Hydration

Summer generally arrives here around the Fourth of July, and if we are going to have a hot stretch, it is usually in mid-to-late August. Didn't happen last year, summer just kind of waved at us as it went by.

She stopped to visit this year. We have had a couple days this week where the temperature hit a hundred F. and it looks like it'll cool off to maybe 97 or 98º here today ...

We can't complain about the heat, compared to the rest of the country which has been broiling; the Mississippi River shut down, crops shriveled, dried-up lake beds crazed all over the midwest. 

For years I had a window unit AC in the garage that I'd haul out and install in my office if the stretch of heat was going to last more than three or four days. That was because above ninety or so, my computer would start to babble at me. Most years it stayed in the garage. Eventually, I gave it to my daughter, whose place gets much hotter than mine.

Most of the houses up here don't have AC installed because it's not worth it for the few days of real heat we get each year. Open the doors and windows, crank up the fans, sleep on top the covers.

However, if you plan to exercise in the out-of-doors, you need to keep a few things in mind when the thermometer is up above body temperature, else you will court heat exhaustion or worse.

1. Stay in the shade as much as possible.
2. Take frequent breaks. If you start feeling woozy or really hot, sit down and cool off. 
3. Drink a lot of water. (If you are going to be at it more than a couple of hours, you might add in something to replenish electrolytes, ala Gatorade or somesuch.)

Our most recent silat class, we were out in the yard, since our host's garage was full of appliances awaiting installation in his getting-redone-kitchen. Probably that'll get finished around, oh, Christmas. Here's a redundant term for you: Lying home contractor ...

The yard is grassy and by seven o'clock, in full shade. Still, when it is 101º F., it is easy to overdue it, and we were focused on leg work, which is ever so much fun; even on a cool day, the blood gets pumping pretty good.

Couple guys got pretty red and needed to use the garden hose. All of us got really sweaty. 
Nobody fell over, but there is always that danger, especially when it's a bunch of martial artists who don't want to be the guy who sissies out.

The tendency in such situation is to keep going: Hey, I ain't your wilting pansy here! 

This keep-going, shrug-it-off, man-up attitude can lead to man-down, so you have to know your limits. Macho can kill you: Dude worked himself into heatstroke and died. A real man, you know? Got to admire that ...

No, you don't. You shake your head at how stupid it is to die trying to show how tough you are. 

Know the signs of impending trouble: dizziness, exhaustion, nausea, cramps? Sit down and cool off–the hose, an ice pack, the upturned water bottle over the head. If you ignore the symptoms and keep going, heatstroke can follow, and if you stop sweating, a seizure or death is right there waiting. Don't be stupid. Listen to your body. 

To see a quick and unscientific measure of how much sweating goes on during a vigorous workout in these conditions? I had a two-liter bottle of club soda going, and by the end of class, had less than a cupful of it left. And I didn't need to pee. The soaked shirt and shorts were testimony to where the liquid went. And the top on the convertible was down on the way home–at nine p.m., it was still 84º F. all the way ...

Public Service Video

The Sting

When we got our RV–and never having owned one before–we discovered a raft of things we didn't know, including sewage disposal. 

Not to get too technical, but there are two waste tanks under the camper: One holds gray water, the other black water. I don't expect I have to explain that any further.

You roll along and these tanks fill, and–this is important–before they get full, you hook up a big hose to an outside valve and drain them into an RV septic tank, to be found at many campsites and some rest stops. Dumping your tanks is always in the back of your mind. 

As part of the black water lesson, we were told to buy a special kind of toilet paper made for boats and campers and all, which would dissolve and thus avoid plugging up the system.

Which we did not want, to be watching in horror as the toilet or shower backed up into the vehicle. 

So we bought a couple of cases of the special TP and went on our way.

It was spendy, spendy stuff. Four rolls of  retail? Eight bucks. But we didn't use much and it lasted a long time.

And as such things do, we ran out of it recently. I got online to find the best price and came across this article, which basically says the whole thing is a scam. That if you don't believe it, take a big jar, drop a couple sheets of your house arsewipe into it, let it sit for a bit, then cap and shake the jar.

Some brands won't break up but chances are the Kirkland double-ply stuff you buy at Costco for a buck a roll in the Carload Size will work just fine, the article says.

And I am here to tell you, it does ...

Gun Stats: Pistol-Packin' People

Carrying a concealed handgun is allowed in most of the states, if you meet the qualifications. (Not in Illinois or D.C., and severe restrictions in Maryland, New Jersey, and Hawaii.)  

