WHY I KILLED RAY SHARP

CAUTION: SPOILER AHEAD

Oh, whoops, too late. I already spoiled it in the headline.

So, for those of you who don't know already, Ray's dead. Live with it. He won't.

I'm not going to tell you how I killed him. That would be giving too much away. I will tell you that he dies halfway through SHANGHAIED; in first person - present tense even, like he did everything. It's a very neat trick if you ask me.

Then Wen Lei Yue takes over the story. She doesn't know she's doing that for a few chapters. She's got too much else to deal with. The poor dear, she's going to take over the series, too. What a responsibility. You'll get an inkling of what's in store for her by the end of the book.

Maybe you're wondering why I killed off Ray. Maybe you're upset about it. Maybe you're relieved. Maybe you could care less and you read my blog for reasons having nothing to do with my Ray Sharp series of books.

In any case, I'll tell you why I murdered Ray.

But first, here's a picture from Google Earth of the place where he died. There's no good reason for me to put this here, but I like to break up these blogs with some photos from time to time.


Here's why Ray had to die.

I don't outline my books. I just get a basic idea, an idea of where the story is headed and what I want to say with it, and I sit down and start writing. It helps keep it fresh for me, I feel like I discover the story in the way that my readers will.

So there I was, happily writing along, minding my own business. I had an idea of how the story was going to end and what Ray was going to be doing at the end. But then, Ray's in trouble, bad trouble, life threatening trouble. How's he gonna get out of that?

The problem is, one of the things I always liked best about Ray Sharp as a character was that he was a normal human being. Sure he was tenacious and loyal and smart and energetic; but he wasn't much different from you and me. He was no James Bond, no Jack Reacher. He was the kind of guy who relied on wits, luck, and a little pluck, to get himself out of jams. And sooner or later, a guy like that, his luck was just going to run out. It's unrealistic otherwise. And I always wanted Ray to be realistic, too real for some people even.

So Ray did what you or I or most of the people we know would do in a similar situation - he died.

I hadn't expected that. It totally freaked me out. I made three panicked phone calls to three good friends, along the lines of: "You won't believe what I just did. What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

I wasn't really asking for help. I wanted sympathy, understanding. I'd just gone and hoisted myself on my own literary petard and I was flailing away up there.

It was obvious that Lei Yue had to take over. I was only halfway through the book and she was the only other character who knew what was going on. I was concerned, though, that my readers didn't know her very well. I'd beefed up her character in the beginning of the book, tried to make her something more than just a sidekick or a curiosity. But I needed to quickly make the story hers, and get the reader wrapped up in her story as well, while keeping it moving along the track it had started on with Ray.

And the voice had to change. I didn't want Lei Yue to simply become a stand-in for Ray. She needed her own distinct way of narrating. I had my work cut out for me.

It was the most fun I've ever had as a writer. It was hard, challenging, and the more I plowed ahead the more convinced I became that I'd done the right thing in killing off Ray.

Maybe some of us writers aren't cut out for writing long series. (I wouldn't mind Robert Parker's royalty checks, but I can't even begin to imagine writing the 25th, or even tenth Ray Sharp book.) Or maybe Ray just wasn't the sort of character who could survive all that long anyhow. (Sooner or later an outraged girlfriend would have probably done him in.)

I don't know about Lei Yue, yet. In some ways she's tougher than Ray, meaner, more of a survivor. But I do have some pretty nasty stuff in mind for her in the two books that are presently percolating.

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER BOUCHERCON

Despite this joke that I heard:

"What's the difference between a writer and a large pizza?"

"A large pizza can feed a family of four."

It was a reasonably cheerful and upbeat event in Indianapolis.

I look forward to Bouchercon every year. It's four or five days of water cooler time with my colleagues - that I don't get sitting around at my computer in my home office. And it's a great opportunity to hang out with booksellers and readers and a few agents and editors as well. It's informative, useful, nearly always fun and reassuring in that for us solitary writers it makes it clear that we're in the same boat as a bunch of other folk.

It is not so good for my liver or lipid panels. (Bouchercon in Anchorage was the cholesterol exception - I ate a lot of salmon and halibut.) The culinary highlight of this time in Indianapolis was the St. Elmo Steakhouse. A classic place that's been there since 1902. The second night I was there I couldn't bring myself to eat anymore MEAT. So I had the "World's Best Shrimp Cocktail." It was loaded with very strong horseradish and did an excellent job of clearing my sinuses while tasting good. Three of the people I was dining with shared one Kansas City Strip steak and were well and truly stuffed by it. (Shapiro's Deli, however, which had been highly recommended, was a disappointment. The pastrami was dry and bland, the rye bread limp and dull.)

I was on a couple of panels, both of which were extremely well attended and a lot of fun. I don't know how many books it sold, but probably a few.

On Friday I was on a panel about "Setting As Character." It's one of those topics that can go either way. It can be deathly dull, or fun and thought-provoking. Thanks to our moderater, William Kent Krueger, it was the latter. Deborah Atkinson, Tom Corcoran, Jonathan King and myself, made a very good, wide ranging mix of panelists. And by my rough estimate, there seemed to be more than 200 people in the audience - which is a lot.

On the last day I was on what is known as "The Liars Panel" with Charlaine Harris, Dana Cameron, Ed Lin and moderated by SJ Rozan. Questions were asked. Three of us would tell the truth and one lie and the audience would vote on who they thought was lying. I won the award for the most times that the audience thought I was lying when I was actually telling the truth. (Yes, I really did work a drill press in an airplane toilet factory and if I wasn't a writer, I really would want to be an economic anthropologist.) I didn't know whether I should be concerned about that or not. Do I look untrustworthy? I am preferring to think that there are elements of my past and my opinions, notions, desires and attitudes that are, shall we politely say, somewhat odd.

