Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in bev_vincent's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, May 24th, 2012
1:55 pm	SVU Mayhem The end of my short story is in sight. I know more or less what’s going to happen in the last page or two. All that remains is to write them. I stopped this morning on a high point so I’d have some momentum going into the ending tomorrow. The first draft is going to clock in at over 5500 words. Maybe as high as 6000. Well within the guidelines, but I suspect I’ll be able to trim it back to 5000 words before I submit it at the end of the long weekend. I was surprised to see “Mayhem” from the Allstate commercials on Law & Order: SVU last night. Even more surprised, when I looked him up, to discover that he’s an alumnus of the show from back in 2000. That was one heck of a season finale: Cragen gets the Godfather treatment, sort of. I think this is the first time they’ve done a real cliffhanger, and it was a doozy. It was funny, too, seeing “Taub” from House playing a character somewhat sleazier than Taub. I guess the House clan will be popping up all over from now on. The same way I used to see Lost actors everywhere. Speaking of Lost, I’m continuing my Season 6 review. I get confused at times about what we’re supposed to know when. During “Recon,” for example, I forgot that we didn’t know James Ford was a cop in the flash-sideways. I’d also forgotten how much “Ad Eternum” ground the show’s forward momentum to a halt. It’s an excellent episode in many ways, but in terms of overall series pacing: ugh. I finally got around to seeing the latest Jesse Stone TV movie starring Tom Selleck. These two-hour movies have the same pacing as a 1970s crime drama, which is to say that they are leisurely. I wasn’t sorry to see the two cops go up in the opening scene, as they were annoying to the utmost. After that, it was a kind of old home week as Selleck’s Stone meandered through the landscape, touching base with all the familiar characters/actors from the previous movies. Some of it felt obligatory, like the visit to William Sadler’s mobster character, though it did set up the interesting flirtation scene with his assistant, Amanda, and he extracted one piece of useful information from her. On the whole, I enjoy these, but I think they try a little too hard to be Robert B. Parker. The whole dialog repetition thing (You didn’t like him. I never said that.) grew old fast. Also, I don’t think Parker would ever have written a criminal mastermind who commits the rookie mistake of knowing something before he’s told about it (the perp knew about the bombing before anyone else). Who was the sniper working for and why was he following Jesse around, so overtly? The scene in the ship at the end confused me to no end: did the perp know the sniper was there, or was the sniper after the perp, too? Hard to say. Selleck speculates that  CBS might not order any more of these movies because they don’t know what to do with them. Sad state of affairs when a two-hour mystery of the week can’t exist any more. The demographics were interesting, too. The show performed well and won its slot overall, but the all-important younger audience didn’t watch. I almost gave up on The L.A. Complex when Connor started acting weird on the set, but I’m glad I stuck with it. Raquel gave the performance of her life at that AA meeting. (Jewel Staite was excellent, too, but it was clearly her character putting on an act to salvage her movie deal). I got a kick out of the geeky (and painfully unfunny) stand-up comic’s plight. He’s been having women problems since, well, birth actually, but in one day he ends up in bed with two different women. Shades of War Games on this week’s Eureka. At least the computer program didn’t offer to play a game of tic-tac-toe or chess. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012
1:54 pm	Into the sunset (contains House finale spoilers) Every show’s finale should include a Warren Zevon song. They used “Keep Me in Your Heart” from The Wind album during the finale of House, to good effect. The retrospective was fun, in that it gave them a chance to showcase all the people behind the scenes. There was also an interesting conceit of a clown who popped up from time to time, though no one took any notice and it was never explained. Cast members past and present also had a chance to weigh in on the series. My favorite bit was the paintball battle between Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard at the end. The episode itself was something of a surprise, though I didn’t know what to expect. Having Kutner show up that early set the tone, but we were mislead into thinking it would be only ghosts of the past, which was reinforced when Amber replaced Kutner. But after that it was his ex-wife (the always charming Sela Ward) and then Cameron. The one that got away and the one that he never managed to get. I was mostly willing to believe the autopsy report, but I felt the Huck Finn vibe going on, too. I kept looking at the congregation to see if he might have been there in disguise. Maybe he was. His solution to his problem: how to avoid going to prison and missing out on Wilson’s remaining months, was the dominant through-line of the episode. His solution was radical but understandable, given his situation. He didn’t have a lot of choices. The so-called “bro-mance” has more or less defined the series from the beginning as much as the medical mystery part. The one sign that he was willing to change is the fact that he was willing to give up everything to spend those last few months with Wilson. Wilson underscored that there was no turning back from this—his medical career was over and he would go to prison for a long time if caught.  He fiddled the dental records, and he is technically a fugitive from justice. Presumably he made sure he had access to funds before perpetuating this fraud on his co-workers. Too bad Cuddy couldn’t or wouldn’t come back. I’m not sure what the politics of that situation were. Was she not invited or did she refuse the invitation? Lots of others from the past showed up, including Andre Braugher, Olivia Wilde and Amber Tamblyn. It was almost old home week. A lot is made of the final episodes of long-running series. Few are truly satisfying, but I think this was just about as good as it gets. Everybody didn’t die. Life goes on, in one way or another. Cameron gets married and has a kid. Foreman gets a clue that House isn’t really dead. Chase ends up with House’s job. Taub seems to be happy with his family. And Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rode off into the sunset. It seemed strange to have a Christmas episode of Mad Men when the temperature is over 90° here, but I guess the contract negotiations and delay to the season launch messed them up a little. The scenes with Don and Joan were terrific: hearing Don admit that Joan terrified him and having him help build her confidence back up again after being served. The subplot with Paul Kinsey becoming a Hare Krishna writing spec scripts for Star Trek was priceless. And wasn’t Mother Lakshmi a piece of work. A leopard that never really changed her spots. Sounds like Lane was in trouble with Inland Revenue and now he’s in double trouble after embezzling money from the business—money he thought he was going to get anyway until the airline decided to suspend advertising due to a strike. Deep doo-doo. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 21st, 2012
12:13 pm	Exotic marigolds Part 2 of Episode 2 of the Lilja & Lou Podcast is now online for your listening pleasure. I join L&L to talk about The Wind Through the Keyhole and my book, The Stephen King Illustrated Companion. I got some more work done on the short story in progress, but I spent much of the weekend whipping my submissions into shape. I had quite a few stories lying fallow, along with a number that had been in the hands of markets for more than eight months. I queried a couple of them, but for the most part I classified them as implicit rejections and resubmitted the stories elsewhere. The season finale of The Mentalist was exciting. It took me a few minutes to figure out who it was in the back seat of the limo once the firing ended. Nothing at all symbolic about a character named Lorelei who lures Patrick into bed before dashing him on the rocks. I have absolutely no idea how you pronounce the actress’s last name: Emmanuelle Chriqui. I wonder if she’ll be featured much next season. CBI doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to keeping Red John’s minions alive in custody. Not a bad two-part season finale of Criminal Minds, either. I had a suspicion the guy in the bank was going to play a more important part, simply because the actor looked familiar. JJ demonstrated the inherent dangers in getting between momma bear and her cub. Ever since she’s moved away from being the media liaison, her character has gotten a lot tougher. Looks like Prentiss is gone from the show. Again. We went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel this weekend and enjoyed it, as we knew we would. The cast is populated by some of our favorite actors: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton (from Downton Abbey and Harriet Jones from Doctor Who). This motley crew of geriatrics all go to India to take advantage of the cut-rate accommodations offered by Dev Patel’s character. Maggie Smith is the only one who isn’t planning a permanent move. She’s in India to get a cheaper and more immediate hip replacement and convalescing at the hotel. It’s a fun film, with some serious moments. A bit predictable at times and surprising at others. I figured the outcome of the Bill Nighy/Penelope Wilton story was a given, but the way it came about surprised me. I loved seeing it on the big screen, where all that wonderful, exotic scenery is before you like an oversized landscape at a gallery. We returned to The Sopranos this weekend, finishing off Season 4 and reaching the halfway point of Season 5. Good to see Steve Buscemi. I had high hopes that his character would be able to remain above the fray after he got out of prison, but he got sucked back in after a couple of ill-advised choices. Robert Loggia’s character was pretty annoying, but it was good that they found an alternate way to eliminate him as a problem than the usual. I’ve had the DVDs of Season 6 of Lost on the coffee table for months, so I decided to revisit the show. Watched the first five or six episodes. It’s interesting to see it again knowing what it all means and how it will turn out. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 19th, 2012