Here, some numbers–valid permits, as of 2011:

1. Florida -- 887,000;
2. Pennsylvania -- 786,000;
3. Georgia -- 600,000;
4. Texas -- 519,000;
5. Indiana -- 406,000;
6. Washington -- 351,000;
7. Utah -- 347,000;
8. Tennessee -- 341,000;
9. Michigan -- 296,000;
10. Virginia -- 279,000.

Interestingly, California, the most populous state, issued about 35,000 concealed handgun licenses at last count. California is a "may issue," state, and most of the top ten are "must issue," meaning that the hoops you have to jump through are more in CA. Pretty much, you have to show necessity, have a clean record, and wait for a while as all the wheel slowly grind. Most of those licenses go to rich and famous, a few professional personal protection folks, people who have gotten serious death threats or who carry major monies or gems. 

Population-wise, more of a percentage of people in Georgia go strapped than elsewhere, about 11%. Devil goes down to Georgia, he better watch who he messes with ...

Port Townsend - Road Rage

Had a great few days in the camper at Port Townsend. As we hiked around Fort Worden, we spotted Alexander's Castle. The short story is, the British Consulate built the place for himself and his bride, but when he went home to fetch her, she'd married somebody else.

Oops.

He didn't live there on his own for long.

On the way home, we were on Hwy. 101 skirting the Hood Canal, which is actually just a narrowing-extension of Puget Sound, and in no way canal-like. A curvy, two-lane road, and as we approached a narrow bridge in a no-passing double-yellow line zone, traffic on-coming, and doing the speed limit of 55 mph, some loon in a VW Jetta passed us.

Two seconds slower, we would have been dodging shrapnel and wounded vehicles, and if you know the three-second rule when following somebody, you know how close that was.

I uttered an expletive or three. So did my wife.

If you've never felt road rage, let me explain how it goes: I wanted to catch the idiot in the VW, who was probably high or stupid or both, cut him off, remove him from his vehicle via the driver's side window, and then whack him against the ground like the Hulk did Loki.

I mean, I really did. 

If you want to jump off a bridge or eat an overdose or shoot yourself, that's your right. But you don't get to take anybody with you, especially me and my family. 

I didn't chase the guy down. Aside from that being hard to do in an RV on a curvy road, that would have been illegal, and I am a good citizen these days. Still, it was one of those adrenaline-fueled moments I could have done without, thank you ...

Harry Harrison

The writer Harry Harrison has left the building. I posted about him awhile back, and I think that was a fitting obituary. He was 87. Adios, Harry.

In Memory Yet Green

Thirty years ago, we lived in Port Townsend, a scenic little town in Washington state. On Puget Sound, PT was a former gateway ship port to Seattle, it looked kind of like San Francisco, circa 1890, two and three-story Victorian houses on hills rising from the water.

My wife worked for a big paper company, running a timber division, and we found a nice  house on a hill with an upstairs bedroom that became my office, looked right at the Sound. It was postcard country in the Olympic rain shadow.
In the off season, about six thousand people lived there. In the summer, the tourists arrived, and the temporary population trebled and some, hotels, bed and breakfast places, campgrounds all filled up.

If you saw the movie An Officer and a Gentleman? It was filmed there.

It was an arty town, lot of old hippies, but also a lot of blue collar millworkers, and they didn't always get along.

The schools were not the best, even though Frank Herbert was the judge for the science fair, and we came to realize we wanted our children in a better situation, so we moved back to Oregon.

We had fond memories of the place, though. I sold my second and third books while living there, and that was where a dear friend introduced us to good champagne.

So, on a whim, we decided to hop in the camper and take a trip up to PT, and see how it had gotten along without us.

Quite well, actually.

Amazing how a few decades changes a place. We found our old house, and it had been upgraded; new this and that, nice garden out back, solar panels covering half the roof.

The streets were the same, but the businesses mostly had different names. My favorite bar was gone, now the lobby of a hotel; the breakfast place by the marina had turned into a maritime museum. Most of it looked so different I did not recognize it. Spotted the house that belonged to the writer Jack Cady, who got me a teaching job at UW in Seattle when he decided he didn't want to do it any more.

(Dojo Rat lives on one of the San Juan Islands, twixt PT and Canada, a ferry ride from town. I shot him an email, but didn't hear back, so we missed a chance to visit. Maybe next time ...)

