First Offenders

Whatever, World

I'm in a bad mood. I have a head cold. My daughter has a cold. It's humid. The Padres have lost 16 of their last 20 games. And USA Today gave Speed Racer only one and a half stars.

Whatever, world. You win.

So I only have two things for you today.

This funny story out of Riverdale, UT, which contains the following:

The police chief who shot himself in the ankle was waving a loaded pistol and being careless, according to two students who were attending his class to qualify for a concealed-weapons permit. "We were told the gun is the chief's personal sidearm, but it looked to me like he didn't know anything about the gun," Lewis Walker said.

Bart Ulm, another student seeking certification to carry a concealed weapon, said he was surprised Chief Dave Hansen was using a loaded gun to show how it worked.

"Right then, I was very leery, because there's no need to have live ammo in a gun in the class. But I figured he's the chief, so he must know what he's doing," Ulm told the Standard-Examiner of Ogden.

Hansen held the Glock 40 under a table to disassemble it when a bullet fired, Walker said.

The chief cried, "I'm hit," and fell over. Students who were screaming "Officer down!" were urged to call 911.

There are so many funny things about that that it almost puts me in a good mood.

The other thing I have for you today...I actually don't have for you. That jackass Our good friend Jim Born is encouraging folks to share their bad Amazon reviews today over at Naked Authors. I have done so and encourage you to do the same.
Jeff

The Great Psychobilly Blog Road Trip of 2008: Day 3, Part 1

I'm still reeling from last night's HELLS KITCHEN, so Anthony Neil Smith has hijacked the blog today on his road trip across cyberspace to promote his new book YELLOW MEDICINE.  (Secretly, I think Neil wants to BE Gordon Ramsay.)  — Karen

Last Stop: Greg Bardsley's Chimichangas At Sunset

 

Let's just pretend our "First" Offenders here, instead of being scattered across the country in every different direction, all live together in debauchery (kind of like Animal House ) in a crusty old farmhouse in, oh, Spearfish, South Dakota.  Why?  Because Spearfish is a great fucking name for a town, that's why.

 

And we pull up in the Hummer-sine to find Jeff Shelby, author of the Noah Braddock surf-tec novels Killer Swell and Wicked Break, standing outside with his golf clubs (which we laugh at because we already ditched ours), wearing one of those print-screened T-shirts with a photo in the middle of a heart.  Whose photo? Jim Born. 

 

But hey, we kid Jeff.  He's a trooper, an actual good golfer, and he really makes you feel the sand in your swimtrunks as you read his work.  We're eagerly looking forward to what's next from the boy.

 

By the time Karen and Lori swagger out (do I have to say it? Okay: blind stinking drunk), carrying bags of desserts they picked up from watching Top Chef, we've been waiting half-an-hour, listening to some noisy assualt coming from a busted speaker in a second story window (is that...no, it can't be...Kiss?).  Then Alison saves the day by bringing along the new Felice Brothers CD.  Well, I guess we can push off the psychobilly for one more leg.

 

We're talking a Motley Cure here, right?  Lori G. Armstrong, a true pulpster banging out dirty romance/erotica and dirty crime fiction simultaenously (look up Hallowed Ground and Shallow Grave. Plus, she'll be jumping to a new, bigger, shinier publisher soon). Groovy stuff, am I right?  And Lori is just as much a troublemaker as that resume suggests.

 

Karen Olson, author of the Annie Seymour series about a reporter who keeps finding dead people.  Mighty suspicious if you ask me.  But it's rougher than you think and damned funny, too.  Try the Freed Memorial Award winning Sacred Cows and more recent Dead of the Day.  In Karen's Shot Girl, she'll be tackling some kinkier stuff with a male stripper named Jack Hammer. Bookwise, of course.

 

Alison Gaylin, although we haven't met (until the Blog Trip arrived today...virtually), I'll say has great taste in music, as I saw from her recent post about the aforementioned Felice Brothers and the fact that she seemed to know that Split Lip Rayfield is a band and not that guy dozing outside the bar.  She's the Edgar-nominated author of Trashed, about a rootin' tootin' sleaze-tabloid reporter looking for dirt.  God bless you, Alison.  Don't we all feel a little like Simone Glass sometimes?  Keep an eye out for the next one, Heartless, this fall.