2:26 pm	Osteoporosis by Tom Piccirilli My buddy Tom Piccirilli is doing a blog tour to promote his upcoming novel, The Last Kind Words (reviewed by me here). Suffice to say: I loved it and I hope it does gangbusters for him. For this stop on the tour, Tom is offering a short story called “Osteoporosis,” which I am pleased to present without further ado. It’s free, but if you enjoyed it, I encourage you to check out The Last Kind Words. Osteoporosis Tom Piccirilli They hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years, and then a call from out of nowhere, six o’clock in the morning, let’s meet tonight. Now they were sitting in one of those kitschy sports bars with nine flat-screen TVs hanging from the ceiling, staring at each other over a pitcher of beer and a wicker basket of salsa and chips. “You’re kidding, right?” “Depends on your definition of kidding.” “How about if we use, what you might call, the generally accepted definition.” “Then no.” The noise was up there for a Thursday night, a lot of pretty and not-so-pretty girls seated at the bar glancing around, bored, waiting for some guys to buy them drinks.  In one corner clustered a handful of young men with eager eyes and stupid, slack smiles, already half in the bag but still too insecure to give it a whirl.  It was early yet. “I’ve heard this story before.  I’ve seen it in movies.  It never turns out well for the guy in my shoes.  Doesn’t particularly work out for the other guy, the guy that you play, either.” “Let’s not get hung up on old, bad pictures.” “Right.  So let me take it from the top, just to get it straight in my own head.” “Sure.” “If I’m getting this right, if I’m understanding it correctly–” “I think you probably are.” “–then you want me to ice your wife, Gloria.  The mother of your four kids.  The woman I toasted on your wedding day.” “That was a nice speech, sounded very sincere.” “What you’re telling me is that after nineteen years of marriage she’s fed up with your inattention, your lack of affection, and your daily hostility.  Your obsessiveness, your crazy compulsions.  Your quirks, the nasty thrum in your voice.  Your volatile temper.  The way you leave your socks on the bathroom floor.  She says you’re emotionally distant–” “That’s it exactly, and you put the emphasis in the right places too.  You don’t even realize it but you’re doing a rather good impression of her.” Dressed up like a ref, whistle bobbing on a string around her neck, the waitress came over when she saw their glasses were empty, and poured them each a fresh one from the pitcher.  The salsa wasn’t bad, the chips fresh and salty. “Okay, and now she’s seeing a divorce lawyer behind your back–” “Marty Gestle.” A roar of disappointment from the bar, someone failing to make a catch or a run or a basket, who the hell knew. “Joey’s brother?  Kid who used to always start fights with the biggest guy on the other team in roller hockey?” “Yeah, that’s him.” “So we know he likes to brawl.” “He doesn’t just brawl, he wins.” Both of them remembering the worst scrap they ever had on the street, Joey and his brother chopping down with their sticks and shattering collarbones, breaking jaws, causing concussions, the neighborhood ladies screaming, a fire engine and three cop cars thundering in like there was a chemical plant about to explode. “He a top attorney?” “He’s got himself a penthouse office down in Soho.” “That those new high-rises, the ones that are all glass, they keep killing pigeons?” “A couple blocks further north, but still a sweet area.  I’ve got some investments there.” “All right, so she’s seeing a big gun lawyer and she’s going to take you for all she can.  She knows about your hidden assets, the portfolios, the money tied up in real estate, bonds, cash in a couple of bank deposit boxes…how much did you say she could pull in?” “Half of what I’m worth, she could rip me about six mill.” Both of them nodding, thinking the number over.  The amount meaning different things to each of them. “So you want me to bump her off at a time when you have your alibi firmly established, like when you’re in the middle of some business meeting surrounded by twenty execs–” “We’ve got some clients coming in from Chicago next week.  I figure I can take them down to Wiggles, show them a good time, make a scene.” “They’ll get wrecked on that cheap booze.  That place probably moves twenty pounds of X every night in the john.  Will your Chi guys remember enough to be able to testify?” “If not, the dancers will, if the tip is big enough.  Those girls, they never forget a great tip. And I’ll make sure to use my black card.” “Okay.  And in return you’ll do me a favor that you say is of equal worth, of equal value.  You will, you suggest, knock off, for me– “One good turn deserves another.” “–you’ll bump off, for me, Mr. Saknussum.  The person you’re willing to kill, as a favor to me, is our old eighth grade gym teacher.” “Right.” The notion hanging out there, sort of spinning through the air.  The pitcher empty, the ref coming by to put another one on the table, pour them glasses. “I didn’t ask you to kill Mr. Saknussum.” “You didn’t have to.  I remember how much you hated him.” “Mr. Saknussum is probably eighty-five by now.” “He’s still healthy as a bull.  Guy still works out, can military press two-fifty, even with the osteoporosis.” “And you know this how?” “I’ve kept tabs on him over the years.” The obsessiveness, crazy compulsions, and the nasty thrum presenting themselves.  Another missed chance on the television, screeches at the bar.  A couple of the drunk not-so-pretty girls were staring at the boys, their moist faces full of sorrow. “I’ve got nothing against Mr. Saknussum.” “Oh, come on!  I’ve heard how you talk about him!  About how much you despise this guy, how you wish you could put him in a gunny sack and drop him over a cliff.” “I said that maybe thirty years ago when we were twelve.” “And he made us shinny up those ropes all day long.  Up the ropes, down the ropes, and those rings!  And the high bar.  And the wind sprints, god–” A nice long pause, all these memories and considerations being muddled over. “I would think, seeing as how you want your wife gone so you can save yourself a few million bucks, that you might have at least asked me if there was someone else I might want to ice a little more than our eighth grade gym teacher.” “Why?  Is there someone else you want dead?” “I didn’t say that.” “Of course you didn’t.  So Mr. Saknussum it is.  Just give me a date and time when you can establish an alibi and I’ll get my wire-cutters and–” “You’re going to wire-cutter the guy to death?” “No, no, that’s for before, to show him what pain is, to teach him that some of us were capable of achieving success on our own, in our own way, regardless of whether or not we were able to climb those ropes all the way to the top.  Or do the parallel bars.  Or–” “You know, I think I’m going to have to pass on this deal.” “Pass?  Why do you want to pass?  It’s a fair trade!” “It’s been good seeing you again, let’s not wait another fifteen years, right?” “But what about my wife?” “She might be right.  You do seem a bit emotionally distant and a little quirky.  You might want to work on that.” “What?  Wait!  Come back!  Let’s talk this out.  Was it the remark about the wire-cutters?” The punks finally had enough liquor in them to start making their moves.  But they were still too slow, taking it too easy, without any idea of what was coming for them around the next corner.  They didn’t understand that in no time they’d be gray, ashen-eyed, balding, full of resentment, and suffering from osteoporosis.  You had to take a few risks. You had to sidle up next to the prettiest of the pretty girls, give her a wink, hit her with your best grin.  Sometimes you had to put everything else out of your head–the late mortgage payment, the nasty letters from the IRS, the child support, the palimony suit, the eighty-five year old gym teacher who could still make your stomach swirl with bile when you thought about climbing those damn ropes, the high bar, the rings–and just go out and enjoy yourself. You had to order another beer and formulate a plan.  You always liked Gloria.  Your speech sounded sincere because it was sincere.  You figured it wasn’t out of the question to maybe stop by and say hello after all these years, show her some attention and emotional support, let her cry on your shoulder.  Six million for a divorcee.  Yeah, or twelve mill for a widow. You look back at him, still sitting there finishing up the free chips, wearing a four thousand dollar suit, three-carat pinkie ring, muttering to himself.  It makes you shake your head and give a sickly chuckle. The girl asks you what you’re laughing at and you say, Nothing, honey, I like the way you smell.  THE END Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