I was happy to meet Charlaine Harris. She seems like a southern belle, and then you start talking to her and hearing her talk and well, she's just plain funny, smart, full of entertaining and interesting quirks and someone I'd very much like to hang out with. She reminded me of how one of the things I tend to like about my fellow authors - and that Bouchercon is always a good reminder of - is that with a few notable exceptions, they are seldom full of themselves. Even the most successful rock star writers are more often than not supportive of their fellow writers and wannabe writers, helpful and encouraging and willing to give of themselves to the scribbling community.

Next year Bouchercon is in San Franciso, the year after that St. Louis, and I'm looking forward to both of them.

Lastly, a little bit of hate mail for American Airlines. You suck!

[] I do not appreciate being sardined more and more into my seat every time I fly. (Ashley Ream, who sat next to me on the flight from Chicago to L.A. and who is not by any stretch of anyone's imagination - perhaps a mouse's imagination if it had one - large, said it was the most cramped and claustrophic she'd ever been on an airplane.) I felt like I was going to be in need of amputating my legs and ass by the end of the flight.

[] I do not appreciate being nickel and dimed to death for every minor convenience or comfort - while at the same time the quality of said available conveniences and comforts is laughably - if it doesn't make you want to cry - bad.

[] What the policy of charging for check-in bags has done is to make entering and exiting the planes even more of a nightmare than in the past. Overhead compartments rapidly fill with suitcases that by all rights belong in the cargo hold. The meager leg room under the seats in front of passengers has disappeared as it has filled with what won't fit overhead. Passengers are duking it out to get to and from their carryon bags that have found their way to points more and more distant from where they're sitting.

In recent years I have flown on Virgin America, Jet Blue, Southwest, American, Delta and Northwest. American, Delta and Northwest are pretty much tied for worst. Unless I have absolutely no choice in the matter, I won't fly on any of them ever again - unless I hear that their treatment of their customers has greatly improved.

Who Needs Homeruns? I Love Baseball

Sure, when my team, the Dodgers, hits them I won't turn them down. But where's the real excitement, the tension, the suspense? A strong guy with a fast bat and a reasonably good eye manages to hit a ball just right and out it goes. It's an impressive feat of strength and timing, you bet, but where's the finesse? Where's the skill, the thought, the calculation?

Now Casey Blake's walk in the ninth inning of the second playoff game between the Dodgers and Cardinals, that's different. That's what I love about baseball. That's what makes it different, and to my mind better, than all other sports. Bear with me. If you read the following paragraphs and can follow them, you might begin to get an inkling - if you aren't already a fan - of what I and so many other people love about baseball.

To set the scene: It's the last half of the ninth inning, the Dodgers are losing two to one in an extremely important game. There are two outs. One more out and the Dodgers lose the game. James Loney comes up and hits a fly ball that should have been caught by the left fielder to end the game. But the left fielder muffs it and Loney ends up on second. He's taken out for a pinch runner, Juan Pierre, who's a lot faster.

Casey Blake comes up to bat. The first pitch is a strike. The second pitch is a ball. The third pitch is close enough that Blake begins to swing at it, but then thinks better of it and tries to stop his swing. If he swings too far it's a strike. If he manages to stop in time, it's a ball. The umpire calls it a strike and Blake is furious because he thought he held up in time. So now the Dodgers are down to their last strike before they lose the game.

If Blake can get a hit, great. But that's not easy to do. Hitting a pitched ball for a hit, is generally considered one of the most difficult things to do in any sport. Consider that a player who consistently gets a hit three times out of every ten is a great, not merely good but great, player.

The pitcher wanted to strike out Blake, or make him hit a pitch into fair territory that was either a fly ball that could be caught - by pitching him high enough that he'd swing under the ball and hit it into the air; or make him hit a pitch on the ground to one of the infielders who could throw him out at first base for the final out - pitch him low so that he hits the ball on the top.

If a ball is close to the strike zone, with two strikes on him already, Blake has to swing at it or risk striking out and the Dodgers lose the game. But if it's a bad pitch to hit - too low, too high, too inside or too outside - and he swings at it and hits it wrong, he'll probably make an out anyhow.

Meanwhile, Juan Pierre, the speedster on second base, is always a threat to steal a base. So the Cardinals' pitcher, catcher, second baseman, shortstop and third baseman had to worry about, and keep their eyes on him, too. (If he stole third base, it would be much easier for him to score and tie the game if Blake got a hit.) There was tension and suspense and potential action that involved six players and several possible scenarios.

The outfielders had to be ready as well. If Blake hit a ball into the outfield that they couldn't catch, they had to try and position themselves to throw the ball to homeplate in the hope they could get Juan Pierre out as he was trying to score.

What happened was that Blake, using all his skill, speed, eyesight, knowledge of the pitcher and plain old smarts, made his at bat last six more pitches. Three of those pitches were close enough to the strike zone that he had to swing at them. But they weren't good enough to really try and hit. So to the best of his ability, he deliberately hit them foul - out of play. Every single pitch could have resulted in the Dodgers losing the game, an important game. Every single pitch was a moment of enormous suspense, tension, excitement and potential.

This all assumes, of course, that you gave a shit. I do. Not in the way I care about world hunger or global warming or my book sales, but in exactly the same way that any great movie, music, art gallery or book can affect someone.

The last of the nine pitches of his at bat was the fourth ball and Casey Blake trotted to first base, having very artfully earned himself a walk.

A simple, meager, not anywhere near as impressive as a towering homerun, walk. But it was damn good baseball, exciting, nerve-wracking, suspenseful, dramatic baseball. And the great thing about baseball is that if you really appreciate it and know what to look for, almost every game has moments of that sort of drama.

The Dodgers went on to, almost miraculously, win the game. They wouldn't have without Casey's walk. But even if they hadn't, that one at bat of Casey Blake's, coming on the heels of nine previous innings of moments of small and large drama and tension, was more than enough to make me very happy.

