Eddie Arcaro, Ghost Horses and Nothin' But Blue Skies.

Eddie Arcaro, the outlaw leghorn.

Another Ben Carmean cover off the ball outa the park design.

The vacuum the dogs left us hasn't been filled by a longshot, it's a crater, but various creatures are tumbling into it and vying for attention. Squirrels are coming closer. Roosters and peacocks and peahens are here part time, though one rooster has taken up residence. I worry about him at night. If anyone reading this has a line on a small chicken coop or something the rooster can stay in at night, contact me. I might get some chickens to keep him company. He's a bit of an outlaw. Banished I think. He chases the squirrels and the cat that comes around to eat the dry dogfood that I mix with the chickenscratch.

The peacocks jump up where I feed the wild birds and fill up. Now the rooster does that. He stays in the loafing shed with the horses, hollers get up get up at first light. His crow sounds like "Eddie Arcaro." Then he comes up on the deck to crow, remind me to get his water and food.

I think Eddie Arcaro is in my life to get me up and writing earlier. Not that I've been terribly lax in that department; I've done another book of poetry titled "Horses See Ghosts" and it's waiting for a publisher at the moment. The cover is another wonderful Ben Carmean creation. He does more than one and it's always hard to choose, because he starts with great and ramps up from there. Horses do see ghosts, I've watched them at it. This cover captures that. Stands to reason they would see horse ghosts.

As if things weren't weird enough...

I guess I have to finish the novel now, though that has its attractions. My characters are breathing now and going about doing things that surprise me. That book is "L.A. Hardscape" and it's about a lapsed boxer turned hallucinatory private eye in current day Los Angeles, replete with fires and quakes, human trafficking, and Nazi art theft caches. No shortage of stuff going on there.

In other areas, the shoebox ford is in the shop having (sort of) original suspension reinstalled and scrapping the damn airbags. I got tired of bottoming out on shadows and expansion joints. And having to set the car off the drive shaft every time I drove it. I got a set of leaf springs from Shoebox Central that were pre-lowered at three inches. That plus the two inch blocks will give it the old taildragger profile I so loved in high school. The new suspension will be better than the original 1949, not hard to beat. Suitable transportation to the malt shoppe for me and my gal Freddie.

Blue Horse & Wagon, rolling to The Hilliard Gallery in May

Speaking of F, she gave me these super shades a couple days ago, which she got me for a pre-valentine's gift at a ritzy boutique. Mad bomber glasses. Which is no reference to the morons in ski masks, but a simpler time.

Writing. Been doing some short stories and placing them in some paying venues, some non-paying. Poems. I was curious to see how many stories, essays, blogs and poems I'd actually had accepted from last year's tally and am up to twenty seven. Still paying my dues and approaching with hat in hand, but making headway. Got some coming out in February and in spring issues, so the winter hasn't been idle. Plus the May show is approaching at The Hilliard Gallery. Here's a little preview of that. Blue Horse & Wagon. And I have a pile of Kevin Lee hot rod and bike parts waiting in the wings. When I went out to shoot Blue, I saw Eddie Arcaro looking at himself in the shiny reflection in a car. He was mesmerized. Thinks he found a new friend. It made me happy. That and the thermometer says sixty in the shade. Not bad for Kansas on January 27. I wish you well. G

Carried Away by Caramel Floods. A Book Review

It's helter skelter, falling down long winding stairs but not tripping, (although tripping in another sense might be pertinent) escalading (and often escalating) prose that so often reads like poetry, which it actually is. It's visions. A few pages in, I found a repeated page, one that I'd already read, and I thought it was a mistake, but then upon reading further, I felt about it like I felt when seeing a UCLA film student's go at a feature film where he'd edited in a repeat sequence that had appeared earlier. It was an eerie effect. Like a jump cut in the mind to one's own deja vu. I was forced to think, did that happen? Or did I imagine it? And what it did was pull me in deeper and on more than one level.

Oddly enough, a few pages later I encountered this bit of film oriented language: "These all between the moon and the road -- a rolling through of six millimeter films, costumed in manic pixie dream girl -- Thirty five millimeter camera, and radios, and microphones. Paint sticks and backpack full of magic paint -- onward to dawn!"

Onward, indeed.

Caramel Floods is like this page after page, not always making a hell of a lot of sense, but presenting visions that somehow do. It's not a sequential read with plot and arc and such things, but it is fascinating and the language is wildly inventive. The pace is loping, mesmerizing, unrelenting. If it's stream of consciousness, as it seems to be, it rivals Kerouac and Burroughs for pure, manic energy and stamina, and vision after startling vision. I don't know how long it takes him to write a page, but I suspect it's a matter of minutes, which makes the intensity and diversity of what is presented to the reader even more incredible.