3:14 pm	Contract negotiations? People have been asking about a hard copy of Rage Against The Night, the anthology from which all profits flow to the Fund to help Rocky Wood manage ALS/Motor Neurone Disease. You can now purchase the trade paperback from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. It contains my short story “The View from the Top.” Of course, the Kindle and nook versions are also still available. Stay tuned for my next Storytellers Unplugged essay, which is called “Desperation and Impatience.” It goes live overnight. I actually made some decent forward progress on the work-in-progress this morning. I’m still feeling my way around, but I think I know where I’m headed. Only three of the six major cast members from NCIS (Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, McGee, Ducky and Abby) have signed renewal contracts. Do you think the way the season ended was a negotiating gambit? The three who renewed will definitely be back next fall, but what about the three who haven’t yet? Eureka was a lot of fun this week. With all the personality hopping, the actors got to stretch a bit by pretending to be another character and Jack, of course, was the center of it all and got to be Fargo, Zane and Allison, in some delicate situations. Fun show. Only one more episode of House left. Next week there’s a retrospective and then the finale.  Sending him back to prison isn’t final enough, so something else has to happen. Good to see Thirteen back again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh as much as she did this week. An intriguing and somewhat boggling ending to How I Met Your Mother. All season long we’ve been set up to expect something surprising about Ted, only to have everything turned upside down. Robin in a wedding gown. Where did that come from? I liked the acting coach on this week’s L.A. Complex. He was more like some sort of thuggish enforcer crossed with a motivational coach. Reminded me a bit of Mike from Breaking Bad. Speaking of Breaking Bad, I hear it’s back in July for the first eight of the final sixteen episodes. The Closer is back in July, too.  Burn Notice, and Rizzoli & Isles will be back in June. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 14th, 2012
1:21 pm	Outwit…outplay…outlast…out-dumb? Episode 2 of the Lilja and Lou Podcast is now available. I talk about the red carpet premiere of Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. I posted my review of The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli on the weekend. I finished reading Long Gone by Alafair Burke (her first standalone non-procedural novel) and started Flashback by Dan Simmons, which I’ve had on my Kindle for a long time but keep forgetting to read. That was quite a season finale of Fringe. The observer’s prediction came true but the lemon cake from the week before provided the clue to the solution. Walter is such an amazing character. I kept worrying at the end that Olivia would have some sort of change of heart—again—something to prolong the will-they/won’t they with Peter. Glad that wasn’t the case. Looks like they’re setting us up for next season to be all about the incidents we saw in “Letters of Transit” a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if Rebecca Mader was cast because she could do that creepy thing with her eyes. Of all the things we’ve seen on this show, that had to rank in the top one or two on the creepy list. Brrrrrrr. We finished season two of Downton Abbey this week, along with the Christmas special. Now we have to wait until the fall for the third season to find out what’s going to happen with Mr. Bates. Don’t you think that by the time they’re married and sharing a bed, Anna could stop calling him that? Good riddance to Sir Richard, by the way. “I won’t be seeing you any more,” he says to the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith). “Do you promise?” she shoots back. And Mary and Matthew finally get their signals uncrossed at the end, as the snow falls. Good to see Daisy getting a better handle on her situations. Not quite sure who the final Ouija board message was meant for: Anna, Daisy…or Matthew? When Kim decided not to get rid of Chelsea when it came down to the final four on Survivor, I was sure she’d made a million dollar mistake. Then again, when she didn’t get rid of Christina in the final three. However, when the voting came around and they showed one written vote for Kim and one for Sabrina, I was pretty sure I knew what that meant. This time I was right: Chelsea got no votes whatsoever. I hadn’t realized that the other castaways found her cold and unemotional. She was the one who teared up at least twice during the final tribal. She played an interesting game, though she didn’t make the bold moves that Kim did. I have to think that Sabrina got sympathy votes, because she didn’t make any moves. No question Kim deserved to win, but I figured at least Jonas would vote for Chelsea after sort of flirting with her during the final tribal. It’s hard to fathom, though, the way Christina just took the news she was out and didn’t do anything to fight back. As Troy-zan said during the reunion show, he got outplayed and out-dumbed. The big surprise of the final episode was Kat’s speech during final tribal. Where did that come from? Especially when you see the huge spat she and Alicia got into at Ponderosa the first night Alicia was there. Almost a cat-fight. Jonas was funny, too, with his introductory instructions: you will call me Master Jonas. They spent a lot of time with Colton on the reunion show—I wonder if he’s one of the three people who returned for the next season. His poor mother. And I’m not quite sure what that bit with Mayim Bialik was meant to do. It was funny to see Probst mess up and talk to one of the people evicted early about events that happened after he was eliminated. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 11th, 2012
1:22 pm	We don’t have to go back to the island any more The howling dogs next door woke us up. Apparently something about the approaching storm disturbed them. Traumatized, it sounded like. It was somewhere between two and three a.m. Once the thunder started and the rains came, they shut up, so we got back to sleep. I got fooled twice last night. I thought I was watching the season finale of two different shows. They were on different networks, so I guess I can be forgiven for getting tricked twice. CSI ended this week, so why not The Mentalist? First, though, it was Grey’s Anatomy. You know what? I think they could easily have ended the season with last night’s show. It would have been pitch perfect. Meredith lying on her back in the middle of the woods in the wreckage of an airplane saying, “There’s always next year.” That would have been brilliant. Couldn’t help thinking of Lost of course. Wonder if that was deliberate. Now that I think about it, it would be a cool cross-over. Instead of having just one doctor on the island, everyone’s a doctor. Derek, who most resembles Jack, is cast against type as the flight attendant who is sucked out of the plane when it breaks up. Alas, there is another episode, so they’re going to wreck that magical ending. Similar deal with The Mentalist (without the plane crash). The season could have ended with Patrick getting fired. However, there’s another episode. I have a theory. The only way Red John will accept that Patrick has given up is for him to sever his ties with CBI. And he couldn’t just quit—who’d believe that? No, he had to be fired. It was obvious he was baiting the boss. At first, I thought it was to demonstrate that anyone can overstep the line in the right circumstances but, no, he was just pumping him up to fire him. Of course he’s not going to join Red John. Will he ever get to really meet him, though? How long can they tease us without showing him? We thought we had that last season, but not so, as it turned out. Looking forward to seeing what they have for us on the Fringe finale tonight, though I may not get to see it until Sunday or Monday. It is the finale, right? No more tricks? Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