We had dinner in a nice restaurant, listened to a classical guitarist playing a seven-stringer. Drank wine, port, ate duck and shrimp and cheesecake. A hard gig ...

But Thomas Wolfe was right: You can't go home again ...

http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/qq348/steveperrywriter/f0b00b8191800fef9a1a044d03b2a3d1.jpg

Fun Video

How to Inspire Writers

Auto-pilot

Went to the drugstore around the corner to pick up some shaving stuff and a Chapstick. As I was checking out, the clerk behind the counter, a woman I didn't recognize, asked, "So, do you play the guitar?"

For a moment there, I was stunned. Why would she ask that? Wow!

Then I realized the T-shirt I wore was from the Clapton concert, and had a big picture of a strat on the front. 

Duh ...

Musicians Get Too Much Respect

First World Problems

In third-world countries, people worry about things like food, clean water, and shelter. In a first-world country like the U.S., we worry about how soft our toilet paper is, and internet connection speeds. The numbers say that if you live in the U.S. and make twenty thousand a year you are living in poverty here, but better off than 99% of the rest of the world. So those of us in the middle class have gripes that are less-pressing than almost everybody else on the planet.

I am grateful to be here.

Howsoever, my hot tub, which has become a necessity for my body and soul, started whining. I shut it down and called my repair guy. I figured this would be his slack season, what with actual summer being here, but no, it turns out they also do swimming pools, and so business is booming and I had to wait a couple days.

Poor me ...

Turned out a seal had leaked, water ran down into the motor shaft, and a bearing was about to burn up. So the motor had to be replaced or rebuilt, and it cost about a car payment ...

Seems to be something needs to be fixed every other year, but that's part of the operating cost.

I am blessed that I had the money to get it done, and don't I know it ...

Writing Update

Yes, I have finished the book I owe Ace. 

Yes, I am working on Churl, the next Matador novel. Along with a couple of short story ideas that popped up, based loosely on The Three Little Pigs, and John Henry, respectively. I'll let you know where those can be found when I get them done and either sold or up as e-files.

And if anybody cares, while I was walking the dogs this afternoon, a bee flew out of nowhere and proceeded to sting me under the chin. I caught a glimpse of it as I swatted it away and first thought it was a yellow jacket, but when I got home, the stinger and venom sac was still stuck in me, so bee.

Just so you know ...

Olympics

Been watching the Olympics, mostly in prime time. I can stream the rest on my computer and have caught some oddball stuff they won't put on TV, but since I enjoy gymnastics and beach volleyball, what the heck.

And NBC, bless their little hearts, ran the women's Marathon on Saturday in its entirely. They couldn't cut away to cover something else? Because except for the first five minutes and the finish, two and some hours later, not much changed. Shifting to any of the other sports for highlights would have been much more interesting during those stretches where the front runners on the London streets maintained their positions for miles.

(No. I didn't watch it all. TV was on in the b.g. as I did this and that, and far as I could tell, they didn't cut away to anything else. Maybe they did and I missed it.)

Never mind. We won't go down the NBC only showing us stuff where the Americans had a shot at gold. They always do that. And then they inanely ask the winners, "So, how it did it feel to win? What were you thinking, Usain, during your nine second race?"

Thinking? Um, run faster than everybody else and cross the line first?

Can we get a break here?

But the gymnasts? Ah. 

You know about Gabby Douglas, who won a couple golds. She fell off the beam, but not during her signature trick, which is a back flip with a full twist. Do you know how wide the balance beam is? 

Less than the width of my palm.

I couldn't walk from one end to the other without falling off. Throwing somersaults, or leaping three feet up to come back down and alight with not even a major bobble? That's passing astounding.

The Russian girl, Mustafina, who won bronze on floor ex? A thing of beauty and mind-numbing skill, even though the American Aly Raisman took the gold there. Ponor, the Romanian? Just as gorgeous a routine. These little girls flew like eagles.

Then there is Zonderland, the Dutch guy on the high bar. Never seen anything like what this guy does whipping around that steel bar. After he finished, the gymnast who had to follow him shook his head and grinned, and you could read his mind: Holy crap! How am I going to beat that?

Answer: You can't. Even if you are perfect, which you won't be–these judges don't give out perfect scores. Zonderland did the most fantastic bar routine anybody has ever seen, anywhere, any time, stuck the landing, and they deducted almost a full point.