And enjoyable. Read this 335 page word river as you would a book of poetry. Skip around. I believe that combinations of words like these, rule-breakers, dream paintings, help free up the mind, help it to stay nimble. Stretch it.

Fin Sorrel (his B. Travenesque nom de plume) is the publisher of Mannequin Haus, an avant-garde journal of experimentation that features fresh stories, poetry and art the likes of which you'll see nowhere else. I like to cruise through the archives and just look at the underground art and films. Then read some of the surreal fiction and poetry. It's a find, Mannequin Haus.

An issue of Mannequin Haus...

Fin Sorrel, born in 1985, dropped out of high school, took it on the lam to Oregon where he encountered anarchist literature, lost journals and mean streets. Traveling by boxcar, he actually died in Santa Barbara where they brought him back. He travels still, operating Mannequin Haus and writing plays and fiction out of a backpack, maybe. Who knows? He loves exploring ghost towns and abandoned buildings. He, like Mannequin Haus, in my opinion, is a find. And so is Caramel Floods, published by Pski's Porch. (Pski's Porch was formed July, 2012  "to make books for people who like people who like books. We hope we have some small successes.")

And this from the book at random.

Frank Sinatra Goes Flat (1953)  There is a horn solo in that distant train whistle, my head is a mushroom full of the candyland games, and the wind is attacking, seeds, knocking over that which does not hold weight -- the wind is making a friend -- with the weightless cardboard or the blue hanger -- a matrix of sputters, lime machine advances, floating astronauts to a new birdhouse, to forever.

Discover Caramel Floods. It will liven up and cause havoc in any library. Therefore, it's essential. I love this weirdass book. And whatever it rode in on.

Paris, Texas, by way of Los Angeles

You drop straight down from Kansas City, through Oklahoma, you come to Paris, Texas, just across the state line. It's a town of 25,000. There's an Eiffel Tower there, 65 feet tall, topped off with a cowboy hat. Another roadside attraction. I've never been there.

But Paris, Texas seeped into my life in Los Angeles like a microbiome. I was freelancing art and copy in L.A., getting by, until I got a gig for Nokia phones, a newsletter, which I wrote and designed. This brought me to the attention of a CD at Dancer, Fitzgerald, Sample, and I was hired on writing TV commercials for their New York account, Toyota. I had virtually no car experience, little or no TV in my book, so, of course I started writing car TV. The first one I wrote got produced and it was looked upon with favor by the Japanese president of Toyota. Life got better out there. DFS became DFS-Dorland, then Saatchi & Saatchi, and I weathered those changes, hardly noticing the new brass letters that kept appearing on the outside of the building.

And it pulled me away from Paris, Texas. But not for long. During my gestation period in L.A., my pain at getting stiffed every other job (a brochure for Car Stereo to the Stars comes to mind, may that guy roast in hell) and the bleak outlook for an unknown freelancer in L.A. let's say I was a dues-paying member of The Precariat, the largest class out there.

Before I struck it middle class (lower middle class) I was circulating in some odd constellations. I met a PhD nicknamed Dogmeat for his specialty (explosives) in Vietnam. We got along well. Through him I found a mercenary bar in downtown L.A. that led to some short stories. I met the daughter of a deposed banana republic general. I was taken in by a kindly cocaine addict. I wrote a screenplay that the agent for "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" said was "surprisingly professional." He died. I met and was befriended by the owner of a small Beverly Hills ad agency who allowed me to work in the space.

I bemoaned my standing in L.A. and he said, "Look, you drive a nice car, wear nice clothes, have a tan, and not a pot to piss in. You're like all the rest of us out here." Dennis was his name. He was from Texas. During our time together we dreamed up a number of treatments for screenplays. And he implored me to see Paris, Texas, the movie. I did. Again and again. I was numbed and transfixed by it. Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Ry Cooder score, Wim Wenders direction. Whew.

Himself. What an actor's actor. (click here for his tribute video on youtube.)

I started writing this blog a couple of days after the death of Harry Dean Stanton. He died on Friday, September 15th, 2017. He was kind of my patron saint out there, though I never met him. His every film appearance, short or long, blew my lame ass away. He was probably the best actor Hollywood ever knew. Plus he was kind, generous, funny, multitalented. At any rate I had steeped myself in his movie, Paris, Texas. Dennis wanted to do a screenplay that was "pure" like that. He was obsessed with it, and so was I. We finally settled on a thing I wrote named "The Shaman" and we shopped it. We got a small option offer, but declined. A friend of Dennis's got the script to the actor who starred in "Eddie and the Cruisers" and the word was, he was interested. Nothing came of it. Dennis sent the script, along with ten of our treatments, to a Cannes Film Festival with a trusted associate. Some were reviewed, Shaman included, with interest. We waited. Nothing.