2:11 pm	Some things come to an end I think I know what I’m going to write about for my next Storytellers Unplugged essay. Except, before I write about it, I have to finish what I’m writing. So I can write about it. Get it? Me, neither. But I will. I hope. I finished The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli last night (review forthcoming) and moved on to Long Gone by Alafair Burke. I have this stack of review copies that I’m finally getting back to. Some good books in it—makes it hard to choose. Heard today that Alcatraz has been canceled. C’est dommage. I liked the show. It’s always a shame when a program gets dropped in a state of limbo. CSI had its season finale last night. It was fun seeing Jacqueline Smith back again as Hodges’ mother, who’s now dating Conrad Eckley and forcing Hodges and Eckley’s daughter to tag along as if it’s a double date. I wonder what eye-opening experience Hodges had in Italy that means he can’t date Brody. Also good to see Peri Gilpin (from Frasier) as DB Russell’s heretofore unseen wife. Quite an ending. I was thinking that the corruption scandal was somehow going to lead back to Eckley. He was acting so squirrely. But no, the under-sheriff is a stand-up guy. And what of Nick? His exit or will he come back next season to help solve the crimes committed in the last few minutes? I really liked the way they used that continuous drum beat for several minutes at the end to build suspense. It’s a cheap trick, I know, but effective. Was that Martha Stewart I saw on Law & Order: SVU as the headmistress of the private school? Sure looked a lot like her. What a convoluted case that one was. Another Law & Order specialty, where the initial crime is just the leaping-off spot for something almost totally unrelated. Munch was funny as the rabbinical figure. Good episode for Ice-T. Vance has been conspicuously absent in recent episodes of NCIS. And how he’s kidnapped. Is his character on the way out? Though I like Jamie Lee Curtis, I think if I were Gibbs I’d be totally exasperated by her circular way of talking around things. Guess it’s an occupational hazard for someone in her line. An interesting episode of Criminal Minds this week. Instead of taking on a new case, the team presented an old case to an inquisitive class of students. It’s always good when a show breaks with the formula every now and then. Still enjoying The L.A. Complex after three episodes. With everything else coming to an end, it’s good to have something to watch during the summer. The Closer should be coming back for its final episodes soon, too, right? And then there were five. I was afraid for Chelsea last night—I was sure she was a goner. But at last Tarzan’s time was up. I wondered what sort of reception he’d get at Ponderosa, but there were no grudges or hard feelings, apparently. Once he took a shower, everyone was cool with him, though he remains one of the strangest dudes ever on Survivor. He put on retro calf-length boots (and it was a struggle to get them on) and one spur before going to tribal council. And his reaction upon seeing himself in the mirror has to be one of the greatest ever. He couldn’t stop laughing and pointing at himself. If Chelsea makes it to the end, she might give Kim a run for the money. Kim has an idol, which she’ll presumably play at the next tribal whether she feels in jeopardy or not. She’d be stupid not to—it’s the last time it’s of any use and she has to know there’s a target on her back if she doesn’t win immunity. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
2:53 pm	Seasons change We had a very wet beginning to the year, but it didn’t take long for people to start thinking about drought again when it didn’t rain for a few weeks. We had a brief but loud thunderstorm in the middle of the night and the promise of much more over the next few days, starting shortly. The weather radar shows a mass shaped something like the English Isles (and only slightly smaller) headed our way from the west. I started working on an editing project I was hired to do by a small press. The work in question is in my bailiwick, so it involves a great deal of fact-checking, but it was also written by someone for whom English isn’t the first language, so I’m finding myself having to rewrite prose to make it more natural. Could be a significant task. Had an e-mail from an editor I’ve worked with in the past asking for my author bio for his next project. Thing is, I didn’t contribute to his next project! I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything this time around. I checked my e-mail folders to confirm, because the old memory ain’t 100% what it used to be. Turns out he used an old e-mail list. I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t say anything and just sent in the bio! I really liked the way Castle ended the season. For a few minutes I was sure they were going to leave us hanging at the bottom of the end of a second act, when everything is as bad as it can get for the main characters. But they didn’t, and good for them. A few people are hearkening back to Moonlighting, but I don’t see the same thing happening here. The Castle writers take the show more seriously than that. I have to admit I was a little dismayed to see on the tombstone that Beckett’s mother’s was born just ten years before me. Made me feel old. When a series comes to an end, it gives the writers a lot of freedom to do interesting things with the characters without worrying about the repercussions. With House, that means that Wilson can go hog wild like he did this week and, possibly, die as they seem to be hinting. It means that Chase can leave and it isn’t a feint or a ploy. And it means that Thirteen can come back and it isn’t forever. Although it could be forever and the actress isn’t committed to anything more than two episodes. The idea of a patch that can accelerate someone through the stages of grief was pretty amusing on Eureka. Poor Fargo was so volatile that I expected him to start having hot flashes. I like the way they are exploring the repercussions of the experiences of the people who were part of the Astraeus expedition. On some shows, significant, life altering events happen one week and are gone the next as if they never happened. But the people who lived in that virtual reality world for a while have to re-adapt to the status quo. Fascinating. I also liked that they made Parrish just a tad more human. He didn’t get gushy and tell Fargo he was sorry about his loss. But he did something almost as good by offering to play a fantasy game with him. Nice touch. Are people still watching The Killing? It’s getting more chaotic all the time. When I watched the Danish version, I had the luxury of seeing it all over the course of a few days. Spread out like it is, the American version seems to be sprawling and unfocused, with all these new aspects coming in. The arbitrarily vicious native cops, for example. After watching Mad Men, I found myself wanting to buy some Cool Whip. And was that really Rory Gilmore getting nasty with Pete Campbell? It took me a while to figure out who the actress was, but I knew she looked familiar. It’s amusing how Roger Stirling has come to terms with his new place in the firm. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Monday, May 7th, 2012
2:34 pm	It takes a village to run a house I spent an hour on Skype yesterday with Lou Sytsma and Hans-Åke Lilja being interviewed for their next podcast. We talked about a variety of subjects and I believe the material will be used for two podcasts. This is the first time Lilja and I have spoken to each other, though we’ve been communicating via e-mail for many years. I’m over halfway through The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli, his forthcoming breakout hardcover crime novel. The main character, Terry Rand, is summoned back to his home town five years after he took off. His brother is on death row and facing execution in a couple of weeks. The Rand men have been thieves for generations. Terry did his stint as a burglar, but he’s been straight for a while. He still has the mad skills, though, and some of the most interesting scenes so far are the ones where he creeps other people’s houses, just because he can. There are plenty of issues in the Rand family, primarily caused by the fact that there are certain subjects they simply never raise with each other. Plus the fact that Terry left a lot of unfinished business behind when he left. Senility and dementia is a secondary plot, but the main thrust is Terry’s brother’s insistence that one of the people he is accused of murdering was killed by someone else, possibly a serial killer who is still operating with impunity. His brother doesn’t deny the other killings, though no one has any idea why he suddenly went on a spree and killed seemingly at random. I don’t think anyone could deny that Rachel and Dave deserved to win The Amazing Race. They dominated the game in a way no one else ever has before, setting the record for the most first place finishes. And it wasn’t like they were always in the lead. They just managed to do well when it counted. I thought they were screwed when they took the wrong route at the end and got to the mat without finishing a challenge. As the strongest evidence of just how much they dominated, they paddled back across the water, completed the challenge (which the border patrol agents had been working on for quite a while unsuccessfully) and paddled back to the finish line still with a comfortable lead. I knew Vanessa and Ralph were in trouble when Vanessa got stuck doing the “chicken grab” challenge on a sprained ankle. I can’t even imagine how much that must have hurt. Looking forward to the Once Upon a Time finale. The cliff-hanger at the end of last night’s episode was a good one. Henry stepped up to the plate to force Emma into seeing what was really going on. Can’t even imagine how it’s going to end. We finished the first season of Downton Abbey this weekend and watched the first episode of the second season. It’s a little like Upstairs/Downstairs. Maggie Smith is always fun to watch (I got a kick out of her shielding her eyes against the new electric lights) and I’m glad that they didn’t make her a relentlessly negative and wrongheaded character. She correctly diagnosed Molesly’s affliction and she lets Molesly Sr. win the flower show. She gets many of the series’ best lines. I think Anna Smith is my favorite character—I could tell she was sweet on Mr. Bates very early on. I thought for sure Mrs. O’Brian was going to throw herself down a staircase after the incident with the soap, but, no, nothing so good as that. We get a kick out of Mrs. Padmore, too. “I sent you for a drink of water, not to find the source of the Nile,” she chided Daisy. It’s an enormous cast, but it didn’t take long to see who was who and what was what. Carston’s reaction to the new telephone was amusing, too, as was the Earl of Grantham’s complaint that there were too many cars in town. He saw five parked at one time and three more drove past. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 5th, 2012
