Tag: 1970s

Science Fiction Double Feature

Lips! Lips! We want lips!

The first time I went to a midnight movie1 was when I was either eighteen or nineteen. I still lived in Kansas then, and the midnight movie was playing at the old movie theater on Sixth Street that was rarely open other than for some special occasion. They’d been doing midnight movies for a while before I went that first time, and I was going with a co-worker who promised me I was going to have an amazing time. I wasn’t so sure. The line outside the Granada Theater was a bizarre sight–many of them dressed up freakishly, and a lot of them were carrying paper bags full of stuff, which I also thought was odd.

I was about to watch, and experience, The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time.

I had no idea what was to come.

At the late night, double feature, picture show…

The crowd started chanting for “lips” as the lights in the theater went down, and then I saw what they were chanting for, as two bright red lips appeared on the black screen and started singing as everyone cheered….and started shouting responses to the opening credits.

And I liked the song.

What followed was ninety-eight minutes of insanity. I had never heard of an “interactive” movie before, and it really caught me off guard. How did people know what to yell, and when to yell it? They sang along with the movies, and I soon was caught up in it; getting sprayed with water, ducking out of the way of flying pieces of toast and toilet paper and tampons, and it was all so delightfully subversive in terms of questioning gender and sexuality. You still couldn’t swear on prime time television shows, and you definitely couldn’t say “sex” (I always hated the coy and cheesy ways television writers came up with as a workaround).

And then of course, there was Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-n-furter.

I’d never seen anything like that before in my life…and I howled with laughter as he removed his robe to reveal what he was wearing beneath, and several people shouted in unison, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Liza Minnelli!”

And after ninety-eight minutes of madness and mayhem, I was a convert. I walked out of the theater with my head still reeling from all the subversion a still moralistic 1970’s American culture had taught me was wrong on every level, disgusting sin and decadent morality, and I wanted more.

I bought the soundtrack shortly thereafter, both vinyl and eight-track, and it didn’t take long for me to have the entire thing memorized. I don’t remember seeing it again while I lived in Kansas–we moved to California shortly thereafter–but I did discover the theater in Fresno that showed it, and I started going weekly. It was more of a production in Fresno–people dressed up and acted out the parts in front of the screen (they tried to recruit me once to play Brad, but I said no; it would be over another decade before I was comfortable enough to wear only underwear in public; I was really uptight). Eventually, after memorizing the film and soundtrack, learning everything there was to know about the movie and play, I finally stopped going to the midnight movies. HIV/AIDS ripped a lot of the joy out of life in the 1980s for me, and once I was out of the habit of the movie, I was out of the habit and looked back on it as a past experience with nostalgia and joy.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the perfect amount of subversion at precisely the right time for me. It opened a world of possibilities to me, but at the same time, it made me very aware that I needed, more than anything else, to get out of Kansas. Much as I loved the movie, those memories of seeing it that first time–and the self-actualization and realization that came in its wake–are also tied up with my growing misery and dissatisfaction with living in Kansas. It’s also tied to discovering actual queer people in Fresno, and recognizing that even this little bit of subversion, something I could go see with the straight friends without any questions or fears, kept me going through the early 1980s as everything started turning even darker than they had ever been in Kansas.

Watching it on television just isn’t the same, either.

But the movie always holds a special place in my heart–and I imagine it does with many other queers for whom it proved an awakening of their true freak selves–and I became a lifelong fan of all the stars, whose careers and successes I followed…but one is now dead to me forever, and Her Name Must Not Be Uttered….and her being in the film has also kind of tainted its legacy with me.

But seriously, what a great movie. I may write an essay about the movie someday, you never know!

  1. I’m not counting the night of the senior prom, when the school districts got together and got the Twin Theaters (I think that was the name) to show a midnight movie to keep us all out of trouble. It was Smokey and the Bandit, by the way. ↩︎

Midnight at the Oasis

…so put your camel to bed.

Work at home Friday, and I am delighted to have made it through another week, which was at the least bizarre and at most a really screwy one. Next week will be screwy, too, because of July 4th, but oh, well. I am taking the 5th off too so I can have a four-day weekend next weekend, which means more organizing and getting rid of things. I am going to do some more book pruning this weekend, and am going to dump more files, too. My end goal is to stop using the shelves in the laundry room for book storage and turn it into an overflow pantry, with extra stuff moved in there to clear out cabinets and so forth. I have some errands to run later today and more errands to run tomorrow; but I am hoping to make progress.

Paul was late getting home last night–he had meetings, and then stayed at the office during the massive thunderstorm that rolled through here last night. I didn’t get much done last night after I got home because I got very tired in the late afternoon and after getting the mail, I just basically collapsed into my easy chair and played with Sparky. Again, I couldn’t focus on reading, but I am hoping to finish Horror Movie this weekend and start Hall of Mirrors. The US Gymnastic Team Trials for the Olympics are this weekend, so we’ll be spending some time watching that, of course–I keep forgetting the Olympics are this summer–and I had another breakthrough on the new book last night, so I guess I can claim that I wrote last night–thinking and planning counts as writing, after all, and am getting a bit more excited about what I am doing with it, and the imposter syndrome seems to be taking a back seat at long last. I also have to do one more pass on that short story, which is due on Sunday.