But the odd part of this dismal story, this everyman in L.A. narrative, is the joy. Right, joy. The feeling of a breakthrough after leaving a polished conference table where some movie people said, "Hmm. Something here. Maybe." That addictive floating on air feeling. It'll sustain you for a while.

I've been an optimist since boyhood. There's a proverbial tale about a kid who gets a box of horse manure for Christmas. Cruel joke, of course. But the kid opens it up and says, "Wow! Horse manure. There must be a pony around somewhere!" That's me. That was L.A. My pony turned out to be Saatchi & Saatchi, bless them. And my patron saints were Harry Dean Stanton and Raymond Chandler.

Dennis went back to Texas, accepted an executive creative position with Dave and Buster's in Dallas. Sadly, he died of a massive heart attack not too long after that. He was a creative dynamo, savvy and funny and so talented. And he was a bright spot in that tourist trip of mine. We gave it our try, that arena. And we did okay for a couple of flyover country boys. And Harry Dean Stanton gave us a hand. RIP, HDS. I'm going now to Amazon for a copy of Paris, Texas.

"Would it help?"

I don't generally take object lessons or rubrics away from movies. Other than don't go up against Javier Bardem or Josh Brolin without armor and a buttload of firepower. But Bridge of Spies did supply me with a thoughtful piece of advice. One I try to follow.

Will the real Rudolf Abel please stand up and worry?

Tom Hanks plays an insurance salesman who used to be a lawyer. Mark Rylance won an Oscar for best supporting actor, and his role was that of cold war spy Rudolf Abel. It was a fairly quiet, mannered movie with superb acting and portrayal of a time in U.S. history that was both paranoid and simplistic.

The capture of Abel (who wasn't Abel at all, but who had so many personas the prosecution settled on one that conveniently made him a KGB Colonel) and his subsequent imprisonment, rather than execution was a large part of the story.

Hanks's character, Jim Donovan, took his appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, making himself and family extremely unpopular, but his determination to save Abel's life proved brilliant. It gave the U.S. a trading card for the return of our spy, Francis Gary Powers and an innocent student, at a later date.

The film is quite good, though it severely abridges the Powers story for the sake of continuity; real events are rarely so convenient as portrayed in movies.

What I found to be valuable advice is this: when Hank's character is talking to Abel in prison, he is taken aback by Abel's calm demeanor at the prospect of being executed. He says to Abel, "you don't seem alarmed. Aren't you worried?"

To which Rylance's stoic character replies, softly, "Would it help?" 

To me, this became a leitmotif. At Checkpoint Charlie when Abel is being exchanged for Powers and the student, Hanks once more poses a worrisome thought about what will happen to Abel when he returns home. Although he has told nothing to the U.S. interrogators, the Soviets might think he had. "Are you worried that they might execute you?" The answer, of course, in Abel's calm unruffled manner is, "Would it help?"

A secret compartment nickel figures in Abel's movie capture, but in reality another spy spent it and it bounced around New York's economy for months until a newsboy discovered it.

I believe it happened three times in the movie (here's a wonderful example on youtube) and I took it to heart every time. It reminds me of another prosaic saw: Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere. If Abel is being truly portrayed in Bridge of Spies, he had admirable qualities. He asked little of the world around him. He believed in his cause and was a "good soldier." He was courageous and conveyed that Kiplingesque attribute of keeping his head when all goes wrong. All for the wrong side, true, but admirable, nevertheless.

He has been called, "arguably, the most successful Soviet spy of all time," and probably would never have been discovered had it not been for another Soviet spy who drank too much. Here's to that guy, a round of Stolichnaya, please.

We all have worries, things that wake us up at night. Financial, medical, existential stuff. That slow-to-come promotion, a simple oil change that turned into a fire-breathing compressor replacement bill, an IRS notice, a crappy contractor--on and on and on.

Five minutes ago I got off the phone with a major company. They were supposed to be here before noon for an installation. I am also trying to take a workshop course with a bestselling novelist. Trash that for today.

I finally cancelled the installation. There was a misplaced digit in the phone number (mine) that prevented the company from contacting me. Their mistake, not mine, I checked. The human from the company kept telling me "They were in your area but couldn't contact you..." I kept saying, "I know that."  My blood pressure has spiked, I'm sure. And now I've missed a whole morning of the first day of workshop. I could pretty much spit nails right now.