10:07 am	Circling the wagons or circling the drain? I know I’m not really ready to write a story when I find myself going back over the section I’ve already written, editing it to death, without adding much new to the text. That’s the way things were with my work in progress this week. I don’t even have a title for the thing yet, which is never a good sign. However, I made one strong step forward during yesterday’s writing session, so I’m heading in the right direction, I hope. I have a few weeks to get this thing whipped into shape. I finished The Providence Rider by Robert McCammon this morning. Much to my surprise, the story has nothing to do with Rhode Island and very little to do with horses. I’ll write my review later but, although there were lots of exciting things happening, not many of them really mattered and some of them had confusing, conflicting or no motivation. It’s the sort of book that might have used a strong editorial hand, where someone would come back to the author and say, “Yes, but why?” Next up: The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli. Last weekend, my wife, daughter and I watched all six episodes of the BBC series Sherlock. I’d seen them all before, but I thought it was something they’d enjoy and I was right. It sucks that we’re going to have to wait a long time to get any more of them, given that the two leads are involved with The Hobbit and Cumberbatch is doing Star Trek, and everything else. It’s a very clever modernization. I was even more favorably inclined toward the middle episodes of each series, which I’d found comparatively weak the first time around. I think the second series debuts on BBC America this week. We started Downton Abbey last night. I didn’t know much of what it was about, but it had the Merchant-Ivory vibe that we like, and my wife is a big fan of Maggie Smith. I was so exhausted, though, that I fell asleep during the last half of the first episode. I don’t take that as a reflection on the series, though. I’m going to go back and watch what I missed so we can pick up where we left off tonight. I’m not 100% sure we’ve given up on The Sopranos late in Season 4, but I think my wife has lost interest in the series so I might have to finish it off by myself. I had hopes that Kat would go farther in Survivor than she did. She did her best to win that immunity challenge and in doing so she guaranteed that the others would perceive her as a threat. Even though she hasn’t won one before, she has performed fairly well in challenges, so I think they were right to fear her. However, what really seemed to seal her fate was her ill-advised choices of companions in the reward challenge. If she had done the sentimental thing and taken Tarzan and Christina, she might have scored some brownie points. It’s always fun, though, to see someone get absolutely blindsided. She was clueless that she was in jeopardy, which speaks to her naïveté. That had to be one of the weepiest walks of shame I’ve ever seen. She was so distraught and ashamed that Tarzan and Christina outlasted her in the game. It wouldn’t be the end of a season without another Red John appearance on The Mentalist. Looks creepy. It was fun seeing a glimpse into Lisbon’s past this week. I was sure the culprit was going to turn out to be the old flame’s wife, but that would have been the easy path. I wonder what happens to all that gold? Another story with wacky motivation was this week’s Criminal Minds. Identifying the culprit as the bus driver seemed like a stab in the dark, but it was stated with such certainty. And how did a bus driver manage to gain access to a maximum security inmate to have him stabbed? And would anyone really pick victims based on four locations that sorta kinda look like a heart if you draw the right connections between them on a map? That was pretty lame. I spent most of this week’s episode of CSI thinking the woman oil executive driving the cross-country race car was Shawnee Smith, who co-starred with Ted Danson on Becker. I was impressed by her range. Then I figured out it was someone who bears a passing resemblance but is a much better serious actor. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
2:46 pm	The secret to humor is surprise I hear a lot of people asking the same question: where the hell did April go? Having a rough time getting back into the swing of fiction writing again after a several-month hiatus. I’m trying to write a short story and I’ve come at it from two or three different directions already. I like what I have now, but I haven’t had the motivation to take it any farther yet. The fact that they killed off a relatively major character on Eureka last week upped the suspense level on this week’s show. Given that this is the last season, just about anyone could be fair game to be dispatched with prejudice. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion, for example, that Henry’s wife would make it out of the TRON-like world alive. I’m glad they’ve essentially wrapped up the kidnapped astronaut plotline and the entire final season won’t be about that. It was a good three-parter, but the show works best, I think, with the crisis-of-the-week approach. I’m also glad that a character named Beverly was given a chance to redeem herself, somewhat. Team Redneck gave it their best shot on The Amazing Race but they were just too far behind. I don’t think they could have done anything to stave off elimination. They even got the fast forward, which wasn’t a given. I thought Vanessa was in trouble for sure when she went down, but she’s a real trooper. I wonder who’s going to make the potentially fatal mistake of reaching the finish line first and then having to go back to complete some part of a road block. My favorite line on Mad Men this week was when Roger was talking to Don’s daughter Sally at the award banquet. She asked him who the guy her father was talking to was. “His name’s Ed. He’s with Dow Corning. They make beautiful dishes. Glassware. Napalm.” A perfect beat before that final word. So much went right for everyone in that episode (even if the outcome of Peggy’s story was different than she expected), but by the end they all looked like sad sacks in a velvet painting. Especially poor Sally, who stumbled into an awkward situation, to say the least. I also like the way Peter answered Megan’s father’s question about what he did all day. And Megan shone, too, with her idea for the Heinz Beans campaign and for correctly interpreting what was happening during their dinner. It’s been a long time since I was taken by surprise as much as I was during the final 30 seconds of House. I don’t know anyone who could have watched that episode and not burst out laughing when Wilson saw what was on his computer. Brilliant. And zombie fans, check out this week’s Castle if you missed it. Lots of zombie fun. I especially liked the stoned zombie. At first it seemed like little more than a site gag, but it turned into a clue. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 28th, 2012
9:32 am	How you fix stuff It’s funny how you don’t hear about short story submissions for weeks at a time and then a couple of responses come back within an hour of each other. It’s like they’re conspiring or something. In this case, though, it was a rejection followed by an acceptance, so that’s okay. Better than the other way around. I don’t have a contract for the acceptance yet, so I won’t mention what and where it is for the time being. One of our cars had a close encounter with a small waddling animal that came out of nowhere late at night. I suspect the car fared better than the critter did, but the splash guards under the bumper were discombobulated. So I did what any good Canadian familiar with Red Green would do: I fixed it with duct tape. Or Monster Tape, in this case, since that’s what I had on hand. The alarming noise that emanated from the front end of the car stopped and it tided us over for a few days until we could get the car into the dealership. I suspect the repairs won’t involve tape. An interesting episode of The Mentalist this week. It involved the investigation into the death of a gay teenager who was bullied or abused by just about every adult male in his life. The suspects piled up. The side story involved a drag club near the crime scene. It had one cleverly executed bit of sleight-of-hand that should have been transparently obvious but wasn’t. Nicely done. I saw at least one person who thought Fringe jumped the shark with last week’s flash-forward episode, but this week’s show was fantastic. It was emotional and featured excellent performances by John Noble and Anna Torv. Noble is always great, but he had an amazing scene playing both Walter and Walternate. (Ditto for Torv as Olivia and Fauxlivia.) And the flash forward, despite the dire circumstances of that future, should reassure us that the world survives. I’m delighted Fringe has been picked up for one final season, because that means it can go out on its own terms. Apparently they shot two versions of the two-part finale that begins next week in case they weren’t renewed. Fortunately they won’t have to go with the cobbled together wrap-up. I wonder if we’ll see anything more about the other side now that they’re separated again. Olivia, at least, should still have the ability to go back and forth if she puts her mind to it. I’d love, some day, to go back to the beginning and watch the entire series straight through to see how the mythology evolved. It seemed for a while that it was drifting and then it embraced its own story and flourished. Not, alas, as much as it might have. For some reason the series never caught on the way it might have. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 26th, 2012