THE JOY OF GENRE BENDING

I'm a crimewriter, or so I'm told. I can't be a mysterywriter, I suppose, there isn't much mystery in my books. As I'm fond of saying, they're "don't do its" rather than "who dun its." In any event, I'm what is referred to as a genre writer.

That's okay with me. It certainly means I'll never win a Nobel Prize for Literature, or probably a Booker, a National Book Award or a Pulitzer either. For that matter, I'm probably a longshot for an Edgar, too. Or an Anthony. Or a Dagger. Or any of the other awards for books of my genre.

And that's fine with me, too. I don't think my books are easy to classify, which is just the way I like them. When my first novel, THE LIVING ROOM OF THE DEAD, came out, Borders shelved it in the mystery section. Barnes & Noble put it in general fiction.

I wonder what's going to be made of the book I just finished writing? (If it's published. My agent hasn't even seen it yet.) For lack of anything else to call it, I've dubbed it a "romantic noir." Huh?

It does have romance in it. Well, developing romance at any rate. And atmospherically, it is pretty noir - whatever the hell that means. There's crime, even a murder, but the plot doesn't in any way revolve around that. For one of the characters it's a coming of age novel. It's kind of historical - Los Angeles in 1947. It deals with issues of race and class. For those of you who read my Ray Sharp novels for the sex scenes, sorry, there's no real sex in it. There's drugs, though. And a lot of music.

So what the hell is it?

I don't know and I don't care. It's a book. Some of you will like it. Some of you won't.

That is, if it ever gets published. It's the sixth book I've written. So far all five of the previous books have been published. I don't have any collecting dust on a shelf or in a closet. This one is currently at the stage where I've sent it out to my first round of readers and I am awaiting their remarks. When they're done with it, I might tinker with it a little before sending it to my agent, or I might not.

But I like it even though I have no idea what sort of book it's supposed to be. And if all goes according to plan it will be the first in a trilogy (as opposed to a series) of thematically-linked books set in Los Angeles in different eras. 1969 is next.

If you want to know what genre it is, I can't help you. Sooner or later, probably after I've sent it to my agent, I'll post an excerpt on my website and you can judge for yourself. If it matters to you.

Does genre matter to you? Do you need to be able to pin down what type of book a book is, before you're interested in it? How specific do you get? Let me know what you think. I'm curious.

A DAY AT THE FAIR

You could say that I grew up in a rural community - Los Angeles. For the first ten years of my life - until 1963 - Los Angeles was the biggest agricultural producing county in the United States. The first house I remember living in was in Encino, in the San Fernando Valley. There was no freeway to get to it. Ventura Boulevard, the main drag, turned into a dirt road not too much west of where you turned off onto our street. When I'd scramble up onto the wall at the border of our backyard, all I could see was fruit orchards. Farms were all around us. (There was a two acre garlic farm in one of the most high-value real estate parts of the Valley until just recently. Maybe it's even still there, I'm not sure.)

Today, L.A. is still one of, if not the biggest producers of nursery plants in the country. Most of those farms are under miles and miles of powerlines that stretch across the city.

So, like any other country boy, I've always loved the County Fair.

These people were speaking Cantonese, which made me feel back at home in Hong Kong, but I don't think the goats understood.

A child about to be eaten by sheep. Farm animals can be dangerous. As Ashley Ream, author, friend and standing county fair date, put it (and she ought to know, coming, as she does, from rural Missouri): "An undeniable feeding frenzy. We’re lucky to be alive."

For "security" reasons, the cow milking barn was off-limits to the public. I, for one, would hate to have the terrorists poisoning our milk supply.

Of course, some farm animals are just plain tasty. I'm not sure why these pigs are in such a hurry to "bring home the bacon," but I'm glad they are. There was a chocolate covered bacon vendor just outside the pig racing arena. And at the end of the race, all the spectators got a coupon for a free pound of bacon. How could you not love the county fair?

Food, glorious food. FRIED food, lots of it. Just looking at this picture is enough to make your arteries harden.

Not everything was fried.

But you could get almost anything dipped in chocolate.

I couldn't even bring myself to find out what, exactly, is "meat lovers ice cream."

I am very fond of what I refer to as the "slice it / dice it booths." Here, a very persuasive sales guy demonstrates his miracle, master sushi maker.

There are many useful, heavily discounted, items to buy at the Fair. The electronic cigarette complete kit - with recharger for home and auto, carrying case and other stuff - will set you back $129 in stores, but only $79.95 at the Fair.

And if you love baseball, and you smoke too many real cigarettes, this could be just what you're looking for. (Ashley was disappointed to see that they weren't offering any Kansas City Royals caskets - she's a fan.)

Unfortunately the Fair seldom has any biggest or smallest or ugliest or much of anything other ...est anymore. I fondly recall, from the past, The Giant Jungle Rats of Vietnam, Zambora the Apewoman, and other such luminaries. Last year there was at least a gigantic cow - a steer (eunuch) really. All I could find this year were snakes. I didn't even bother going inside. I am almost certain I've seen bigger.


But you can still win oversized plushies that assault baby strollers.


And of course there is the Midway, colorful as always, reeking of hot dogs, cotton candy and teenage adrenalin spilling off thrill rides.

By the way, I am guest blogging also today at the home of Sha'el, Princess of Pixies

FAKE BADASS – I WRITE THIS STUFF BUT I DON’T LIVE IT OR ASPIRE TO IT

I like reading tough guy, and gal, books as well as the next person. I write some of my own scenes in which people beat people up, get beat up, shoot people, etc. But I do not attempt to pretend that I’m a tough guy myself. Too many of my fellow genre – crime – writers, however, do. And I’m getting really bored with it.

I once spent an hour photographing Norman Mailer, the king of all faux-macho, posturing, bellicose cretins. He wasn’t a real tough guy. He was an asshole. I know some writers who aspire to be like him. They ought to reconsider.

There is nothing cool about barfights. Anyone who thinks there is, has either never been in one, or had their brains knocked loose of their moorings in the ones they have been in.

