Seriously Cute

You might need to take an injection of insulin before you watch this–it is really sweet ...

Gee Whiz ...

Okay, I have to ask: Am I the only person who sees a serious lack of any functional brain activity in the current flap about Marines peeing on dead Taliban fighters?


First off, they are dead and literally don't care. But second? 


In what universe is it okay to kill somebody, blowing them full of bullet holes or tossing them a hand grenade, raining down some big artillery, slitting a throat, whatever, but that's no sweat long as you don't piss on them afterward? Pissing on a dead guy is an atrocity? It shows disrespect? Whereas killing him is just peachy? 


I mean, it's barking madness, isn't it?


What the fuck is wrong with people, they can think like that? 


We are talking seriously fucked-up moral compasses here. 

Justified

Raylan is back, coming Tuesday.

Yeehaw!

Fun Video

A Corgi herding ducks ...

The Jaguar

If you are a fan of T. Jefferson Parker's mystery novels–and if you aren't, you should be–then you probably already know the latest Charlie Hood novel is out. The Jaguar is the fifth in the series, the others being, in order, L.A. Outlaws; The Renegades; Iron River; and The Border Lords.

Parker has other books, including a bunch of stand-alones, and they are all worth reading. 

The Hood books are all off-the-wall, and they tend to get more so as they go along. There is an element of flat-out fantasy that shows up along the way, and while it is kept ambiguous in an earlier book, I'm really interested to see how Parker eventually pays it off.

The set-up is that Hood, a Los Angeles Sheriff's deputy, gets loaned to the ATF, and winds up in various adventures with gun-runners and drug cartels. There are colorful supporting characters, including the son of a woman with whom Hood was in love with,  who is related to an  infamous Mexican Robin Hood, Joaquin Murietta, whose head she keeps in a jar, and ... well, much else I'd tell you would be a spoiler, so I'm going to leave it at that.

Well, okay, a little more: In the latest, the McGuffin is a pregnant woman who is kidnapped, and a ticking clock thus started–in ten days she will be skinned alive. The guy who does it likes her, respects and admires her, but is going to allow it to happen anyway, unless certain conditions are met. 

The book wanders through the Mexican countryside, into the jungle, this way and that; there's a hurricane, a flood, crocodiles, narcocorrido music, lepers, big money, a lot of shooting and people getting killed, and psychopaths every which way, one of whom is waaay more than he appears ...

What I recommend is that you buy them all and then read them in order. The experience will be much fuller. A fine and bumpy ride. 

Caveat: Early on, Jefferson made some gun mistakes, for which he was called to task. He has better vetting now, but he's not a gun guy. Not enough to put me off him, but worth a couple of head-shakes. Just so you know. 

Matadors Go Wide

So, after a note from Dan Moran urging me to it, I uploaded the rest of the Matador novels to Amazon.com. In theory, all of them should be available there starting tomorrow. In theory.


Dan will continue to offer them on the Fat Sam site, and will likely clump some of them together into omnibuses–omnibi?–in the somewhen future. (He got a new job, lotta money, and he's apt to be busy for a time. Good on him.)


Anyway, you should be able to see the list by clicking on the amazon.com button down there on the right, urging you to buy even more ebooks. Or here, starting manana.


Editor's Note: The titles are all live, save for Black Steel; I tagged it incorrectly with the info for Brother Death, so I fixed that. Twelve hours, so they say. If anybody is waiting and tapping their foot, it's the second-to-last in the series–read the others first and get back to it. Or drop by Dan's store and get it there. Costs the same, and you get more versions that you can read on a plethora of devices anyhow. 

Use It or Lose It

"Rust never sleeps;" and "Use it or lose it." Two old sayings worn smooth by time and repetition, but as true as they ever were. 


Why mention it today? Two activities bring this up for me: First, a guitar piece, El McMeen's dropped-D instrumental arrangement of the old love song "The Water is Wide," which I used to could play from memory but now can't. 


The other is how tight my hamstrings and low back have gotten because I haven't paid attention to keeping them stretched. Strong and flexible are better than either alone.