Watch the video if you can get it. It is amazing. 

This is the guy you want doubling Batman ...

Space: The Final Frontier

Got to love these pictures. Now and then, some clever folks show up on Facebook.

I watched the end of the Curiosity landing, such that you could see. Lot of folks in blue shirts hugging each other, mostly.

Reminded me of the old days when we'd all get up early and glue our gazes to the TV to see the first American launched into space; then the first into orbit; various launches of satellites, and the moon landing. The Right Stuff days. 

I've seen some of the early capsules at various museums. Climbed in and sat in the "pilot's" chair. Not a place for somebody who had any fear of tight spaces, nor designed for people my height, either. Made my old Miata seem like a rock star's tour bus ...

Expectations

In my younger days, I spent several summers working as a lifeguard/swimming instructor at a local pool in B.R. The place, the Ethyl Recreation Association, started out as a swim club, built by my father's employer for employees.  Eventually, it shifted to a country club, first known as the ERA Country Club, then Fairwood. There was a golf course out back, a big, stocked pond nearby, and after that, the place dwindled into obscurity. Building is still there, last time I looked, but the pool and golf course closed years ago.

Each year, there was a big celebration, usually in July, barbecue, games, fishing contests, a diving contest. One year, probably I'd have been about seventeen, I was working the chairs when the diving contest was going on. 

The chairs were just that, steel things with the seat five feet off the ground to give a good view of the pool, opposite sides of the deep end. Normally, there were two guards on, one off, and when it got really busy, the third guard would foot-patrol the shallow end for would-be drowners.

So the diving contest got rolling. One- and three-meter springboards, no platform, and the guards knew most of the divers because we were there ten hours a day. There was one guy we didn't know from before. Fit, maybe twenty-five, and his first couple of three-meter dives were simple but very clean. 

Pretty quick, it came down to him and one other diver, a former lifeguard we knew. 

The former guard's last dive was a front one-and-a-half in a pike, and he got a lot of height and lanced into the water without any splash. His to lose.

The guy we didn't know lined up, strode out, bounced, and threw what we thought was probably going to be a full gainer, since we had seen him do that in practice.

For those of you who don't know from diving, a gainer, sometimes called a flyaway, when I was young,  is a dive in which you jump off the board facing front, but throw a back somersault, and end up going into the water feet-first. (Half-gainer, you go in head-first.)

It is easy to do, but you have to be careful to leap out far enough or you can clock the back of your skull on the end of the board. 

So the mystery diver hit the end of the board and threw his back-flip, and we all knew he wasn't gonna clear the board. Not even close.

Oh, shit!

Guy across from me reacted instantly, he was off the chair and in the air for the water while I was still jumping from the chair to the apron. I wanted to see where the diver was going to fall and smash into the concrete, because I didn't think he was going to hit the water at all–

But he fooled us. He threw the back-flip, came down on the board feet-first, bounced again, did a one-and-a-half forward dive in a pike and into the pool. 

First time I had ever seen that, forty-five years ago, and it caught me completely by surprise. I expected him to leap out over the pool, and when he didn't, assumed he had screwed up and was going to kill himself. 

It was somewhat risky, but in retrospect, if you were a fair diver or gymnast, not all that much. I've seen it done a few times since. This guy obviously knew how to throw a somersault and land it on the board.  

He was also tickled that he caught us with it. 

Won him the contest. And started me down a long, long road whereupon I kept–and still keep–coming up against my expectation and getting it wrong ...

Another Nut Job ...

... mowed down people at a religious service, in this case Sikhs, whose crime was apparently that they were brown and not Christian. 

Bigotry is alive–and not well, but as sick as it ever was. 

Sikhs, by the by, are not Muslims, not that that matters. Crazy is crazy, and it will focus where it will. 

For those who are going to make the knife-to-a-gunfight joke–because Sikhs are, in a lot of places, allowed to carry knives, called kirpan, due to a religious exemption–probably better not to go there. 

Not all Sikhs carry knives, not even the men who are duty-bound to do so. Sometimes they have daggers that are real; sometimes they are peace-bonded, i.e., glued in place; or dulled. Many of them will carry a small pocket knife to satisfy the requirement to bear a kirpan. Some will have jewelry in the shape of a knife.

And a man with a gun standing off and shooting is not best dealt with using a short blade. Look at the girl and her kirpan above. Would you want to charge an assassin blasting away with his nine with that weapon in your hand? Or, any knife ... ?