1:19 pm	You’re the voice Heard a funny Tom Petty anecdote on the radio this morning. He had a riff but no song. Kept playing it over and over again. Then he got the chorus, which ultimately became The Waiting is the Hardest Part, but nothing more. For a week he kept picking up the guitar and playing the same thing over and over again. Eventually (he said, probably in jest) people started pounding on the walls. Don’t play that any more. I’m just about ready to tackle a new short story. I’ve had the setting and the scenario rattling around in my head for several days now, but I didn’t have a POV character until this morning. He spoke to me very clearly in the 30 minutes before my alarm went off. It was like he was dictating the story to me. It was a very distinctive voice, too, and completely appropriate to the story. I did some more research this morning and wrote down the first paragraph or two of what I heard as I woke up. I love it when that happens. I have no idea where this stuff comes from. I kept looking at the clock in the final moments of Survivor last night. It seemed like there was a lot of time left, so I wondered if maybe there was going to be a tied vote. Alas, that was not the case. Troyzan did his best to shake things up, but it wasn’t enough. He should have looked harder for that idol. I can’t believe how dense Christina acted, though. She didn’t seem to mind at all that she was being used as a pawn. It didn’t occur to her that she’d be the one evicted if Troyzan did have the idol. Maybe she knew he didn’t have it, but I don’t give her that much credit. Kat could be a spoiler if she takes charge of her game. She has some strengths—she did pretty well in the immunity challenge. I haven’t written her off yet. That game looked like it could be tough on a body. I don’t know how Tarzan survived throwing himself at the ground like that. And there were some saline implants that might have been vulnerable, too. Troyzan was virtually unrecognizable after he shaved. The chef at Ponderosa is getting light duty this year: Jonas is doing a lot of the cooking. He even bought ingredients when they went into Apia on a souvenir buying expedition. Posted my 150th update at News from the Dead Zone yesterday. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
1:23 pm	A good day for dragons I received my contributor copy of The Crane House from Cemetery Dance last night and finally got a chance to read the story. My contribution is Chapter 5, so there was a lot that happened after I passed it on to Brian Freeman. I really admired the way Ray Garton wrapped it up at the end. He went back to elements from Brian Keene’s opening chapter and used them in unexpected and smart ways. My full review of Ghost Brothers of Darkland County went up on FEARnet last night. A fascinating episode of House this week. There have been many episodes of the show that grappled with the possibility that a god is involved in the healing process. This time the show was about a Hmong boy who was suffering from night terrors. His grandfather believed that it was because an evil spirit was after him. In the end, either the grandfather was right or the billion-to-one shot treatment paid off, and there was no way to tell which was true. As they wind the series down, dramatic things happen. House’s green-card wife leaves him and Wilson has cancer. Next week looks like a parallel of the episode where House tried to go cold turkey, but this time it’s Wilson trying an experimental treatment. A very strange episode of Mad Men. There was a common moment at the beginning where three storylines diverged and the show went back to that point (and a few other touchpoints along the way) to show what happened with the various characters. Drugs were a part of two of them (Peggy and Roger) and the threat of relationship rifts was a part of them all. The LSD story was fascinating. The voice coming out of the liquor bottle was hilarious—reminded me of those old “butter” / “Parkay” commercials with the talking margarine tub. Don almost blew it big time but it seems like by the end all is forgiven. And Cooper took him to task for his lackadaisical performance of late. I’m still hanging on to The Killing, more out of curiosity than for any other reason. I have to know how they’re going to wrap up the murder case. Dragons everywhere. First of all in The Wind Through the Keyhole, which involves a dragon or two and is out today. Then there was a decent CGI dragon on last night’s Eureka. It did all manner of things, like flying between and around trees, climbing trees, etc. I’ve seen worse CGI in big-budget films. I’m glad, too, that they aren’t sticking with the  dream-world version of reality. It’s fun to see the characters bounce back and forth between the “real” versions and the ones in the group consciousness construct. I’ve probably said this before—in fact I’m sure I have—but I think that Colin Ferguson is a seriously under-rated physical actor. Carter gets into so much trouble, and is often shot at, pummeled, attacked by robots or zapped, and Ferguson goes all out. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
12:13 pm	RPM I turned in my review of Ghost Brothers of Darkland County to FEARnet this weekend so you should see it in a day or two. I also posted reviews of Harbor Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh and The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King. I have a longer review of the latter in the forthcoming issue of CD magazine. Got back on the elliptical trainer for the first time in several weeks this morning. When I was facing my book deadline, that extra half hour every morning seemed crucial. Probably was. The funny thing is that I fell back into the exact same cadence. I seem to have a natural 78-80 rpm thing going on. Probably dates back to my days when I used to cycle long distances. One bit of advice I received early on was to get a comfortable rhythm and adjust the gears to maintain it regardless of the conditions. It worked out quite well. I did a few century rides back in the day. Quite a shift on Fringe this week, jumping forward 20 years. It was an interesting attempt to imagine what the world might look like that far in the future, but there were a couple of oddities. Broyles’ telephone still had a cord, and the Fringe team actually had to show papers of transit, instead of QR codes or smart phone displays. How retro. I knew from the moment she came on the screen who the young Fringe agent was supposed to be. Never doubted it for a minute. I like it that Walter became a bit of a jerk when the excised bits of his brain were restored—the very reason why those particular segments were taken out in the first place. I wonder if Leonard Nimoy gets paid for the show when he shows up trapped in amber? We reached the episode on Season 4 of The Sopranos where Tony and Ralphie Cifaretto finally resolve their ongoing hate/hate relationship once and for all. The one about the horse stables. I never thought Ralphie would make it out of the first season he appeared in alive and all of a sudden he became a captain and a protected guy. Funny how these things work out. A pleasant surprise at the end of this week’s Amazing Race. If there ever was a good example of a reason not to give up, that was it. The final place team has a lot of ground to make up, but airports can often be great equalizers. I wonder what the penalty would have been if a team had chosen to give up right from the beginning. Imagine getting a two hour penalty instead of spending four hours trying to get a dance routine right. It also looks like the cricket contest was easier than the taxi course, based on how the two teams that did it came in second and third. I finally watched Ghoul this weekend, the Chiller TV movie based on Brian Keene’s novel. It wasn’t bad. I’ve quit a lot of low-budget horror movies in the past, but I stuck this one through to the end. Campy in places, and the acting was all over the map, but it was sort of okay. Most of the kids held their ground, especially the lead. There’s a new show on the CW called L.A. Complex that is an import from CTV. I’ve been hearing good things about it so I checked out the pilot via OnDemand. It has sort of a Melrose Place vibe, but with a Canadian sensibility. It’s about a bunch of aspiring actors, singers, musicians and stand up comics who all live in a place called the Deluxe Suites. Hotel California it ain’t, but it’s cheap and they have great parties. The recognizable star is Jewel Staite from Firefly as the actress who was in a short-lived show called Teenage Wasteland that was canceled and is sort of a cult hit. Sound familiar? When anyone asks about it, her canned answer is “We  had a bad time slot.” She’s reached an age when she has to insist she’s there for the younger parts, not the mother roles.  Mary Lynn Rajskub has a funny guest appearance as herself, tormenting an aspiring comic who is about to bomb. When he mentions one of her famous sketches, she says with the straightest of faces that that was Mary Lynn Rajskub and that she is, in fact, Sarah Silverman. Later she and another comedian are at the bar and they give him career advice: play smaller rooms, like your apartment, or the bathroom, or a zero dimensional vortex. Another aspiring actress has a great audition and then ruins her chance by puking because she just took the morning after pill. She tries to salvage it but the director stops her with these words of wisdom: When there’s vomit on the piano, it’s time to stop the audition. They aren’t all failures. One guy has just gotten the lead in a new drama, but he’s plagued by insecurity. And another dancer almost makes the final cut as a dancer for a musician’s tour. The reality, though, is that so many things have to come together at the right time. They can be really good but just not what the director is looking for, as when Staite’s character tries to go for a part that is written to be a black woman. I’ll probably check this out again. It’s filmed and produced in Canada, with enough L.A. exteriors to make it seem credible, but more than a few “ehs” slip in. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 21st, 2012
