Frank Sinatra In A Blender - June 1, 2011.

For the last few months I’ve been busy. I’ve had a lot happening. I got an agent in New York and I got a deal on an eBook with Concord ePress. My book comes out next Wednesday, June 1, and I’m excited. It’s been a lot of hard work but in the end I believe I have a strong, very unique book.

It’s called Frank Sinatra in a Blender. It’s about a private detective in St. Louis who drinks. A lot. He has other bad habits too, and he really doesn’t care what you think about them. He’s his own man, and that’s just the way he likes it. He has a drinking problem, a drug problem, and a partner named Frank Sinatra.

Did I mention he carries a shotgun and a chainsaw?

Did I mention the book has a gracious and very generous introduction from Ken Bruen?

Did I mention the book is dedicated to Charlie Sheen?

Stay tuned. Next week you can order a copy for about 8 bucks and see what all the talk is about.

The Death of a Bookstore

I've said it before, I’ll say it again – The death of a bookstore is a very sad thing indeed.

There’s nothing like a small, Independent hole in the wall that exists because of love, not money. Love of books. Love of characters. Love of fellow readers. So it was with sad eyes that I read an email from the incomparable Jedidiah Ayres, delivering the unfortunate news that one of our favorite little bookstores in St. Louis might close down this year.

Well, Jed’s not the type of guy to just stand around and let that sorta thing happen without a fight. So he and his partner in crime, Scott Phillips, devised a brilliant plan to try and throw Subterranean books a bone.

The Point of this Blog Post

For the last few years, Subterranean has been the official bookstore for Noir At The Bar, an event I’ve blogged about, where writers from all over the literary world stop by the Delmar Lounge in the Central West End for alcohol. I mean, for the chance to hang out with other writers and read the written word to a room full of hungry ears. I myself was fortunate enough to read there last year.

Which brings me to Scott and Jed’s generous, bighearted idea. To publish an anthology of stories from Noir At The Bar by the writer’s who’ve read there. Let me say it’s a great honor to know something I read there will end up in a book that’s being sold to support such a worthy cause as saving a bookstore.

Like all writer types, I love books. I love bookstores, too, and I can’t stand the thought of seeing yet another one disappear into the void. Once the Indy stores are gone, they’re gone. I used to tell my sons when they were little, “The most important card you can have in your wallet is a library card.” Because I wanted them to fall in love with books. The same way I did. The same way YOU did. Preserving the written word is important. I want my kids to take their kids to Subterranean. But with all the technological advancements is that possible?

In the digital age of convenience we’re living in, it’s safe to say any small bookstores still alive and breathing are doing so because inside their heart of hearts, they bleed for the printed word. Sure, everybody loves his or her Kindle, but it smells like plastic!

There’s nothing like being greeted by the aroma of rows and rows of old leather bound hardbacks printed on thin ancient sheets of paper. And a place like Subterranean knows who you are and they know what you like.

If they tell you, “I’ve got something I know you’ll like,” it’s because they’ve taken the time to get to know you, and, well, they know what you like. The difference between Barnes & Noble and an independent bookstore is simple. The chains are in business to make money and the Indy’s are in business to make friends. At the risk of sounding like a two-dollar politician brawling for a vote, if nothing else, do it for the children. Support your independent bookstores before they all die.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)


Hunter S. Thompson was a great observer of life. He was a genius and a maniac, and I discovered his writings at a very early age. He was a journalist and an author. He loved words, he loved guns, and he loved drugs. He was, by many peoples standards, the king of self-indulgence. - But it didn't start out that way.


He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of an insurance agent. He attended public school as a child and entered the air force after a run in with the law, only to receive a dishonorable discharge in 1958 for what was widely considered outrageous behavior. It seemed his superiors felt his disregard for military dress, as well as authority, were too much of a negative influence on the other men.


Hunter was resourceful and he began to do what had always come easy for him, so he took a job as a sports reporter on the base, then moved onto a small newspaper in New York.


After being fired from that job, as well as a job with TIME magazine, he moved south to Puerto Rico, where he wrote briefly for a bowling magazine. He spent his free time on the beach, drinking rum and smoking weed.


Thompson returned to the states in 1960 and traveled to California, where he settled in Big Sur. He wrote his first novel there, but it was never published. Over the next few years he bounced around the globe, writing for the Dow Jones-owned, The National Observer, but he quit when they refused to let him write about the Free Speech Movement in Berkley, California.


By 1965, Hunter found himself in San Francisco, at the height of the hippie movement, indulging in the excess of the Haight Ashbury counterculture. It was the beginning of change, and society was awakening to a world of pacifism, free love, and LSD.


The dawn of a new era was fast approaching and Hunter was at the center of it all. He was working as a free-lance writer when his big break came. It was in the form of a story about the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, written for a magazine called The Nation, that drew him critical acclaim, as well as serious attention from publishers.


It was at this point that Hunter introduced the world to what he described as "Gonzo" journalism.



GONZO JOURNALISM



Created almost entirely by accident and desperation, Gonzo journalism became Hunters trademark as a last minute impulsive decision to involve himself in the action of the story to such a degree that he would become a main figure in his own reporting. He subscribed to William Faulkner's theory that the best kind of fiction is better than any kind of journalism.


No example of this is greater than his literary masterpiece entitled, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, an article that was first published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1972. It was a groundbreaking piece of work that offered a rambling account of a drug filled weekend in Vegas between Thompson himself and his attorney, as they set out to cover a motorcycle race and a law enforcement convention in the desert.


"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs begin to take hold," that was the opening sentence of the book that first caught my attention, and set in motion the initial urgings that would send me down the torturous path that only a struggling writer could know.


I found myself intoxicated by his words and the power of his honesty. He offered a non apologetic alternative to the standard writings of his time. He was a bold rebel, standing on the threshhold of a great adventure, with a spirit that soared high above the clouds.


Hunter inspired me to be myself and to be honest in my writing. He scorched his mark deep into the memory of a million people. He is missed.



Hunter S. Thompson's Suicide Note

Football Season is Over

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun-for anybody. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax-This won't hurt."

After he wrote this note he slid a .45 into his mouth and pulled the trigger