Short People

I am not a natural short story writer. I did a lot of 'em when I started in the biz, because that was supposed to be the entry-route, back in the day. Do shorts, get them into the SF&F 'zines, build up a fan base, then have something to wave at an editor when ready to make the leap to novels. Not how it's done now, the short story market is leaner than the longer forms, and with ebooks? Even easier. (Plus, it turned out, the editor who bought my first novel had never read any of my short stuff anyhow, so it wasn't even necessary back in the day ...)


The biggest advantage to a short story is spent time. A novel, even if you are fast, usually takes a while. Months, in my case, though I once did a movie novelization in eighteen days, that's a cheat, 'cause I had the script. 


You invest a fair amount of energy in a novel, and if it drops dead in the starting gate, you worked a bunch of time for naught. That stings. (Wait. I should qualify that: You might not make any money from an unsold novel, but the process of writing it is worth something. You can learn a lot from the doing of it, regardless of whether it sells.)


A short story might take a couple days, and in my case more than a few times, a single session at the keyboard only a couple hours long. It doesn't fly? So what? It didn't cost much, and you could stick it away and maybe turn it into a novel someday. Or put it up on Amazon.com as an electronic version.


Short fiction is an exacting form. No room to mess around, you have to keep things tight and on-point and it's not a marathon but a sprint. Pacing is entirely different for two thousand words than it is for eighty thousand words. You can't cover much–plot, setting, character, pick one, that's about it.


Um. Now and then, I do get the urge to do a short story. Usually this is when I'm up against a deadline and don't have time to be screwing around. A lazy writer will find all kinds of excuses not to write–the lawn needs mowing, the house needs repair, and even writing something other than what you are supposed to be writing will do. Busman's holiday.


Sometimes, a story just pops out of the blue, as happened with the Roy the Demon series. Got the idea for one, did it, and then there came a whole bunch more ideas until I was done with Roy, at least for the nonce. 


Sometimes, the urge to write a short tale is externally-driven. Somebody sends me a note or calls me, they have a theme-anthology going, would I be interested in doing a piece for it? Sometimes the theme resonates. Conan Doyle meets H.P. Lovecraft? Sure. An urban magic thing? A theme line that starts, "There were rats in the souffle again ...?" Yeah, I can do that. 


Back when Dean and Kris were starting Pulphouse, they kinda shamed me into writing for them. No, no, I said, I don't have time for short stuff, I'm up to my eyeballs in books! 


C'mon, c'mon, you can take time off for a short story, Kris said. Guilted me into it, because writers are mostly lazy and always have more time than they admit to having, and she knew that, being a writer herself.


The result was that I wrote several wild-hair stories for Kris and Dean, at Pulphouse, then later when she was editing F&SF and because she prodded me into it, the best–for want of a better term–short stories I've written came to be. "Willie of the Jungle?" Still funny. The one about the two old hippies in the hot tub when reality breaks down? The guy whose house keeps changing back to the original color after he tries to paint it? Signs of a warped mind, sure, but fun ...


Um. Anyway, when I saw the Fiction River announcement on Facebook, I dropped them notes razzing them about getting back into editing, likening it to drug addiction. They razzed back, allowing as how they would hit me up for a story, and I waved them off. Don't have time for short stories, I said. Echoing a long-ago conversation.


The upshot of all this? I got an idea for a short story. Cranked up the WP, wrote a page or so last evening, and finished it this morning. If they ask? I got one. Another wild-hair piece, off-the-wall, but that's how it works around here ...

Smart Stuff

Check out Dean and Kris's video about their new anthology project. Some funny biz here:

Martial Arts Generalities

As with most things, broad, sweeping generalizations about martial arts tend to be full of errors. The old joke is, All sweeping generalizations are bad, including the one I just made.


However ...


There are some things I've come to believe over the years, and now and then, I offer them up. These are not absolutely true, caveats abound, so take them in that light, and in no particular order.


1. Sucker punches win fights.


This is fairly straightforward–if you surprise somebody and nail them solidly, it can shock them into a state wherein they don't get back up to speed in time. This doesn't mean you throw your Sunday punch and then step back and smile–if you are ahead, you don't wait for the other guy to catch up, you keep going until the fight is over. As much as it takes, no more.


It's not a Roy Rogers cowboy movie. You can throw the first punch, you don't have to wait, as long as the other guy's intent is clear. If he screams, "I'm gonna kill you!" and charges in to do just that? The law will allow you to defend yourself, you don't have to wait. Han shot first, and should have ... (But: see item #10, below.)