 

All that comararderie!  Like a little tight knit band or something, like The Beatles or The Monkees or The Police.   Kind of like our little band of Crimedogs over at Plots with Guns. Nice to know there's others out there just like you who appreciate cheap beer, twangy music, and ridiculously dirty crime fiction. Speaking of which, don't forget: Psychobilly Monday, May 12th, a chance to make my awful little novel Yellow Medicine a blip on Barnes & Noble's radar screen. Come on, we've come this far already, haven't we?  No, seriously, I've forgotten how far we've come.  My head is killing me...

 

Onward we go, some folks sitting in the back enjoying the disco party atmosphere of the Hummer-sine, some poking their heads out the sunroof, and others making sure the tunes keep rocking while the speedometer tips right up there at 95 as we head towards the next destination--Kent Gowran's Blood Sweat and Murder Blog, beaming out of Chicago.

 

Driving Time: Three Sunrises

Tune for the leg: "Frankie's Gun" by The Felice Brothers

Do-over, anyone?

By Alison

My favorite TV show is The Simpsons. But sometimes when I watch it, I get a little pang of regret, because it makes me think of the one thing in my life I really wish I could do over.

I was 23, maybe 24. I'd just started working as a reporter for The Star, and my college friend Cindy was working for a producer who shared office space with a brand new show called The Simpsons. I was a fan of it already -- it had started as a cartoon on the Tracey Ullman show and I loved it from the get-go. And before that I loved Matt Groening's cartoons in the L.A. Weekly.

Cindy knew this, and she also knew I'd written a play in college (Sam Shepard rip-off, written in one stimulent fueled night. Bryon Q. knows about it because he wrote one too.) which had won an award. She'd become friendly with one of the producers who wasn't Matt Groening and showed her the play and the producer shockingly really liked it and told her to tell me to write a sample episode because they were looking for writers and... man did I blow it.

I don't know, I think I was freaking out over some boyfriend whose name I don't even remember and I never did it. Thinking about that even today makes me want to bang my head against the wall -- not because I believe I would have gotten the job. But because I didn't even try.

They say everything happens for a reason, which I mostly feel is a load of crap. But in convoluted terms, my blowing off the chance to try out for The Simpsons allowed me to meet my husband, who was an old friend of one of my fellow Star reporters. It also made me accept when I got into graduate school, which made me move to New York, which made me hook up with the friend who got me into the fiction writing workshop led by the wonderful woman who told me that the short story I was working on would make a good mystery novel. So blowing off the Simpsons made me much of who I am today.

But all that could have happened anyway, if I had tried out for the job and not gotten it.  Like I said, it's the not trying part that all these years later makes me say, D'oh.

Is there anything in your life you wish you could do over?

Who You Gonna Call? Ghostbusters!

Lori here~

And you are SO welcome for me getting that little ditty stuck in your head.

I've been thinking a lot about ghosts lately. I just finished a book (DARK NEEDS AT NIGHT'S EDGE- Kresley Cole) where the heroine was a ghost and only the tortured hero could see her...yeah, I know, it sounds like every ghost book ever written. But it was different. It was really great in that the supernatural wasn't explained away - i.e., like the "ghost" was stuck in a coma (IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE -Worst. Book. EVER.) Or everything happened in a dream. Or true love returned her to her corporeal state.

I'll admit I read paranormal more than any other genre these days. Maybe it's because that's the only genre I don't seem to be writing in. Maybe it's because I still have that child-like fascination vampires and werewolves and shifters and witches and demons coexisting with mere mortals.

The other reason I've been thinking about ghosts is because my oldest daughter started a new job in a place downtown that is supposedly haunted. In times past, the building was both a brothel and a morgue--no wonder the damn place is haunted. What I think is interesting, is that the manager and her coworkers don't deny it's haunted, nor do they make a huge deal about it. It just...is.