1:15 pm	While it’s still cool I was well prepared for yesterday afternoon’s rainstorm. I was once again on my bicycle at work. I watched the radar and saw the red and yellow patches emerge from the west. It grew overcast shortly after noon, but I hung in until 12:45 p.m. when I figured I’d better head for home. I can do a lot of my job from my home office, so I was able to keep up with things. The rain started in earnest at around 2 p.m. and continued for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I would have been an unhappy camper if I’d had to bike home in that mess. Today it is comparatively cool (do you consider 70° cool?) and breezy, so I have the office window open as I work. The image up yonder (or over yonder, depending on the width of your browser window) is from a scene in Ghost Brothers of Darkland County. An interesting scene in that the characters point rifles at the audience and pull the trigger several times! It’s also a crucial incident in the rivalry between the eponymous ghost brothers, as the outcome of the competition leads to the deadly showdown between them. After a bit of a hiatus from FEARNet because of my book deadline, I’m back today with the first of two articles about Ghost Brothers. Part 1 details the show’s long journey from inception to execution: The Long Road to Atlanta. Sometime next week, I’ll have Part 2, my review of the show. I also posted my review of Harbor Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh. I seem to be less enchanted by his recent Hollywood Division novels than many readers. The cops are becoming caricatures. The bad guys are far more interesting. I was really surprised, though, by a plotting choice he makes late in the book. It takes some courage to do what he did, I’ll give him that. I’ve had a galley of The Providence Rider by Robert McCammon kicking around my office for far too long. That’s my next read. This morning, though, I read the first section of Clown in the Moonlight, a brutal novella by Tom Piccirilli inspired by the true story of a high school student who killed a classmate, claiming that Satan made him do it. He took his friends out into the woods to show them the body, like it was a tourist spot. Lots of sex and drugs and heavy metal. I sense something of a change in direction coming in the second section. We watched a couple of more episodes of Season 4 of The Sopranos last night. I think we’re about halfway through the season. Tony’s young fellow is growing up fast! Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 19th, 2012
1:30 pm	I like to ride my bicycle We’re down to one car this week, so I had to dust off the bicycle this morning. Peel off the cobwebs. Pump up the tires. My commute is only a couple of miles, so it’s not bad, and the weather is perfect. Tomorrow: less so. Might have to hitch a ride. I was notified last night that my contributor copy of The Crane House is on the way from Cemetery Dance. I’m looking forward to seeing how this story turned out. I abandoned Harbor Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh in the middle of my other work, so now I’m back at it. It’s the latest in his series featuring cops working Hollywood. I can’t say that I like these as much as his older, classic novels, but they’re okay. Law & Order: SVU was crazy this week. Must have been an episode that was bumped from earlier in the year, as it is set on Valentine’s Day. It was about a woman who had multiple affairs, often with delivery men, who gets caught in a nest of lies and still manages to bluff her way through. I wonder what Amaro thought he saw in her that made him suspicious of his wife. I’m betting the whole thing blows up in his face and that she’s actually seeing a counselor. A rousing episode of Survivor. It always make for good drama when someone starts to go off the deep end a little, as Troy-zan did this week. I also think the crew relishes contests where the players have to gorge themselves on food in a very short period of time, as with Kat’s cake. What can you say about Leif? The guy didn’t leave much of an impression. It was like the producers had to go out of their way to show him in reaction shots because he didn’t seem to do anything else. Even on the Ponderosa clips, which are usually 95% about the most recent evictee, they were hard pressed to show much about him. One of the three segments was about Jonas prepping sushi (with Leif as his assistant). The women are now firmly in control and Troy-zan can’t afford to make any mistakes. It was smart of him to lead the others into thinking he might have found an immunity idol, but that just means that if he doesn’t win immunity next week they’ll split the votes between him and the other -zan to hedge their bets. Kim is still running things, but I wouldn’t count Chelsea or Kat out of it yet. Eureka is back for its final season and, true to form, they did another timeline reboot. This must be at least the third or fourth time that they’ve completely juggled things around. Poor Allison and Carter. Will they ever get together permanently? I wasn’t terribly fond of the way the first episode ended, because it made everything that had happened up to that moment seem unimportant and moot, but it’s a fun show. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
10:29 am	The tax man Have you been holding off from buying a copy of When the Night Comes Down because you couldn’t decide whether to get the trade paperback or the ebook? Well, wait no more. If you buy that trade paperback (or any other) via the Dark Arts Books website, you’ll get the ebook for free. What a deal! How better to spend your tax refund? My Storytellers Unplugged essay this month is a sequel to my February contribution. This one is called  Asking questions or getting answers? I wrote a few book reviews this weekend. New on Onyx Reviews you’ll find reviews of Calico Joe by John Grisham, The Garner Files by James Garner and Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale. I also checked the proofs of one short story, executed editorial changes for another and got a third back into circulation. Slowly but surely getting on top of things again. I also submitted an essay to FEARNet this morning and have another to finish this week. A while back, the British publisher Hodder & Stoughton invited people to send in photos of themselves to be used to create a mosaic for the back cover of The Wind Through the Keyhole. I found out today that mine is one of the hundreds (if not thousands) that is being used. It’s an interesting effect. I’m not sure that anything will be visible or recognizable on the final printed product, but it’s cool. Was Mad Men funny this week or what? The fight scene was hilarious, as much for the “audience” reaction as for the participants. Pete (loved the scene where he “auditioned” the hooker in different roles) seems to be turning into Don Draper while Don turns into, hmmm, a good guy, perhaps? His reaction to the name of the UT shooter was interesting—I wonder if there’s supposed to be an implied relationship since his real name is Dick Whitman. It was a Firefly reunion on Castle this week with Adam (Jayne Cobb) Baldwin appearing as an anti-gang cop named Slaughter. A bit of a change of pace, with Castle tagging along with someone different, a cop who is essentially the anti-Beckett. It was fun seeing them together again. And the promo for The Avengers featuring Nathan Fillion and Robert Downey Jr. after the credits was fun, too. I have no idea why last night’s episode of House was called “We Need the Eggs.” Did I miss the reference? Something to do with Woody Allen, I’m guessing. A strange episode that went to great lengths to come up with a patient syndrome that reflected on the lack of relationships for House and his team. I guessed the Neti Pot cause right around the time House was sketching it on the board. I remember reading about some people who died or became very sick after using one. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 13th, 2012