When I lived in Boise, Idaho during my first year of college, I knew a cowboy. Really, that’s what he was; he herded cows on horseback for a living. He was a little guy, no more than five foot seven or eight and weedy. For reasons having to do with his girlfriend, I’d see him mostly on Sundays, when he was all beat up. He’d sport black eyes, usually two at a time, a wide variety of bruises, aches and pains, lumps on his head. He’d limp and walk like he was being poked with needles that would dig further into him whenever he’d move.

He’d go out to roughneck bars on Saturday nights and get into fights that he knew he was going to lose. More often than not he’d get into fights with his friends, hoping they might go a little easier on him than a stranger would. They didn’t, near as I could tell.

Why? Because he needed the work. And to get the work he needed to prove he was a “man.” And men, real men, get drunk and beat each other up in bars on Saturday nights. At least they did in his world. I could go into how it’s undoubtedly something to do with repressed homoeroticism. But there’s really no need to analyze it beyond the fact that it was stupid. Just plain stupid.

When I was in Lisbon, Portugal in late 1974, during the revolution, I used to hang out in a seedy bar, the Bar Texas, down by the docks. One night I was buying drinks for a hooker from Angola who spoke good English. She was drunk enough to be telling me her life story and I was just sober enough to follow it.

A guy walking by took umbrage at something someone nearby said. He smashed his almost-empty beer bottle on our table and went after that someone at the next table with the broken glass. That person pulled a knife. They cut each other up pretty bad. Blood was flying everywhere. My hooker friend pulled her own knife and I dove under our table. A lot of the people in the bar got into it. Mostly I remember watching people’s feet and legs and hearing more breaking glass and curses and screams and the sounds of people getting hurt. It was terrifying.

Finally things calmed down. Everyone had hurt who they were going to hurt, at least for the time being. My hooker friend reached down to me with a bloody hand, pulled me up and led me out of there before the police came. On the way out of the bar we passed people laid out on the floor, across tables, bloody, moaning, holding their stomachs and their heads. There was nothing the least bit pretty, sexy, romantic or anything else good about it. I took my friend to a clinic to get bandaged up.

There is nothing cool about guns, either. People who really know guns, who need to use them to protect themselves or others, or to put food on the table, respect them as a workman respects his tools. They don’t fetishize them. They don’t think they’re exciting or sexy or fun or anything more than a simple grim necessity.

I've known my share of cops and soldiers and a few spies. Not one of them, who's any good at what they do, is what you'd call a "gun nut." They take it too seriously for that. They really are tough guys (and gals.) They don't need to pretend like they are, or to show off about it. And every single one of them would rather talk their way out of a fight then throw a punch or pull a gun.

When they go to a shooting range it's to hone their skills, it’s not to party. They might enjoy it, like anyone would enjoy practicing something that they’re good at. But that’s not really the point. It’s part of the job. It’s not a hobby.

The fact of the matter is that far too many people who don’t take them seriously, who think they are toys or some sort of miracle cure for crime, or if you want to get analytical - are worried about the size of their dicks - own guns. My neighbors own guns and I am certain that they don’t have the slightest idea what to do with them. They are far more likely to shoot each other, or an innocent bystander, than they are to hold off a criminal.

So I’ve got a plea to all those pretend cowboys and tough guys (and gals): cut the crap, will ya? Write about it all you want and I’ll enjoy reading, at least some of, it. But you don’t have to act like you live it. Not unless you want to admit you have no imagination

MY TOP TEN FAVORITE BOOKS

My agent, Janet Reid, recently had a blog post titled, “I love top 10/20/40 lists of novels and books.” As I am soon going to send her a new book, I figured I’d make my own top ten list, hoping to curry favor.

I recently saw the same list that Janet saw, by Lee Child of his top 40 favorite books. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m lazier than Lee, or thinking less in terms of, say, THE TOP 40 (as in pop music), but it got me to thinking, and so, here’s my top ten. Other than MOBY DICK, which is my very favorite book of all time, they are in no particular order.

MOBY DICK, Herman Melville. Near as I can tell, this is the first modern novel, and it is still the greatest. It’s got everything: drama, suspense, intricate plot, relationships, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, economics, politics, humor and more. I reread it once every ten years and every time I do another facet of it rears up and amazes me. The last time I read it was in 2007 and I was taken with just how funny parts of it are.

MEMORY OF FIRE (Trilogy), Eduardo Galleano. History, myth, politics, economics, crime, biography all intermingled in three books that are like a fantastic cinematic / literary recreation of 500 years in the life of The Americas.

ASK THE DUST, John Fante. Still the best book ever written about Los Angeles and one of the best ever written about the stirrings of a writer’s early life. A book with a rhythm so strong that it is almost impossible to not tap your feet to it.

LONELY CRUSADE and IF HE HOLLERS LET HIM GO, Chester Himes. Okay, so it’s sort of cheating, but the two books are inextricably linked in my mind. Has there ever been any deeper, more affecting, honest, brutal and powerful writing about race in America? I don’t think so. And they are beautiful examples of the seamless interweaving of social, political and economic issues with a gripping narrative.

THE HONORARY CONSUL, Graham Greene. Probably not his best book. That honor might have to go to THE HEART OF THE MATTER or THE QUIET AMERICAN or another. But the story grabs me, and the characters and the complicated moral playing field of the whole thing is truly fantastic. There’s some good lessons in here as well.

WISE BLOOD, Flannery O’ Connor. Again, maybe not her finest moment, but my favorite. It thoroughly appeals to the part of me that wants to poke sticks at anything and everything religious or dogmatic.

ROUGHING IT, Mark Twain. A truly fantastic mashup of fiction and fact that gives the reader what seems like an incredibly accurate and detailed picture of life in the wild west. It’s funny, poignant in places, always smart and insightful. It barely edges out LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI and FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR as my favorite Twain.