Now I'd heard stories about this building, about that whole block actually. A friend of mine used to own a bookstore across the street, and the stories she told about being alone in the basement--the menacing voice, the sense of evil unrest, and the reality of objects getting moved-- still gives me shivers, because she is not a woman who'd lie about something like that just to spin a good campfire tale. There never was a question of disbelief on my part. A couple months back when FOFO Toni McGee Causey wrote on Murderati about her experiences with a ghost, when Toni was a young, first time mother, I couldn't understand how she wouldn't have freaked out more about a ghost obsessed with her new baby. So here I am, discussing with my 18 yr. old, how cool it would be if she got to see either of the ghosts. And since she still is my child and I'll always want to protect her, I demanded to know what she'd do if it happened.

I've had brushes with the supernatural, but I've never seen a ghost. I absolutely believe they exist. If folks can believe in a higher power, then why is it so hard to imagine a different plane of reality?

Share a ghost story, your disbelief of ghosts, or the best book you've ever read with a ghost as one or more of the main characters. The best books I've read dealing with ghosts? HAUNTED by Kelley Armstrong, and CHRISTINE by Stephen King.

I Refuse To Hold My Pinkie In The Air While Drinking

I have to take my daughter to a birthday tea party this morning. I am, uh, not really looking forward to this. It's not what I signed up for. I don't do tea parties.

Please share with us something that YOU do not wish to do today.
Jeff

Another day, another tag

Like Jeff last week, I got tagged by Clea Simon on one of those memes. Here's the deal:

She says I have to:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged YOU.

Here goes:

I just finished Stewart O'Nan's SNOW ANGELS, so it's sitting here on the desk next to me. (O'Nan has become one of my new favorite authors, since I read his outstanding LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER earlier this year. Besides SNOW ANGELS, I've also recently read THE GOOD WIFE. All three are compelling stories, simple and beautifully written.)

Page 123 of SNOW ANGELS:

"She says you're a big help," he said, but I didn't bite.

We passed the county fairgrounds and its sign advertising the same three days in August and stopped at a plaza where there was a Fox's Pizza Den. My father ordered for us.

And now I have to tag five folks, so here goes: Louise Ure, Spyscribbler, Bryon Quertermous, Dusty Rhoades, and Patty Smiley.

But so no one feels left out, everyone can play right here in the comments section.

And finally, a HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Alison!!

Karen

It's time, yet again for.... Lyricspalooza!

By Alison

So it's my birthday tomorrow. Yeah, I know. The gift's in the mail -- but contrary to what you might think, I'm not bringing it up to solicit presents (dark chocolate, white roses, size seven shoe and I don't yet have an IPod...) but to tell you that, as an early b-day present, my husband took me to see my brand new all-time favorite band,  The Felice Brothers. (I hope that link works.) They are an absolutely incredible group of musicians who switch off instruments and play with more energy and exuberance than anyone I've ever seen since the Springsteen show I went to at the L.A. Sports Arena back in the 10th grade. The drummer Simon Felice often sings lead and he's just a lightning bolt of charisma and his brother James rocks the accordion like no one I've ever heard (yes, I said accordion and I'm serious) and his other brother Ian plays lead guitar and seemingly everything else and has a voice that sounds like Bob Dylan would sound if he could carry a tune. Everyone in the band is clearly having so much fun it's infectious, and a live show of theirs will make you happy for days afterward. I know it. I've guarantee it.

But it wasn't their performing or musicianship that first caught my ear. I discovered this band while listening to an alternative radio station on my way to work and I was immediately struck by their lyrics. As you know by now if you read my blog entries, I'm a huge lyrics fan. And from the way you all responded to my previous lyrics post, I know a lot of you feel the same way. The thing I love about the Felice Brothers' lyrics is that they all tell great stories. Most of their songs are about killing people or getting killed or falling in love in dark, sad ways, and there is usually drinking involved. If James M. Cain were a band, he'd be these guys.

So in honor of my new favorite band, I thought I'd ask you, yet again, to tell me some great song lyrics you wish you'd written. I'll kick it off with the lines from the Felice Brothers' "Wonderful Life" that turned me into an instant fan on my way to work: 

Me and Joey set a fire in the road, to watch it glow.../His father didn't like it, though. He gave Joey a black eye./ Me and you we've done the same damn thing./ We fell in love, knowing the pain it would bring.../ Now all I do is sing sad songs with red eyes.