For me, loss of guitar repertoire happens because a piece stops getting played and fades from memory. In my case, it's because I started spending more time on the pieces I practice with the other old folks at the Closet Musicians' jam. When you have more than you can play in a single session, some of it doesn't get practiced.


There are folks who have immense repertoires, who can play a hundred songs without going blank on the lyrics or forgetting a chord change. And if you play a piece often enough and long enough, it does tend to burn itself into your memory. "House of the Risin' Sun," in A-minor is one that I should be able to remember after I'm dead, given how long I've played it.


Stuff I practiced for a couple years that I haven't played in a couple years? Not so much. Robbing Yarrow to play McCartney . . . 


I have noticed that if I go back to a mostly-forgotten piece, muscle-memory sometimes will give me a nudge in places and my fingers seem to be able to do a five or six-note run on their own. Somewhere down in the mental junkyard, some portion of it is not completely rusted through. 


Ditto the tight muscles groups. As long as I can do the physical things I normally do, the stretches to be able to do just a little more tend to get put onto the back burner. But what happens, insidiously, is that the djurus stop going quite so low, or the range-of-motion on a hoisted weight is maybe a hair less. It sneaks up on you. 


Yesterday, you could bend at the waist and put your hands on the floor; today, you can't scratch your knee unless you sit down. Bad. Bad. 


Do I need to be able to drop into a full split? No. Would I like to be able to do so? Sure. But the cost versus the gain is a factor; I'm not going there. However, there is a balance point and I do need to achieve that.


Fortunately, I know what to do to remedy both of these creeping forms of entropy and it's simple: Practice the stuff I want to keep, and take a little extra time during the workout to lengthen the muscles that have shortened.


There are three steps involved here:


First, you have to be aware that there is a problem.


Second, you have to determine the solution. 


Third, you execute the remedy.


Easy to remember with the acronym: BAD SEX ...


"Simple" and "easy" aren't the same, of course, and sometimes that third step is a killer, but the three-step approach is useful for a lot of what you run into in your life. 

What Were They Thinking?

Connections to Margaritaville

Here's how the game Connections went this time: 

I came across a nod to Key West, Florida, in an article I was reading, some offhand reference. So I went into the Apple bookstore and found a book called Mile Marker Zero, by William McKeen. It was a history, sort of, focused on the late sixties and early seventies, post-Pill, pre-AIDS, centered around the literary community there. Key West was one of Papa Hemingway's haunts before he moved to Cuba, and there were a plethora of other writers, who came there after they were famous or got so while they were living there.


Among the players are Hunter S. Thompson, Tom McGuane, Elizabeth Ashely, Margo Kidder, with passing references to Tennesee Williams and Truman Capote,  and there is a lot of boozing, screwing, mate-swapping, and dope-smuggling going on, amongs the manly-men and womanly-women ...


You probably know that when Jimmy Buffett sings about Margaritaville, he's singing about Key West. Buffett, a so-so country singer, would up in Key West in the early seventies through the auspices of Jerry Jeff Walker. Went from sleeping on somebody's couch and getting shooed off doorstoops to fairly successful and rich. Once Buffett's music began focusing on the scene there, and he came up with a unique sound that spawned hit records and parrot-heads and franchise bars ...


There were a slew of other moves and shakers in the literary community down in the tropics and most of them seemed to party long and hard. Booze, sex, music, it was apparently quite the scene. Eventually, most of them moved away.


So whilst reading the McKeen book, which is a lot of fun, I came across the name Tom Corcoran who was one of the boys in the club. Corcoran eventually went on to become a writer, and did a series of mystery novels set in Key West, featuring a photographer named Rutledge. When he makes references to various folks, they ring true, because he was there. 


In one of the books, there's a reference wherein his girlfriend grabs a baseball cap from Robicheaux's Dock and Bait Shop, in New Iberia, Louisiana. Dave Robicheaux is, of course, the protagonist in a bunch of novels by James Lee Burke ...

Art

Photo by Penny Meyer, March, 2011.

Came across this when I read a posting on a website about the artist Carsten Van Osten, an artist, who among other work, like comics for Disney, paints miniature figures. 