So I look at what I've written about Abel and the unflappable visage of Rylance's Rudolf Abel floats before me.

I ask him, "Well, wouldn't you be steamed?"

And he answers, without a trace of irony, "Would it help?"

Road Rash: the misadventures of an errant biker.

"Needs a mufflerectomy...and baby moons, and a tach."

I was ten or twelve when it took hold. The infernal combustion disease. The seeds were sown by the first power lawnmower I was trusted with. The Johnson sisters had a vacant lot between their house and my grandmother's place, a big pie-shaped lot that needed mowing in the summer. Apparently they thought I was up to it. They pointed the mower out in their garage, along with a gas can. And they paid me. I'd have paid them.

I not only figured out how to start it, I adjusted it to run at optimal speed and duration. I'd had plenty of experience with model plane engines and their needle valves, choking and priming them, all stuff that translated to bigger machines. I loved that mower. I removed the muffler and reveled in the noise. I was alerting the world to bigger things.

One of the sisters had a son named Bill who had just returned from the war. He had bought the mower but soon tired of it and it fell to me to maintain it, use it, nurture it. It gleamed from being cleaned and even waxed. Safety issues: I was aware of the whirling blade beneath it as I'd been aware of the propellers on the model planes. And back then we were unencumbered by safety glasses, ear protection, or steel-toed boots. I made it all the way to motorcycles injury free, save for a barely noticeable slight hearing loss. What?

"Aw, come on, officer, we're just havin' fun..."

A digression. Another reason I loved the Johnsons aside from the mower, free Cokes, and the firecrackers they gave me to scare away the pigeons, was Bill. He treated me like an equal. And he'd somehow acquired an olive drab fifty caliber dual mount machine gun complete with tripod and dummy (I think) ammo belts. He set this rig up in the front yard and we took turns following cars with it, making ta-ta-ta sounds. He sat behind it knees supporting his elbows and told me about direct hits and how tracers helped, how not to fire in extended bursts for danger of overheating. Then the police came.

I was sent home. I never saw the gun again, but Bill's mood was upbeat and he seemed undeterred by the incident. He bought an Olds convertible and I saw less of him than I had before. He allowed me to peruse the engine of the car, work the top, sit behind the wheel occasionally. Then the school year began and I returned home.

"Envelope? What envelope?"

Fast forward. Motorcycles. I was fourteen and discovered a place on Troost that rented BSAs. This was biker summer. I also discovered that bikes didn't stop as quickly as cars, ending up beneath the rear bumper of a 1950 green chevy. I remember that car. A woman drove it and stopped in the middle of a secondary highway. Just stopped.  I tried to stop. Her car helped me in that regard.  At impact, she took off again. I wheeled the BSA to the side of the road, limping. I finally got it started again, and, lesson learned, returned to the dealer who didn't notice the damage or didn't care. I used an older boy's license in this activity and rented several more BSAs. I learned a great deal that summer. I learned that by shifting after winding out I could lift the front end off the pavement. Not a valuable lesson, perhaps, but a thriller to me. I also learned, by mishaps, the difference in handling of some machines. Triumphs, for instance, were a little light in front, and such shenanigans could flip one. Same with the bigger BSAs. A lesson I forgot along the way.

Fast forward again. Years later I took a modified BSA chopper to Omaha. I was sitting at a stoplight on Dodge Street minding my own business, when a noisy Monte Carlo full of teens pulled up next to me. They fishtailed off when the light changed. We were next to one another at the next light.

The weather was springlike, I'd had a couple of beers, and thought oh what the hell. The light changed, I got on it hard, and, owing to the bike's extended forks, the whole thing went flying backwards over my right shoulder. It landed in pieces.

That was bad, but what put the black icing on the crow pie was, they put it in reverse and squealed backward until we were side by side once more. The passenger said, "Eddie missed that. Is there any way you could do that again?"

I think he was serious. They were all very wide-eyed.

The gearshift punched a hole in the gear case, the fork was bent sideways, the seat was off, and I was learning lessons again. I called a friend with a pickup and he took the bike to repair it. The oil and gas deposit looked in need of a haz-mat cleanup.

I've exceeded the word count for most of us short-spanners involved in social media by about 800 words, and there's so much more to tell. High speed wobbles in the rain on a BMW. Trying to speed through Iowa in a snowstorm on a Harley. Riding a fallen Bonneville by sitting on the hot engine and holding onto a fuel line as it spun around on its side. And more. Maybe later. I no longer ride. And if I do, decline to sit behind me. I may still be learning.