THE BRIDGE IN THE JUNGLE, B. Traven. Rough, elemental, forceful, rich, telling of what seems like a simple tale, but is really a complex maze of nuance and insight into the human condition – politically, socially, economically.

THE LONG DAY WANES, Anthony Burgess. By far the best, most complex, most fully realized evocation of colonialism and its impact on both the colonizers and the colonized. Fantastic characters, amazing sense of time and place.

RISING UP and RISING DOWN, William T. Vollmann. I can’t in good conscience recommend this to anyone. At six volumes and more than 3,500 pages of astoundingly dense, fact and speculation-filled writing; it took me nearly a year to read it. Then again, it took him about 20 years to write it. It is nothing more or less than an attempt to come to some sort of conclusion as to why humans are violent and if and when it is ever justified. It’s filled with history, politics, anthropology, philosophy – pretty much any –ology or –osophy you can think of. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It put me to sleep and kept me awake. It made me THINK more than any other book I have ever read – excepting, maybe, MOBY DICK.

So there you have it. My list of 10. Like any list, I’ve already thought of other books that I’d want on it – THE IDIOT by Doestoevsky, R.L.’s DREAM by Walter Mosley, THE FLANEUR by Edmund White, CLASS by Paul Fussel, EMPIRE OF THE SUN by J.G. Ballard, M by John Sack, DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON by George Orwell, BEIJING COMA by Ma Jian, and more, plenty more. Truth be told, my top 10 would probably stretch out to a top 25 or 30 or even more, and if there was any order to them, that would change from day to day and mood to mood. Except, of course, for MOBY DICK. (Which is also the only book I ever reread. Life’s too short to reread books. I read too slow. There are too many books I haven’t read that I’m hoping to get to.)

But for the time being, there it is.

THAT HAZ-MAT STATE OF MIND - TRASH & TRASHY POLITICS

Last week, my seven year old laptop died. No major harm done, everything was more than adequately backed up and mostly I'd been using it for net surfing and photoshopping stuff that I didn't store on it. I spent a day trying to figure out whether or not I could salvage it: new harddrive, maybe a new screen, seemed like there was something screwy with the motherboard, two of the three USB connections had gone on the fritz.

So it was garbage. I'd got seven good years out of it, which in computer years must be something like 96 or so.

I wanted to format the harddrive so as to erase it. That's harder than it ought to be, especially if the computer came with the software installed and you don't have the installation disks. So I read up on what to do.

Formatting a harddrive doesn't do you much good anyhow. Anyone with a little determination can still mine the drive for whatever was on it. And these days, a lot of old harddrives find their way to China where there is a booming industry in recovering stuff from them and using it in various nefarious schemes.

Harddrives are tough. You could run one over with your car and it wouldn't mind that one bit. So I went at mine with a hammer, a big hammer. And even that took some doing. Now there's some suspicious sparkly stuff all over my patio, but I'm pretty sure that no one is going to get my precious data - and mostly not so precious data - off that old drive.

But then, you're not allowed to simply toss an old harddrive in the trash. That's a crime here in Los Angeles. And I can't simply toss out the old external monitor that also died at the same time. (It started looking like I think amoebic dysentery must look like under the microscope.) Same for old TVs, radios, printers, busted DVD and CD players and the like.

On weekends, the City of Los Angeles runs Electronic and Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites. So, I picked up my pal Craig, who also had stuff to dispose of, and off we went.

The closest place to my house was at a sewage reclamation plant, down the street from a strip club on the L.A. / Glendale border. I guess the odor helps get you in that haz-mat state of mind. We drove into it and were channeled into a parking area filled with large signs in English and Spanish telling us to stay in the car. A dozen or so men in white haz-mat suits swarmed the car when we came to a stop, opening the doors and the trunk, emptying it of any electric equipment and/or hazardous materials they could find.

I had a box of my books in the trunk. I considered seeing if they would take that, as it would make an excellent story if my books were taken away by guys in special protective clothing as "hazardous materials." Maybe I could even get some sort of testimonial to that, or at least a receipt. It would make for an interesting blurb on the next book. But alas, they left my books alone.

The only sensible thing to do after that was go eat Mexican food for lunch. We went to a nearby place which we like okay; the salsas are spicy and flavorful, the chips reasonably fresh, the drinks cold and the food is worth the price - which is to say it's cheap. The only drawback is that they seem to have a haunted jukebox. Twice during the course of our lunch, with no one approaching it, much less putting any money into it or pushing any buttons, the thing suddenly erupted into brutally loud, conversation-killing Ranchera music.

But when we could talk, among the things we talked about was Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. They worried my friend. He had recently, for the first time, read the collected quotes of Glen Beck or something like that, and was astounded and appalled at what he'd read.

What astounds and appalls me about dim-witted, lying fuckwits like Beck and Coulter and Hannity and Limbaugh and others of their ilk - and by way of tying this to the first part of this blog, I will refer to them as toxic waste - is that people take them seriously enough to actually try to argue with them.

You cannot use logic or rationality to argue with illogic or irrationality. It just doesn't work. And the toxic waste morons of cable TV and radio know that. They are just good at thinly disguising the fact that they are not rational human beings, so as to suck otherwise sensible people into arguing with them, arguments that, by their nature, cannot be won.

When a sleazebag, shit-for-brains, toxic monster like Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist; the best argument isn't to say "no he isn't," and then try to prove your point. It is to laugh, loud and hard and long. And then when you're done laughing, answer back with something equally preposterous: "You know, I really do think the moon is made of green cheese."

I consider myself a political independent. I do tend to vote for Democrats more often than Republicans, but I have voted for a few Republicans over the years. I very much believe in a two-party political system, in which compromises between those parties tend to steer a relatively moderate course over time. I have great respect for people of both political parties, at least the ones who have earned it through their obvious good sense and respectful, honest willingness to rationally debate real issues. if I were a Republican, I would be doing everything I could to distance myself from the toxic waste of the cable cretins. And if I were a Democrat, I'd be egging them on and laughing all the way to the polls.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO SHOOT STUFF

I grew up in California where an "outdoor store" meant REI or some similar eco-friendly, lightweight hi-tech-geared frolic in the wilderness kind of place. I'm not sure what the East Coast equivalent is - maybe EMS (Eastern Mountain Stores.) It wasn't until I started driving back and forth across the country on my book tours, that I encountered Cabela's.