Conversely, if you are behind, best if you can shake it off and catch up and get ahead on speed and impact. Doing this is the trick, of course.


Surprise and major force wins most of the time.


2. Big bone beats little bone. 


A roundhouse punch to the other guy's head will more likely result in injury to your hand than his skull.  The boxer's fracture is a common injury, and since the average man's head weighs somewhere around ten pounds, (four and half kilos) think of it like this: Put a bowling ball on a table, cover it with a dish towel, then punch it with your fist. How hard do you want to do this?


The corollary to #2 is:


3. Hard to soft, soft to hard.


The fist to the solar plexus or a slap to the head will probably result in less injury to the striker. Reconsider the bowling ball analogy. If you are going to hit somebody in the head, a slap, forearm, or shoulder is apt to be better for you than a fist.


Truth? If you are long-term martial artist who bangs a lot in practice? Chances are you will get hurt more over the years in class than you will in a street dust-up, which you are theoretically trying to avoid. A street fight lasts a few seconds. Two hours of class once or twice a week offers a lot of opportunity to get whacked. Accidentally, or on purpose? Both look the same on an X-ray. 


4. Size matters.


Bigger, stronger, faster, tougher make a difference, especially if skill is anywhere close to equal. Generally, the good big fighter beats the good small one. Technique can offset a lot of this, but you have to be really good to beat Godzilla. The little old lady who watches a video and then cleans out the biker bar barehanded is ... unlikely ...


5. Keep the sun at your back.


This goes to tactical advantages, and any you can get, if you have time? Take them. Cheat.


6. Don't play cards with a man named "Doc."


If somebody wants to box or wrestle, that's probably because they are comfortable there. Always better to play your game instead of theirs. And cheat.


7. People who play with knives get cut. (And they cut other people.)


If you aren't prepared for the sight of your own blood and willing to keep going? Don't engage. The corollary here?


8. Steel beats flesh.


A sharp knife in the hands of an expert is going to be nasty. If you are barehanded, anything you do against such is apt to fall into the "Oh, shit!" category of moves. He has all the tools you have plus one. A superior weapon is what you want, and the Army dictum: You're not an ape–use a tool. 


And the problem is, when that guy whips out his knife? You won't know how good he is with it until the wonder becomes moot.


9. Winning is relative. 


Look up "pyrrhic victory." The old Indonesian proverb is, "In a knife fight, the loser is ashes, but the winner is charcoal." The best win? You don't fight at all. Being somewhere else is good.


Nobody is bulletproof. The best fighter in the world can slip, get blindsided, or have an off day. Or can deck somebody with one punch and the downed guy can hit his head and die. Every fight has some cost, and the problem is, you don't know what it will be going in. 


Monkey dancing is far more likely to get you in trouble than walking away. 


10. The law will be waiting after the fight.


You have to decide in the moment if force is applicable and how much to use. You need to know that a serious fight will almost certainly have to be justified to the police, and maybe a judge and jury. If you can't do that, it will cost you, money for sure, and maybe your liberty.


There are lots of other things, and folks who have considered this have their own lists. Just food for thought ...

Creole Belle

I'm a long-time fan of James Lee Burke's novels. He has a couple series going, the best-known of which are books featuring Dave "Streak" Robicheaux (pronounced "Robe-uh-show.")


Robicheaux is an on-again, off-again detective in New Iberia, Louisiana. He lives in a little house on the bayou with his wife. His step-daughter is grown now, a writer, and there is a three-legged raccoon named "Tripod" who abides there ...


Robicheaux's best buddy is Clete Purcel, an ex-cop turned P.I., and both he and Dave were booted from the NOPD in a scandal some years back. Clete deserved it, Dave didn't, and they've had each other's backs since.


There are twenty-three books in the series, and they are literate, well-crafted, and pretty dark. Lot of evil down in the swamps, and Dave and Clete and the rest find themselves in the middle of it frequently, usually ending with a pile of bodies around them. 


Burke, who grew up in South Texas on the border with South Louisiana, now spends much of his time in Montana, but he knows the swamps.


The latest novel, Creole Bell, is, like the others, dark and full of mean and wicked folks preying upon the innocent. Well, and each other, too. 


The plot seldom matters much in these, it's just a way to trek around the colorful countryside, dealing with more colorful characters. 