2:06 pm	Friday the 13th I’ve never been sure why it takes a full day to catch up when you’re only out of town for 36 hours, but it does. Wednesday morning I flew to Atlanta. Had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to make a 7:00 flight. I scheduled it early so that I wouldn’t have to fret about any delays. Of course, everything was on schedule and I was in Atlanta by 10 a.m. The MARTA system is a great way to get from the airport into town and  you can’t beat the price: $2.50 vs. $35-40 by taxi, and you don’t have to worry about traffic problems. It takes 30 minutes or so from the baggage claim area. Extremely convenient. The station was only two blocks from my hotel. Of course, since I was so early I couldn’t check in. I met up with Rocky Wood in the lobby and had a chat with him, then went to lunch with Ms. Mod from Stephen King’s office. She showed me where the after-party was going to be. En route, we passed T. Bone Burnett, who looks every bit as cool in person as in photographs. After I checked in, I had time to kill so I went to the exhibit at the museum across the street: From Picasso to Warhol. It featured works from about 16 artists, including the bookends and Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock. The Picassos were interesting because there were a few pre-cubist works that showed he knew how to draw realistic people before he went off in another direction. The whole gang (there must have been 20 of us) met up in the hotel lobby and went over to the Alliance Theater en masse. Dave Hinchburger from the Overlook Connection was there with his wife, youngest son and a couple of others. A few people from King’s office, plus Russ Dorr, who does research for King (as far back as The Stand and as recently as 11/22/63 — I met him in Dallas last fall). Some people I know from on-line. We had most of a row at the front of the mezzanine, which was a great place to sit. This was the red carpet premiere of Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, which had been running in previews for a week. The first thing to strike me was the elaborate stage. The centerpiece is the interior of a rural Mississippi cabin, but it had other components, too, including a lover’s leap, a bar (which was on an upper level) and a section where a convertible car could be pushed out onto the set. Before the show started, ghosts were projected across the set and a handful of actors took up spots in the wings. At first we thought they were dummies, especially the guy on the bench next to the bus stop. He didn’t move an inch. The show opened with the appearance of The Shape, an imp/jester character who served as the Greek chorus and also flitted among the actors, impelling them to do unwise things. Whispering in their ears. He really set the tone of the show with his jaunty, saucy opening number wherein he takes responsibility for all the bad things people do. He emerged out of a trap door and flitted and pranced around. Great stuff. The contemporary story is about a man who brings his two adult sons together (along with his wife) to try to get them to stop fighting with each other. One is a writer who has just sold his first novel for $500,000 and is seeing his brother’s ex-girlfriend. The other brother is an aspiring musician who rarely succeeds at anything and works at a dead-end job that will probably consume him. Their rivalry has had its violent moments: the musician recently broke the writer’s arm, but the writer wasn’t blameless in that altercation. When the father was 10 years old, his two old brothers had a similar rivalry that led to a tragedy that killed them and the girl who floated back and forth between them. The father wants to tell that story to his sons to avoid something similar happening again. The ghosts of the past are eager for some resolution, too. They wander through the set, visible to each other and the audience but not to the family. There’s lots of bouncing back and forth in time to show some of the things that happened when the ghosts were alive and conflicts between the man’s two sons. It takes a while for the father to get to the point. There are parts of the tale he’s reluctant to tell. The songs are used to develop character and theme, but not usually plot. The action stops for songs, as a rule. The stage is quite versatile, with things rising out of the two panels in the floor, elements being pushed on from the wings, and creative lighting changing the tone and appearance of the set. The lighting was something that most people commented on afterward. The band was behind a screen at the very top of the stage, almost up in the rafters. The music was lively, peppy, moody, infectious and dramatic. The vocal performances were uniformly strong, though I would pick up the Shape and Jenna (the female ghost) as the best soloists. When the four ghosts sang together, their harmonies were outstanding, and when the entire ensemble sang, it was like Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar. Powerful stuff. There was a lot going on on the stage. When someone looked at a photograph, a copy of it would be projected on a wall. The occasional sentence appeared on a board. The passage or skipping of time was indicated by numbers rolling from the past to the present or vice versa. Definitely a professional production that was well conceived and executed. Without giving too much away, the story is about trying to get people to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and King’s perspective on this kind of story (remember the Butterfingers episode of Kingdom Hospital?) will seem familiar to many. The performers received a standing ovation the minute the show finished and throughout the entire curtain call. King, Mellencamp and Burnett were dragged onstage at the end and took their bows, too. Afterward, we were invited to the cast party, which was in a ballroom at the Four Seasons. None of us knew how big a shindig it was going to be. There were hundreds of people. The finger food mostly had a southern theme, in keeping with the play. The line at the bar was long, but the drinks were mixed so strong that I didn’t go back after the first time! King came in for a while and was swamped by people. He never did make it to his table. He smiled and stood for photographs, but it had to be overwhelming. I got to meet John Mellencamp, but he was a little distant, as if he felt out of his element in such a big party, and Meg Ryan, who is his girlfriend. T. Bone Burnett, who has been producing albums and movie music for over 40 years, was terrific. He seemed genuinely happy to be there and appreciative of anyone who came over to congratulate him on the show. He said the performers were all hitting doubles and triples and knocking the ball out of the park, so I guess he’s a baseball fan! (He produced the music for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Elton John’s recent album with Leon Russell, to name just a couple of things he’s done.) Charles Barkley, the former basketball player, was in attendance, though I almost didn’t recognize him out of context. We think there was another basketball player there, too, but no one could come up with his name. The DJ music was loud. Some people danced. The rest of us socialized, shouting to make ourselves heard over the music. The party went on until about 1:00 a.m. By the time we headed back to the hotel, the temperature had dropped into the thirties, which was enough to wake anyone up! All in all, a terrific day. I’m very glad I had the chance to go and see the show and meet up with old friends and new. I’ll write up a review for FEARNet, perhaps this weekend. * * * I watched Survivor this morning. A much more entertaining episode than last week. Lots of back-and-forth, though I don’t think there was ever much doubt that it would be one of the guys going home. I still think Kat has a shot. She’s a fairly strong player, and I think she’s being underestimated. Leif is almost a non-entity. They show the occasional reaction shot but the rest of the time it’s like he’s AWOL. I can’t see anything keeping at least five of the women from cleaning house at this point. Criminal Minds has been sort of meh lately, but this week’s episode featured one of my favorite scenes in a while: the one where Emily and JJ interrogated the slave master. The scene paid off at the end when he tried to get away and JJ got the drop on him. You could tell she enjoyed every minute of that confrontation. I managed to avoid spoilers from the Justified finale until I watched the episode. There were some huge surprises. I always figured that Quarles’s gun was going to jam. There was so much attention on it. Early in the season he was shown lubricating it to keep it in good shape, and at least one character asked him if it ever jammed. But it never did, and the way he was parted from it was, to say the least, totally unexpected. Disarmed indeed. A nice showdown between an irate Raylan and a terrified Wynn Duffy. I hope he’s back next season. The fact that it was Johnny who squealed about Devil was a surprise, and no one knows about that yet, so it could come back into play. And what can you say about Arlo? When push came to shove and it looked like a choice between Boyd and Raylan (though it wasn’t that at all), Arlo chose Boyd, which was the biggest punch in the guts of the season, I thought. It took a moment for Winona to realize what it meant and by the time she did, Raylan was gone. Funniest line of the episode: “Oh shit. It’s a piggy bank!” I’m gonna miss Quarles and his irreverent randomness. After him and Ma Bennett, the writers are going to have a job coming up with someone as vivid and unique. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)