It is, as my girlfriend put it when I first took her to one, "REI for people who like to shoot stuff."

Now I happen to like Cabela's. I don't hunt, fish, butcher my own meat or many of the other things that one can equip oneself for there, but still, I find the enormous stores endlessly fascinating. And they do carry a large variety of stuff that I do want: clothing, shoes, geegaws and doodads, pocket knives, great first aid kits, the best selection of cast iron cookware I've ever seen, etc.

The sad thing about this is that I have a number of friends here on the West Coast, and some on the East Coast who are going to think I'm being sarcastic, or ironic, or something other than honest about the fact that I like Cabela's so much. You know who you are.

I would like to encourage those friends of mine to take a couple of long road trips across the country; taking their time, talking with a whole lot of people whose lives are different than their own, seeing the stores that sell different stuff, eating the food that most people in this country really eat, etc. I do not think it is possible to truly understand or appreciate the United States when you confine yourself to its coasts, and maybe from time to time Chicago.

Now that isn't to say that there aren't some things about places like Cabela's that I dont' find bewildering. I just received their fall catalog in the mail, and here are some items from it that I find odd, amusing, interesting. I can understand what they're for, and why some of my fellow Cabela's shoppers might find them indispensable; but as I mentioned, I don't hunt. At least not the sort of hunting this stuff is for.

I do suppose that if I ever want to show up at a Halloween party costumed as Bigfoot, this would come in very handy.

On the other hand, if I do find myself in the woods during hunting season, I'd far rather be dressed in colors that scream, "Don't shoot!."

It has been said that accessories make the outfit. Paris Hilton, and others of her ilk, most likely do not shop much at Cabela's. But one of the accessories I've seen pictures of her with, is her pooch in her purse. I was pleased to see that Cabela's offers its version of the same thing. And a much more impressive version in my opinion.

As mentioned earlier, I do honestly like Cabela's, a lot. But there are certain things about it that give my Left Coast-liberal, gun-control-favoring heart and head moments of pause. I find the text on this page somewhat frightening. I don't think Ted Nugent would. But I never much liked his music either."The Freak Nasty is just that. It's the bad boy of the ScentBlocker® line. It has everything I need to get close and drop the hammer on the big boys."

WHAT I WANT FROM HEALTHCARE & WHAT I REALISTICALLY WANT

What I want, of course, is what anyone in their right mind would want - a free lunch. I don't want to have to pay for anything, ever. Even if I decide I want cosmetic surgery for no more good reason than vanity, I want that for free.

I also want a new camera for free. And every book I now pay for. And gasoline. And super premium single malt whisky. And won't someone pay off my mortgage, please?

Okay, so I'm not going to get any of that. So what do I want that I might reasonably expect to get?

I was extremely happy with my healthcare when I lived in Hong Kong. It wasn't cheap, about US$3,600 per year that came out of my own pocket since my employer didn't pick up the tab. (I wasn't hired on "expat terms." My ex-wife's company paid for her insurance, but not mine.)

What I got for that $300 per month was, in essence, a credit card that never came due. The bills went to someone else who very kindly paid them on my behalf. Every licensed doctor in Hong Kong accepted the card. When I traveled, if I needed medical attention - for instance when I came down with malaria in Jakarta and went to a clinic there - I presented the card, they called a phone number on the back of it, and obtained authorization to take care of me. Doctor's offices, clinics, hospitals could make that call from anywhere, collect. (Not dentists though. At the time Hong Kong was a British colony and, well, you know what Brits teeth are like.)

The card was provided by a private insurance company, although it, like the very high-quality free, government-provided healthcare in Hong Kong, was heavily subsidized by horse racing. At the time there were a mere seven million or so of us living in Hong Kong, and the two racetracks made more money than most of the other racetracks in the world, combined. It was only reasonable that the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club should fork over enough cash to pay a big chunk of my healthcare.

Actually, other than that bout of malaria, I was pretty healthy for the 12 years I had that insurance. The company no doubt made a quite reasonable profit on the $43,200 I paid in premiums. (The clinic in Jakarta would have been relatively cheap, even if I had to pay for it myself.)

I wish I still had that magical card. I just paid the annual premium for the utterly inadequate medical insurance I've got now - $4,780.60, plus another $239.40 to something called the Alliance for Affordable (sic) Services that I have to be a member of to get my insurance at all.

Last year, a year in which I did everything I possibly could to avoid going to the doctor or the dentist, and during which I was basically healthy - a few minor sniffles, Lipitor, blood pressure medicine, nothing out of the ordinary for a man my age - I had $7,928 in un-reimbursed, out-of-pocket medical expenses. (That was a whole lot better than 2005 when, in spite of being insured, my un-reimbursed, out-of-pocket medical expenses came to something over $20,000 thanks to a minor surgery for which my insurance did kick in about $9,000.)

I WANT MY HONG KONG MEDICAL INSURANCE BACK! Or something like it. I'd even pay more for it if I had to, say, $7,928 (oh hell, let's be generous and round it up to $8,000) per year.

Okay, so that's not going to happen. And even if it did, I'm lucky, I could (not easily, but I could) afford to pay more money for better health insurance. A lot of people couldn't.

On the other hand, what if there was something like this:

---Mandatory catastrophic medical insurance for everybody, that they could buy either through private insurance companies, or also through an expansion of the Medicare system. (Medicare's administrative costs are surprisingly efficient compared with most private insurers.) The private companies would set their own premiums and the buy-in to Medicare would be available to everyone on a sliding scale based on income. (Rich people would pay more, poor people less, really poor people would get it for free.) That might also help prop up Medicare, which is headed for demographic disaster if something isn't done. Private insurers would have to lower their premiums or increase their coverage to compete.