These are contemporary books, taking place in the present, though the Louisiana Burke writes about is much closer to the one he remembers from the 1950s. You seldom see mentions of computers, McDonalds, or technology past what you'd see in 1959. Almost an alternative-reality feel to the books. Which never bothered me any, since I remember those years, too, but just so you know.


This one has everything but the kitchen sink in it, mysterious contract killers, Nazi war criminals, racist sheriffs, murdered low-lifes, rape, mayhem, and eventually more bodies. 


The book starts with Dave recovering from bullet wounds in the hospital from the previous adventure, dreaming morphine dreams and trying to separate those from reality.


He never quite manages that, though some of what seemed to be delusional turns out to be real, and some of what seems real is maybe not.


Like I did with Travis McGee, I always turn up for the next Robicheaux book. Long as he keeps writing them, I'll keep reading them. And like John D. MacDonald and ole Trav, Burke is getting a little tired of writing these–at least that's how it feels. In this one, the beats are all there, but it didn't feel as if his heart was altogether in it. Not that it isn't a good read, because it is, and he couldn't write a bad book at this stage, he's too good a writer; still, Streak and Clete feel a little more weary and cynical and reflective than they usually are. Especially Clete. 


Dave's wife gets a few passing nods, and Alafair, his daughter (also the name of Burke's youngest daughter in real life, who is a novelist, too) has a role, though relatively minor.


To be expected, perhaps. Burke is 75, and Dave is about the same age, certainly from what he remembers, though his tour in Vietnam would make him a bit old to have been a young soldier on the ground in the 1960's. Clete is also a Vietnam vet, and there are several references and flashbacks to that time that seem to be from old movies set there, tongue-in-cheekly done, I think. He and Clete are a little long in the tooth to be running around shooting it out with the bad guys, and even as indestructible as Clete has always seemed, he's in pretty bad shape this go-round.


If you haven't read this series, you should. Go back and get them in sequence and do so, don't start with the most recent incarnation, you'll miss way too much background. If you've read the series, you don't need any background on any of the players; if not, this book isn't the first one to read, because I think the assumption is that you have read 'em.


Oh, one thing I found amusing. I've always pictured Clete looking like John Goodman after six days on a bad road and being considerably beat-up in the process. At the end of this novel, a character who knows Clete meets John Goodman, and allows that he is the image of Clete ...

Writing Scenario

Writers work all the time. I mean, not that we are sitting at the keyboard pounding away, but work sometimes happens whilst walking the dogs, sitting in the hot tub, or reading the newspaper. A thought pops up, gets chased down and grabbed, then locked away for later use. 


Saturday, my wife and I attended a memorial. A young man, son of a woman with whom my wife had been friends for a long time, passed away from complications secondary to surgery following an accident. We were on our way to another gathering immediately following that, and had to stop to refuel the car. We were tired, the memorial was one where we had to stand the whole time, in a room that was full of people and probably ninety degrees, no AC, no breeze. What we wanted to do was sit somewhere cool and have a drink. As I stood inside the minimart in an alcove off one side of the register, waiting for the pump to finish so I could pay for the petrol, a man came in and asked the clerk for cigarettes. 


The neighborhood was not bars on every window, but only a step above that. While I was waiting, a woman came into the market,  turned in several bottles, bought one can of beer, and left.


The new customer was a somewhat seedy-looking character who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, and he mumbled something I couldn't make out when the clerk asked him what kind of cigarettes. 


The smoker waved and pointed, mumbled, but all those were vague.


The clerk kept his gaze on the guy, asked again. 


"Right there," the customer said, pointing.


In that moment, what I realized was that the customer wanted the clerk to turn around and look, and I knew–I was sure–that if the clerk turned his back to Mr. Seedy, he was going to grab something from the counter and haul ass.


The clerk knew it, too, and he absolutely was not going to turn around and give the guy his back. An urban stand-off.


Another query, then the customer shook his head and walked away, left the store.


Now, there was no way I could know what was going on in the customer's mind, nor in that of the clerk, but I believed that I did. Certainly enough to use the story here ... 

Again, Black Steel

Alan's catalogue is up again. If you are interested, move quickly–these tend to sell fast. That's because these are the best-quality blades and furniture for the money you are apt to find outside Indonesia.

Robbery 101

A robber walked into a local gas station in Portland, pointed a pistol at the clerks and demanded the money. The two workers realized that the gun was one of those realistic-looking fakes, with the orange muzzle tip sawed off, so they jumped the guy and held him until the police arrived.