Always impressed by people who have this kind of talent.

Cramp

Most recent silat class, I apparently overworked my left sartorius muscle. For those of you anatomically-challenged, this is the longest muscle in the body, a skinny strap, originating at the anterior-superior iliac spine. This is at top of the leg. The muscle crosses to the medial side (inseam) and inserts on the upper tibia, via the pes anserinus, the co-joined tendon. The muscle aids in flexion, abduction, and lateral rotation of the hip, and flexing of the knee.

 If you step on a piece of gum and it sticks to your shoe and you lift your foot to look at the sole? It helps with all those actions. We have a kick that looks kind of like that, a hacky-sack sort of motion, and we did a fair amount of those last session. 

We worked legs pretty good overall, did a lot of kicking, twisting, sweeping, all like that. 

Um. Anyway, I was sitting in my office chair, playing my guitar, knees bent, both feet flat on the floor when all of a sudden that sucker seized up and it did not want to let go. I managed to stand and stretch it out, but boy, howdy, was that a not-fun surprise.

Cramp! Cramp! Ah, shit–cramp!

All better now. 

As one of my correspondents here has pointed out, it's hell getting old.

Still beats the option, though ...

Wafflewich

My wife made extra waffles this morning, and when it came time for lunch, I thought to myself, "Say, I've never had a sliced turkey and turkey hot dog sandwich on waffles before!"


So now I have.


Pretty good, too. The waffles are whole-grain, with various kinds of healthy germs and like that them. Meat, mustard, waffles ...


Scratch that one off the list ...

Amusing

Saw a posting on Facebook I liked: 


You're the product of four billion years of evolution–


Act like it.


And if you aren't into evolution, but deism or theism?


You were created by a Supreme Being and given dominion over the world–


Stop screwing around ...

Marketing

I saw this while checking out of a market earlier today. 


Maybe it's just me: Is it a major selling point that a snack with enough preservatives to outlast Twinkies and to keep something edible until the cockroaches take over is gluten free ... ?


Heard about the guy suing Mountain Dew because he found a dead mouse in a can of drink? Their response is that the stuff would have dissolved the mouse before he opened the can.


Is that comforting to anybody ... ?

Another Tragedy v2

Eighth grade kid in Texas was killed by local police when he waved a handgun at them and refused to put it down. There was a building full of witnesses heard them yelling that over and over before they fired. 


There is the usual aw-fuck-it! head shaking about how something like this can happen–especially since the kid's weapon was actually a pellet gun.


Kid punched somebody in the nose, pulled out the pistol, and then the police, answering a student-with-a-gun call, took him down.


His parents are in shock and stunned grief, and they wonder, why did the police have to shoot him three times? Why not only once? Or the unspoken one: Why at all? It wasn't even a real gun! He was a middle school boy, only fifteen. (Turned out it was twice; the head wound was a cut from the fall.)


Look at the two images above. Can you tell which is the 9mm pistol and which is the pellet gun copy? If you can, do you think you could do so if somebody had it in their hand and was pointing it at you? 


Utah police kicked a door in Ogden,  and six of them got shot, one fatally so, by somebody in the house. (Or maybe friendly fire, apparently that is a possibility.) But even so ...


Would you be counting your shots in either situation?


Over and over again, I bump up against this: If a bunch of LEO's pointing guns at you tell you to drop your weapon and you aren't ready to meet your maker? Drop the fucking thing. It's a lot easier to sort out the legalities if you are still around to do so.


Note: Airsoft and other pellet guns are often marked with a plastic day-glo red or orange ring at the muzzle, so they are instantly identifiable as such. See the images below:

How long do you figure it will be before some psycho realizes that dipping the muzzle of his real pistol into day-glow red paint will give him an advantage if the LEO standing across from him thinks he's got a pellet gun?

In California, a bill to make pellet guns of brightly-colored or clear plastic failed to pass recently, but that's probably not a bad idea. The clear, anyway:

But the bright colors? Not so much. Have a look at the SIG P238 and the Glock:

Jammed Thumb Blues

Somewhen at the gym yesterday, I managed to jam my left thumb. Dunno exactly how, only that it got sore as the day went on, swelled a bit, and by evening, was bothering me enough I had to tape it, ice it, elevate it, yadda, yadda ...