---The mandatory catastrophic coverage should have a preventative care and screening component. Something along the lines of a free comprehensive physical exam for everybody once every five years to a certain age, three years during another age range, and two years after that. That should include such things as colonoscopys (a matter of some concern to me, who is about to have to pay for one out of my own pocket), mammograms and other such procedures that actually serve to lower medical costs by finding problems at earlier stages than they might have been found otherwise.

---Private insurance companies would be freed from the current restrictions by which they have to offer a different plan for every state they do business in, so that they could offer competing, nationwide plans for the catastrophic, as well as other levels of insurance. That would create a greater economy of scale, and competition, which would almost certainly lead to either lower premiums or better coverage. I'm a member of the Author's Guild. It offers health insurance to its members, but not to its members in California because it's just too expensive here. If Cigna, who I think is their insurance carrier, could offer the same plan to cover all Author Guild members no matter what state they lived in, it would be a win-win for everybody concerned.

---In exchange for opening up the national market to private insurers, the insurance companies would have to offer coverage to anybody, regardless of pre-existing conditions or the numerous other factors they currently use to deny coverage to anyone who they think might actually have a use for it. And they could better afford to do that, since the pool of insured people would grow and the risk would be spread thinner than it currently is.

---There should also be mandated transparency in medical care costs. It is currently almost impossible to be an informed consumer of healthcare. My pending colonoscopy is a case in point. Since I'm going to have to pay for it myself - it isn't covered by my insurance (I guess they'd rather pay for treating colon cancer after it makes itself obvious, than at an early stage when it's cheaper and easier to treat) - I've been calling around trying to find out what it's going to cost. If I want to buy a new computer, I have no trouble finding out what that's going to cost. A colonoscopy? Not so much. So far I have found no one price from anybody. All anybody can tell me is what they might charge for their little part of it - doctor, anesthesiologist, the facility, the pathology, some other bits and pieces. (Actually, I did find one stop shopping at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico. But it isn't so much cheaper than what I think I'll end up paying here, that I'm going to go there.) That's stupid. No matter what sort of healthcare coverage we end up with, there are bound to be some procedures that we're going to have to pay for ourselves. And we ought to be able to shop for them the same way we'd shop for anything else.

We are never going to see a British, or even Canadian or Dutch style medical care system in this country. It ain't gonna happen. It's too expensive at this point in our development and with our demographics, and there is too much (a lot of it justified) suspicion of government running almost anything in this country. (Although the ravings about denial of care are ludicrous. In every country where there is "socialized medicine" a private option is also available that is very similar to what people can get here. And on average, people who can't afford the private option still get better treatment than they would here in the U.S. where they have only emergency rooms or the occasional free clinic to rely on.)

But there needs to be a realization that healthcare is, to a certain point, a national security and economic issue. A healthy population is a more productive population. Illness is expensive, not just to the sick person, but to society as a whole. It is as essential for government to have a role in seeing after the health of its citizens, as it is to build roads, schools and maintain a military defense.

PICTURE THIS

Once, I really irritated the Minister of the Environment of Indonesia. I interviewed him for a magazine. But I also had to photograph him. It was easier, and more to the point - cheaper, to have me do both than to send a separate writer and photographer.

I called his office and scheduled an hour for the interview. I told his assistant that the photographer (I didn't let on that it was also me) wouldn't be able to work at the same time, so could we either schedule an additional half hour following the interview, or, if not, another time to take the photos? The photo session was scheduled for the day after the interview.

The interview went well. The next day, when I showed up with my camera equipment, not so much. Why, the Minister quite rightly wondered, had I not simply taken his picture when I interviewed him?

Luckily, his English was good. While I'm not sure he bought it, at least he did understand my explanation that photography and writing are very different; that despite the fact that I am experienced at both, it is nearly impossible to do a good job of both at the same time. They need to be approached separately. It helped that when the article came out, he liked the pictures.

When I travel, I will often alternate days with my camera and without it, sometimes going back to the same places. When I'm taking pictures, I am thinking visually. I notice the sounds, and smells and feel of places, but not quite so much as I do when I'm not looking at them through a viewfinder. When I write, I want my descriptions of places and people to go a lot deeper than only how they look.

It's one reason why nobody ever really likes their wedding pictures. (I ought to know, way back when I shot eight weddings. I made good money doing it. After the last, I swore I'd never do it again.) It's a big day, full of feelings and memories of smells and sounds and the rustle of dresses and the swirl of the first dance and all that sort of stuff. Two-dimensional photos just aren't enough to convey it. They always seem, somehow, inadequate. And everyone blames the photographer.

This is on my mind today because I'm printing photos for my combo book event / photo show that's taking place in downtown L.A. on Thursday evening. Be there.

Thursday, August 13, 7pm
Metropolis Books
440 S. Main St.
Los Angeles, CA

7,963.2 MILES

I got home Saturday night. I was exhausted. Big surprise. I haven't done much since. I did read a chunk of SHANGHAIED to the 70, 80 - it was a big turnout - people at the Sisters in Crime L.A. Chapter meeting on Sunday. A big shout out to SinC. It's a great organization. I'm proud and pleased to say that I'm probably going to be on the local board of directors next year.

It seems to me that this year's Drive-By Book Tour was a great success. Not that I'm on any best seller lists. Well, that's not strictly true, I did make it onto Poisoned Pen's June best selling trade paperbacks list and I won't be surprised if I end up on similar lists at a few other stores for June or July.

But I had events at 14 stores. I visited some 30 or so others. (Few of which were carrying my books, but at least they now know about me.) I met a whole lot of great people along the way, stuffed myself with things that are bad for my arteries - it's been grilled fish and vegetables since getting home - and saw more of this remarkable country.

People always ask me if I really think big book tours are cost effective. It depends on what you want out of them.