Must have pretty good eyes, I thought. Some of those replicas are dead-on. 

And then I came to this in The Oregonian's Story:

"The two employees realized the gun was fake when the man accidentally dropped the gun and it split into two pieces, said Avinash Maskey, 24, who works the morning shift at the gas station ..."

I wouldn't be surprised to see that pop up on the Leno show ...

Electronic Guitar Tuners - Small Change

I have a terrible ear when it comes to tuning my guitar. The traditional tuning method was to use a pitch pipe or a tuning fork tuned to A440, the currently-standard A-note. You get one string right, and then tune from that, pressing on the appropriate fret and string to match the adjacent strings to correct pitch.


If you had a piano, you could just match the keys there by ear, and standard guitar tuning only needs six: E, A, D, G, B, E, running from the lowest bass to the highest treble.


If I tune the low E to an external source, then tune the other strings from that? I'm usually a hair flat or sharp on subsequent strings, more noticeably the trebles. Not that much, but off enough so using a tuner to check immediately shows it.


Better than I used to be, because I practice, but the wetware and input speakers are what they are ...


The future arrived, did you notice? Now you can get a clip-on tuner that works via vibration and is chromatic, i.e., you can tune any fretted instrument using it, with a range of starting tones. And cheap, too.


Mine comes with backlights. Red, it's not there; green, it's tuned. (Though you should note that a plucked string, because of how it works, will often read sharp or flat for a beat, then settle in tune.)


The standard A440 can be dialed up or down to match sharp or flats. In a lot of old recordings, the players didn't use A440, though they were in relative pitch, so if you want to play along, you have to adjust your guitar, and the tuner can be set to do that.


When they talk about these things, the term "cent" is often used. A cent is one-hundredth of a semi-tone. Apparently the average human ear can detect a difference of five cents or so, and if two guitars are ten cents apart, somebody is going to be noticeably out-of-tune even to guys with ears like mine.


Most of the common electronic tuners are accurate to ± 0.5 cents, well below what is needed for most ears. There are folks who are more accurate than the machines, just as there are drummers better than a click-track. Gifted folks.


All of which is to say that my guitar has sounded a little off the last few days, and what I noticed when I tuned it yesterday was that the tuner control had been bumped and it was set at A442. When I reset it to where it was supposed to be, it sounded just fine. Very strange that I would notice two cents difference; I'm not sure what it means.


For more on this subject, try this link.

Re-Re-Purposed

Before, above. After, below:

Couple years ago, I posted a note about re-purposing an old treadle sewing machine base we had. The story is here, but the essence is, we got the thing as part of the deal to buy our first house–the old lady who owned the place died, and the sewing machine and an old manual typewriter were in the house, and we asked for them to be included. 


The treadle served in various incarnations, including most recently being a plant stand with a slab of granite on top.


When we got our new TV (and the men here will appreciate this) we had to move all of our furniture around. Kind of like falling dominoes, this goes here, then that has to move over there, and that means this other thing has to find somewhere else to live ...


Um. Anyway, my wife was looking for a new place upon which to set her sewing machine, and decided that the treadle, being exactly the right height and all, would be perfect. As it happened, the TV cabinet, now home to assorted storage, had a pull-out shelf we never used, a nice piece of cherry wood with a lip on it, and guess what? Just the right size for a sewing machine ...


So mi esposa cleaned up the base, primed it, and sprayed it flat black, which brought it back to what it looked like originally. I mounted the shelf, and voila! a new sewing machine table, total cost about ninety-nine cents, for the rubber washers I used on the wood screws. Everything else, include a couple cans of spray paint, we already had in-house.


Not exactly This Old House, but a nice piece of furniture for naught but a little effort. 

Gravity

I've posted this before, but it's been a while and I think it's one of those fun things that writers find fascinating. If you hold a bullet in one hand and a pistol in the other and both are the same height and you fire the pistol level and drop the other bullet?


Both of them hit the ground at the same time. 


Mythbusters even did a segment on this, and their difference was like 39 milliseconds, which is easily attributable to errors in measuring and the rigs they used. 


Go, gravity, you puny weakling ...

To Boldly Go

L. to R.: Shatner, 81; Stewart, 72; Brooks, 63; Mulgrew, 56; Bakula, 57.
(And if you believe the records, Shatner is four days older than Nimoy ...)