Okay. Your turn. Give me some lyrics.

Return of - The Return Of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Lori here~

I received my Summer Movie Preview Issue of Entertainment Weekly and flipped through it, half-excited, thinking I might actually get to a movie or two this summer (the last two summers have been curiously movie free for me.) Then I realized as I flipped through the glossy pages, every release was either comic book based, or it was...a remake. Do we really NEED another Incredible Hulk movie? Didn't they just do one of those a couple years ago?

Can't Hollywood come up with new storylines? How many remakes can we take in a lifetime? Can The Return of the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes be far behind?

And people bitch about authors writing the same damn book over and over?

Sheesh.

A long as I'm ranting, I don't get comic books or movies based on comic book heros. I never have. My mother let me have any book I wanted--as long as it wasn't a comic book. How long has it been since I picked up a comic book? Umm...I think in the last one, Archie and Reggie had some great scam to pull over on Jughead while Betty and Veronica fought over a bottle of perfume. Oh, I know graphic comics are different, yada yada, if you like that type of entertainment, good for you. But please don't get in my face about how comic books have evolved over the years and I won't get in yours about how romance novels have evolved--especially if you haven't picked one up in recent years either.

So I won't be standing in line to see Speedracer (WTF? that was a stupid ass cartoon back in the day) or Ironman or The Incredibly Batty Spiderman and his Super Fantastic Four X-Men Friends.

The only movie I'm looking forward to is The X-Files movie. Yes, I'm one of *those* people.

For me, the best remake, from a book, was when The Shining was redone as a made for TV movie and erased that ridiculous Jack Nicholson/Olive Oyl fiasco from my mind.

So...enlighten me. What's the best remake you've ever seen?

Get Your Hands Off Me

Last week, Terrenoire tagged me. I don't mean that in the dirty, completely inappropriate way you are thinking. It's one of those Internet games, where someone tagged him and now he's passing it on. So now I have to tell you 7 or 8 things about me that you don't know. (Or at least things I don't think you know. Look, we've been doing this for several yrs now and we talk about a lot of crap. I can't remember what I've told you people.) Hmmmm. Let's see:

1. I attended 7 colleges in 8 years. (Shut up. All of you.)
2. I took a charge from Junior Seau in a high school baskeball game 20 yrs ago and was knocked out cold.
3. I suffer from terrible seasonal insomnia.
4. I met my wife while dating one of her sorority sisters.
5. I once played tennis with Alicia Silverstone.
6. After Springsteen, my next favorite musical act is The Smiths.
7. I cry far too often at television shows and movies.

Alright, that's it I'm stopping at 7. And now, guess what?

I'm tagging ALL OF YOU.

That's right if you just read this post you've been tagged. I don't care if that's breaking the rules. I ain't goin' to no Internet jail! Right now, in the comments, tell us 7 things about yourself that we don't know. And Terrenoire has to give us 7 more because he started it.

HAHA!!! I WIN!!!
Jeff

Coloring inside the lines

I had an art teacher in high school who lamented coloring books. She felt strongly that forcing children to color inside the lines, telling them that a stray mark outside the lines was bad, was in itself bad. She made a case for freehand drawing, for letting the hand and the pencil or paintbrush or crayon flow whereever it wanted, encouraging more creativity.

I'm working on a synopsis, and those of you who visit us often here at FO know this is my worst thing. I'm one of those seat-of-your-pants writers, the ones who don't outline, who like to find out what's going to happen as I go along. There's always a surprise.

Publishers want synopses. They want to know we've got actual plot ideas, something that could carry a whole book. Granted, we are not held word-for-word to them and we can veer off course in the course of writing, but I find once I write it all out, even a sketchy outline, I stay mostly within the lines.

Sure, some can say that staying inside the lines does elicit more control over the book. There's no willy-nilly, no massive rewriting to include a plotline that could show up three-quarters into the manuscript. There's no "freehand" to wreak havoc.

I find as I'm writing up a synopsis, I always leave a little door open somewhere so I don't feel totally locked in. Sometimes it's good to lose a little control.

Do you stay inside the lines?

Karen