My left thumb has been sprained so many times there's no connective tissue left that isn't scarred. I tape it before every silat class, but I haven't had a problem with it in the gym before. Of course, these days, I can literally sprain it taking my socks off, I'm not careful ...


I even put up a YouTube vid a while back on how to tape the sucker. Course, it doesn't do you any good if you don't do it ...





Live slow, die old, leave a hideous corpse ...

Paint Program

Been fooling around with Corel Painter and the Wacom Bamboo Pad I got for Christmas. Top is the photo, shot with my iPad. Second is the "painting." Cool, huh?

Stick 'Em Danno

I posted on this once before, but I came across some pictures while I was cleaning out files and thought I'd stick some of them up.

I know some expert knifemakers. And while I have the tool-using ability of a bull walrus in heat, I decided five or six years ago that I needed to make a knife, just to see if I could.


I sort-of could. Barely. And crudely. Real knifemakers just smile and shake their heads when they see it, but I didn't have much to work with insofar as my native ability.


What I did was, I annealed a machete, using a small blowtorch. Then I outlined the full-tang design, cut it out, using hacksaws and a Dremel. I heated the thing up until it was a straw-color, then quenched it in heavy oil. Polished and all like that, sharpened it, put a set of faux-ivory scales and a guard of water buffalo horn, held together with homemade brass rivets. 


I imagine the first guy who figured out how to forge iron did a better job on his first knife, along with everybody who's operated a bellows and a grinder since, but I was inordinately pleased for several reasons.


First, I started with parts and wound up with a product that was the sum of those.


Second, I finished it, without going mad or burning the house down.


Third, I gained an appreciation for the real knifemakers with whom I did business. 


There are a few of those whose blades I came to own that I can name, in no particular order: Steve Rollert, Shiva Ki, Mushtaq Ali Ansari, Chuck Pippin, Jeff Crowner. And after having tried to do what they do? 


I really appreciate 'em ...

Work Out

It's amusing to see all the new faces at the gym just after New Year's Day. All the resolutions, and how long they (don't) last ...


Local paper has a front page piece today on the phenomenon–people who sign up for gym membership, go once or twice–or not at all. 


Four out of five people who have a gym membership don't use it, according to the article.


Four out of five.


I find that fascinating, though not surprising. Back when I was teaching martial arts, it was commonly known that the white belts paid the freight. People who sign up, get a uniform, last maybe a month, sometimes two or three, then quit. 


What I find really funny is the lack of focus from the noobs who do show up. This morning, I went down to the aerobics room to use the back hyperextension rack, and the bikes and walkers and stairclimbers were all full. But the intent isn't there. They don't want to work out as much as they want to be able to say they worked out. 


I'm sorry, but a guy pedaling lackadaisically on the stationary bike, listening to music on his iPod while reading a copy of The Ladies Home Journal? He's not going himself much good, and not nearly as much as he would if he concentrated on working up a sweat instead of just passing the time ...

Bookery

Okay, so, one more pass to polish, and the book ms for The Ramal Extraction goes off to Ace. 


 The contract is still very much last-century–according to it, I'm supposed to provide a hard copy and an e-version–though my editor tells me not to bother with the print, it's all electronic nowadays. 


Actually, it has been for a while. I don't think I've printed out hard copy on the last few submissions I've done–all the Clancy stuff with Tekno was via electronic files, as was the Predator book for Dark Horse and the Indiana Jones and zombies novel. Recent pitches for this and that, all done over the wire. The preferred format seems to be Word™, though I have translators that will allow conversion into pretty much whatever. 


My editor, bless her, is very understanding. Even though the book is due now, pretty much any time during the month is okay with her. 


Next one is due in September, and if I don't dawdle, I should be able to get one of the Matador e-titles done before I have to start on the next Cutter's Wars. Two books in eight months shouldn't be a problem, since I have a quarter of Churl drafted.


Of course, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions ...