veinarmory

That’s right. I locked myself in a room for a few days and recorded Dunkin the Vampire Slayer, Something Porcine This Way Comes. This was my first novel and gave me the impetus to crank out ten more in rapid succession. This one is also the origin of Devlin, a character I continue to have fun writing. Dunkin is a trilogy, and number two is available while number three is waiting for me to finish it. (It’s nearly half complete.) I don’t know when DUnkin will get released, but stay tuned and we’ll try and get the word out.

Ya know, it is so rare to find something that makes me laugh out loud. I mean, you can go to a live comedy show and the laughter is contagious, so even if the comic is half-assed you still find yourself laughing. A book is different. It’s solitary, and any out-loud chuckle is not an involuntary reaction to a chortling atmospheric condition. This audiobook, Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake and read by some guy named Michael Kramer is freakin’ hilarious. It’s another John Dortmunder novel, and it’s longer than usual, but there were several areas where I just laughed out loud with the damn earphones on. And that Kramer guy, holy crap! That is the way to do an audiobook. Absolutely perfect rendering that I rate as ‘comic genius’!

What inspired you to write?
I had a damn itch, or maybe my boxers climbed up my cheeks—I can’t remember. Ahhh. Okay. What inspired me? How about Mark Twain, Doc Savage, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.L. Mencken, Upton SInclair, Ambrose Bierce, Mike Shayne, Phillip Marlowe, and about a thousand others.

Where do I get my ideas?
I’ve found that the view through an empty bottle of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum is damned conducive to the type of mentally challenged energy and vision it takes to undertake writing 60, 70, or 80,000 words in an attempt to tell a story.

What message would you like your readers to take away from this book?
That you should send me money so I can drink more. I’m not kidding here folks. The price of booze is spiraling at a criminal rate. This shit’s seriously hampering my output.

Is your book plot or character driven ~ What is your writing procedure?
Who the hell knows. I create a character who can believably stomp a lot of people during the course of the story. I studied the stomping of people during my formative years and have found that these type of characters are just the ones I tend to gravitate towards during the evening festivities. My writing process consists of two-fingered typing, while demonstrably inebriated and annoying my friends to read and find typos.

The process of writing a book seems complicated. What motivates you to keep at it?
Rum. I wager that rum has been the guiding force behind many a classic novel.

Who are your favorite authors and who influenced your writing? Which authors do you recommend to readers?
Crimany! What a list that would be. Ya got a couple hours to read? John Kennedy Toole (fuckin’ cornholed by brain-dead publishing houses) Dan Simmons (one of the best) Neal Stephenson, Elmore Leonard, John MacDonald, H.L. Mencken, Repairman Jack Huzzah!, Dan Jenkins, Carl Hiaason, Christopher Moore, Warren Murphy (read the damn ‘Trace’ books if you want to laugh) the list goes on and on.

Can you offer a glimpse into your “real life” and share with us a bit of your personal life—Outside of writing, what’s important to you (i.e., hobbies, passions, causes, family)?
I have a daughter in college who I annoy. I live waaaaay out in the woods and use a satellite (piece of shit that is about one nannnysecond faster than dial-up). I’m selling out and buying a sailboat so I can drift from bar-to-bar along the coast and drink…shit! I mean write.

Tell us something surprising about you and/or something very few people know about you.
I’m really a nice guy who has nothing but love and affection for my fellow man… fellow humanoids I meant.

What book is next?
How to sink a sailboat.

I don’t know man, I’m ambivalent about this book. Yes, it’s well written. Too well written for my tastes. For one thing, it’s one of those new-fabgled ‘Tall’ books that sell for ten-bucks. This one is 520 pages. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but many books now are full of long, excruciatingly boring and unnecessary scene description. I think the rat-bastard publishers are forcing the writer to pad their books with inconsequential swill to justify the high cost of the books. The greedy pig-fuckers are having the shit printed in China by slaves who work for a handful of rice. They print ‘em and ship ‘em over here for a criminally low per-unit cost. We know the author ain’t getting any of that money. Crap…anyway, back to the book. yes, it’s a good book. It has a good pace, with plenty of action and plenty of momentum.  The plotting was handled deftly, and the ending was satisfying. But the plot lynchpin did not seem, to deserve this epic treatment. Can the guy write, yes. Can he tell a story, yes. My recommendation—it’s a toss-up.

In my search for the ultimate cheese dip, I tried hundreds of variations—they all fell short of that orgasmic cheese-dippy experience a 220-pound, six-foot-four-inch humanoid seeks from birth. I never found it, but an acquaintance did. His name is Jeff and I have him (or more likely, his lovely wife) to thank for this culinary delight.

TACO BEAN DIP

1 1/2 pound Hamburger (ground chuck)
2 pkgs Taco Mix
1 16 oz can Tomato Sauce
1 8oz Can Refried Beans

Directions:
Fry hamburger, drain and mix all above contents together.
In 9” x 13” pan start w/Hamburger Mix
add
1 16oz Sour Cream
1 Pound Sharp Cheddar Cheese on top

Place in pre-heated oven set to 375° until cheese is melted. Serve with dip style fritos.

Don’t thank me now. Wait until you’ve experienced the joy of the Ultimate Cheese Dip!

So it’s not a ‘Book Review’ it’s a comicbook review. But it’s not just a comicbook review, it’s a funniest-comicbook-ever-printed review. So there.

Marc Evanier is the writer, and just the poems he writes before every episode are enough to make me…and I know people say this all the time, but the freakin’ poems make me laugh out loud. Then things only get worse. Sergio Aragones, the artist, is the absolute master. Groo is just plain funny. Funny beyond my ability to even describe.  Aragones and evanier are the greatest comic duo since… well, they’re just the greatest. Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Groo The Wanderer. Okay, I’m outta here for some cheese dip.