Did this one even come close to paying for itself in book sales? HELL NO!

Was it one of the best, though tiring, vacations I've had in a very long time? YOU BETCHA! (Do I need to put a registered trademark symbol next to that to acknowledge Sarah Palin?)

Is it useful in the long run in terms of career and sales building? Possibly, at least I like to think so.

It's a good thing that I drive, and that I carry around extra boxes of books in my trunk. I ran out of the books I brought. About half the stores I visited needed to "borrow" books from me to satisfy demand. That's a good sign.

In the past, I might have divided any number of things into the nearly 8,000 miles I drove on this book tour: number of people, number of books signed, number of times I was asked if Ray Sharp is me, pieces of chicken, bites of pork, etc. But nope, I'm not gonna do that this time. I enjoyed every single mile of it. Well, maybe not the 2.6 miles I drove looking for dinner in Fort Stockton, Texas, not so much.

WHO SAYS KANSAS IS DULL

You can't prove it by me. I love the place.

Got up this morning and went to I Love A Mystery, a truly great mystery bookstore in Mission, KS (a suburb of Kansas City.) I was pretty sure there weren't going to be many people there. I was scheduled for a 10:30am "coffee with the author."

I counted 19 people over the course of my showing my slides and talking about my books. That is an excellent turnout. They asked good questions, were great to talk with. They bought plenty of books. What more could an author want?

After that, I hit Stroud's for lunch on my way out of town. The fried chicken's as good as ever. It ought to be, after all, their slogan is, "We choke our own chickens."

Then I lit out west across Kansas, across the Great Plains. A lot of people, when they hear I'm going to drive across Kansas and eastern Colorado, say they feel sorry for me. They make jokes about putting a brick on the gas, tying the wheel straight and napping. They seem to think it is a featureless, dull drive.

They're wrong.

In the Plains, the weather and the light become geographic features of the landscape. The feel of the air is remarkable. Snapping with electricity as storms approach, fresh like nothing else after the storms pass by.

I love driving across the plains. It's one of the things I most look forward to on my Drive-By Book Tours.

Here's the photographic evidence. All shot this afternoon and evening around Oakley, KS - as a storm front passed through. (I did not manipulate any of the color.)

QUICK, PASS THE LIPITOR

It is, almost certainly, a good thing that I do not live in Kansas City. I love the food here. My cardiovascular system doesn't. But I'm not here often.

So today, for lunch I went to Arthur Bryant's.Combo plate of burnt ends and pulled pork. I couldn't make up my mind if I liked the "rich and spicy sauce" or the "original" better. The burnt ends are the best I've ever had anywhere. The pork, well, I do prefer the vinegary North Carolina style, but it's still awfully good.

After lunch I went to Lawrence, Kansas, to The Raven bookstore where I sat around having a good conversation with Julie, who was working there, while I signed some books.

After that, it was off to see the KC T-Bones play ball against the Joliet Jackhammers. The T-Bones mascot is, of course, a beef steer named Sizzle.I was prepared to eat the mascot, if they offered t-bone steaks at the ballpark. Alas, they don't. (So far, the only ballpark I've been to where you can eat the mascot is in Zebulon, North Carolina where the Mudcats play and the concessions specialize in catfish sandwiches.)

So, having failed to dine at the ballpark, I decided on fried chicken - another of Kansas City's better options. I wanted to go to Stroud's, my favorite chicken fryer in the U.S. (Their slogan is, "We choke our own chickens.") Problem was, it's hard to find and I didn't want to go back to the hotel - the wrong direction - to look it up online. So, I decided on a soul food restaurant near the National Jazz and Negro Baseball League museums. To get there, I took the Brooklyn Avenue exit off I-70 and was immediately confronted with Bryant's to the right, and Gates & Son's (possibly the most famous other KC BBQ place) to the left. It did seem like a good idea to make a taste comparison. So I turned left toward Gates.It was, I hate to say, a mistake. I had ribs. They were chewy and fatty. The sauce was mundane. After the first bite I considered not finishing my meal and heading instead for fried chicken as planned.

But I didn't. There's really only so far I'm willing to go in disservice to my arteries.

I have been doing things other than eating. In St. Louis I took several walks through some of the beautiful neighborhoods near Forest Park, the gigantic park in the middle of the city.


I had a good signing at Big Sleep Books, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, mystery bookstores in the midwest. It's run by Helen Simpson, a good friend and a fellow baseball lover. My first night in town we sat around in Helen's house and watched the Cardinals game. (When the Cardinals play the Dodgers I am in torment. I am a fan of both teams.)

The second night in St. Louis we went to downtown and walked around the fun and very nicely curated new sculpture garden, then went to the new Busch Stadium for the game. It was a good game but the Cardinals lost, so it wasn't that good a game. Still, it was a great evening.

MY KIND OF TOWN

Chicago is simply one of the very best cities on the entire planet. It's got nearly everything other than weather I can stand for a few months of the year. (Well, it has pretty awful traffic also, but it does have public transit.)

It even has the best carnitas I have ever had, anywhere. And I know my carnitas, and have had them in many places throughout Mexico and the U.S. (Carnitas Uruapan, 18th St. in Pilsen.)

It's got plenty of blues, and you already know I love the blues. Here's the wall of blues player masks at the old Chess Records Studio museum on Michigan Ave.And here's Pinetop Perkins. (Played sometimes with pretty much everyone, including Muddy Waters - although I liked Otis Spann a whole lot better.)

Millennium Park is one of the greatest, most fun urban parks anywhere. And, at the moment it's prairie garden is in bloom.



Chicago also seems to somehow come up with money to preserve and restore amazing architecture and other such things, when many cities can't seem to. This is the Tiffany glass skylight in what used to be the old library and is now the Cultural Center.

And then, of course, there is THE LEDGE, on the 103rd floor of what used to be the Sears Tower and is now the Willis Tower. My feet.Me.
My sister Nancy.