heard of them. They've just never seen one."

And this: described very early on (by Reiner) is an ugly device made for killing, technologically quite up to date, but medieval in its grotesquery. It, also, foretells a no-return, no-way-out, absolutism. And it is awful.

Westray, a middle-man, has told The Counselor what he's getting into, and sees a couple of cracks in his facade earlier. When the deal goes south, he is resigned. What will happen, will happen. To all of them. And it, like the device described by Reiner, is horrific.

I won't spoli the denouement, except to say It is pure Cormac McCarthy. Pure. (Involuntary shudder) But there are moments in this story that are stunning, gut-clenching and darkly comedic. The Reiner/Malkina love affair replete with trained cheetahs in the veldt-like atmosphere of the Texas/Mexico borderland, where the expensively-collared cheetahs chase game, catch it, and Malkina watches with her unblinking azure eyes through binoculars, atop an Escalade, while Reiner cooks steaks on a portable grille. Hemingwayesque through a dark lens. 

And Malkina takes autoeroticism to an entirely new level and meaning in a mouth-dropping scene with Reiner's Ferrari on a golf course.

"Not a V-12, but a better car than the 308...she gets out of the car...you see a thing like that, it changes you."

Reiner's night clubs with fine art and actual race cars hanging on the walls and classic motorcycles scattered about will dilate your pupils, as will the gorgeously shot camera work throughout this film.

The word "cautionary" popped up during The Counselor's visit to the diamond dealer, when the merchant warns of partaking in a stone's endless destiny. Again, in a conversation with Westray, who says "Good word, cautionary. In Scots law it defines an instrument in which one person stands as surety for another."  And this locks another moving part into place as neatly as synchromesh gears in a Lamborghini.

Caution, curves ahead.

I think those who expected a feet up on the coffee table, smooth ride character arc and Hollywood ending, while wiping the dust of popcorn from their hands would be shocked and disappointed. Oh, there's an arc allright, meteoric in its flashy path. But few prevail at the end. Even Malkina is somewhat inconvenienced by it all. Seems maybe only one of the cheetahs made out, a female, with a favorite rock upon which to sun and scan for game.

When subjected to The Everyman-Hero Paradigm based on Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, The Counselor falls short in the twelve steps from Everyman to Hero--unless one has an extreme sense of irony. For instance, step 11, Resurrection. (The hero faces a life-and-death moment, then proves beyond a doubt that he is changed forever as he evades death again.) Oh yeah. Changed.

I took a screenplay course under the legendary Robert McKee when I lived in Los Angeles. In his ten commandments was this: Thou shalt not write on the nose. Put a subtext under every text. It seems McCarthy does this (beautifully) as second nature. And, for those who cried, "No plot! No plot!" The Counselor exemplifies both The Punitive Plot (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and The Tragic Plot (Othello, Hamlet, King Lear).

Why, after No Country for Old Men, did anyone with four brain cells expect there to be a redeemed hero (or even anti-hero) in The Counselor? Hmm? Spoilers be damned. See it, or read it, for the beauty, for the language, for the intricacies and arabesques of malevolence. Then breathe a deep sigh of relief that your life is really rather boring.

I did.