Heh! What abunch a maroons. Whining about why I don’t offer up solutions with my diatribes.

Well, here it is.

I ain’t no socialist, commie, commune-livin’ dickweed. I’m all for capitalism. Make all the damn money you can. It’s a naturally effective motivator. Couple that greed with a parcel of the finest real estate on earth, and you have America

A place where you can be sent off to war, come home, and have your kid put in prison for eight years because he had a joint. And you tolerate it. Heroin is an additive substance. getting drunk can be addictive. Now, take your spindly ass out and make five, eight, ten grand cash, all at once. A big wad of cash in your pocket. Now tell me about addiction. I’ve done it and it’s a fucking rush. All you want is to do it again.

What’s the point? Every freakin’ harebrained, inbred imbecile we elect is either a rich lawyer or a rich asshole. It’s a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Them assbags are looking to make money. Pure and simple.

You want to fix things. Leave the wealthy alone to amass and hoard, but stop them and the lawyers from holding public office. Ban the fuckers from government. Or do you really think that an unnatural affinity for living off the fruits of others labor and amassing great sums of money is the ultimate qualification for manning the helm of the sinking ship of state?

Elect some people who like to think of something other than byzantine investments. Take advice from someone other than their accountant. read something other than the Wall Street Journal.

That’s a start to a solution.

That’s right, we can win this oil dependency! We can make Amurrica strong again. Har! Apply those words to rich, elitest assbag A or rich, elitest assbag B in the coming caricature of an American election. Hillary- “God bless the rich” bitch. Obama—rich, liebag lawyer, Harvard piece of shit. McCain, rich, scumbag. Is it any wonder why less than twenty per-cent of Americans bother to come out and vote for shitball A or B? These politicians are a different species. They’ve never worried about paying an electric bill. They’ve never worried about anything but who’s next in line to screw royally on a business deal. And once elected, the only thing they worry about is how far they can push the mob before it goes batshit and starts chopping off their heads French Revolution style. Shillary-$pent $200 million, Oscama $pent $200 million, McGoon - $pent $200 million…and the freakin’ election hasn’t even started yet. The damn job pays $800,000 or thereabouts; and these liebags aren’t owned? Big biz ain’t installed a joystick controller in their ass? Who says the great mass of lumbering humanoids don’t deserve exactly what they get.

That’s why we need grass roots solutions. The illegal population is an untapped resource. Hook them hobos up like a team of clydesdales and bring on the rickshaws.

Now I know all you self-absorbed yuppie pinheads are spitting your latte all over your fancy sandals right now. Making aghast exclamations at how insensitive this is—that’s why I do it. Heh! Heh! I’ve watched those illegals get cornholed, and it’s by their own people. They sneak over here with nothing. No papers, no English skills, no bank account, nothing. Their own people gather ‘em in, charge ‘em out for 8 bucks an hour per head, cash the check on Friday and give them five bucks an hour. Ain’t capitalism grand! I know some of the assholes who do it. I do high-end carpentry occasionally and they pester me to hire their slaves. I don’t. I saw one guy slice off four fingers and his Mexican compadre got him sewed up, gave him a grand and had him on a bus back to Mexico the same day. “Cost of bidness,” he said. First hand witness I am, of that and a lot more. It’s a vicious cycle of cornholing those least able to withstand it. The rich builders like it because that three-hundred-thousand dollar home they screwed you on, which costs about a hundred to build costs them even less in labor. That’s why builders are all republicans. The democrats like illegals because the lower income immigrants who managed to get here legally or become legal all vote for them — they promise healthcare to pay for the nineteen children they somehow manage to produce.

“Ohhhh! That crack about the children is over the line!” No, it’s an exaggeration, but someone needs to be logical. The illegals come over here and get just a hair more than the handful of sand they were making over there and they get this false sense of prosperity, financial security. Time to start a big family! Except our fearless leaders don’t plan for future prosperity, don’t innovate, don’t take advice and don’t think. All they do is work on that next million. Oil crisis. Watch an episode of ‘The Saint’ in black&white from the 1960’s. look real close at the cars, they’re about the size of a golf cart. Fifty years ago! Their gas has always been four-times the cost of ours. Our imbeciles give tax breaks to SUV buyers…FOR BUSINESS FLEETS!

So that’s why I built that offensive logo at the top of this post; because it’s funny, because it bothers you, and because it’s one way to tell you to fuck off—go read gluehuffington.com.

I like all of Westlake’s work. The John Dortmunder series is uniformly well done and packs a reliable stream of laughs. Good behavior…well, that one is freakin’ hilarious. I’m only a quarter of the way through. I’ll finish tonight. If, I can keep from herniating myself laughing. HOLY SHIT! This one has me laughing out loud. Consistently. Dortmunder’s narrator is in full-out-comic-mode here. This so far ranks up there with some of the funniest books I’ve read.

This was my first reading of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series and it is easily apparent I have been missing some fine writing. I’m not a big fan of the million big-dick cop novels out there. I enjoy a select few, usually those spiced with some humor. If they are dark, and depressing, and full of moralistic bullshit, I pass. This book, A morning For Flamingos is none of those, nor does it have the overt humor I enjoy. What it has is some fine characterization of Dave Robicheaux as a fragile human being, a caring human being, and the kind of cop I wish really existed.

I listened to the audio version, and at first I did not care for the narrator, but the story kept me and after the first disc I found I liked that narrator more and more. And, the dang book kept getting better. Not ramped up, adrenaline-soaked action, but understated storytelling that exceeds all my requirements for an enjoying story. I recommend this without reservation, and I’m picking up a few more of Burke’s works on my next adventure into a real town.