I also need to bang out some more Pride Posts, which will finally come to an end on the 4th of July, and I have some plans and thoughts for that final post, too.

Something I just realized last night during my thinking session in my chair was that this weird nostalgia kick I’ve been on since Mom passed was naturally triggered by that (and all the conversations I’ve had with Dad about their early life together and his childhood) and of course, by the fact that I am writing two “historicals” in a row, both set in periods I lived through so I am trying to remember what it was like; how it felt to be gay in New Orleans during the early 1990s, and of course a lot of immersion into the early 1970s. I’ve already decided to set the book in 1994–the year my life actually truly began–so trying to remember what was where and what the city was like back then has also been flooding me with memories. The kids at work have also been asking questions about my life and past.

That, along with some other things I’ve been noticing lately, also has had me thinking deep thoughts. There was a social media post about becoming a daddy, and how people in my generation and the one right after…well, we didn’t really have a lot of men a lot older than me that were out in the 1990s to serve as mentors and/or guides to the community. HIV/AIDS had killed off a good number of them, leaving a void amongst the survivors without that oral history of the community being passed from generation to generation. There was a conversation about “role models” somewhere the other day, which is something I never wanted to be or ever thought I could be, and I’ve actively avoided it. Hanging out with and bonding with the Queer Crime Writers at conferences over the last few years was marvelous, and I actually started feeling like a part of the queer writing community again. That has also made me realize that while twenty years or so may have passed since my first publication–twenty-four in August, actually–I have done a lot, written a lot, and been nominated for a shit ton of awards, both queer and mainstream. (Hell, next year will be the twentieth anniversary of Katrina; which means it’s been almost as long ago as Betsy was when I started coming here) I’ve lasted a long time, if nothing else, and that longevity has to count for something, right? I don’t think I am the most prolific queer writer (I think Neil Plakcy and Mark Zubro are more prolific than I am, at least with the crime writers, anyway), but I have been around for a very long time, with minor breaks of a year or so here and there. Like it or not, I’ve become a community elder, and I intend to try to be better about helping out queer writers and lending a hand when I can.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Friday, Constant Reader, and I’ll most likely be back later on.

Hollywood Swinging

Everybody is a star in Hollywood!

Or so the song by the Village People would have us believe, at any rate.

I’m not sure what it is about Hollywood, movies, and stars that draws gays like moths to an outdoor night light, but there you have it. We’ve fallen in love with movie stars and made them into icons–and interestingly enough, we always seem to like the same ones for the most part–Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Judy, Liza, Barbra, Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and so on; almost like there’s some kind of weird genetic link between the majority of gay cisgender white men that draws us all to the same things, so much that even straight people know who the women are that we idolize.

Why this is the case, I have no idea. But gay men have also significantly impacted how we as a society and culture look at men’s bodies, too–see previous post about how what was considered sexy in a man began changing in the 1970s, and continued evolving until what gay men (theoretically) found hot was what everyone considered hot for a man.

When I was a kid it was also believed that bodybuilders were mostly gay, too–because only gay men had the free time to develop and work their bodies…so the gay male attraction to muscular fit men was enough for society to say that about bodybuilders. (I have always appreciated bodybuilders aesthetically, but they leave me cold. They are so not sexy, despite the skimpy bikinis they pose in (gay men were also, for a long time, the only ones who weren’t competitive swimmers who wore speedos), and they never really have been.

But gay photographers began making bank in the late 1940s and 1950s by launching “physique magazines” as a cover for gay eroticism; they would find incredibly handsome men with worked out bodies and photograph them in “classical” poses. This dodge was how they got around pornography and postal obscenity charges; no visible penises, and the men were always posed like classical paintings or statuary to “show off their physiques”. Some of the men who posed for these photographers often did so early in their careers (Yul Brynner was one of many who did these kind of photo shoots to pay the bills), and never really hid their past as physique models–but they also didn’t bring it up much. Nudes for a male (or scantily dressed at least) weren’t as big an issue as they were for women; but male nudes weren’t exactly a boost to one’s career.

The gorgeous Ed Fury, who did some Hercules/hero type roles in movies in the 50s/60s

These old photos–and 8 mm physique films that were sold to private viewers–are astonishing to come across in the modern day and leaves so much to be explained1. Hollywood has always done a great job about covering up the same-sex attractions and predilections of movie stars; look at Randolph Scott and Cary Grant’s five years living together, or any number of other male stars. I’ve started looking into this a bit more because it’s all research for Chlorine, and it’s a plot point in the book. (It also gave me an idea for another noir, called Obscenity.) It’s very fascinating to me. The more I learn about Hollywood, and how things worked, and how rife with homosexuality that the studio assiduously kept secret, the more interested I am in those decades when studio bosses held all the power, when their fixers went around cleaning up after their stars, and the secret homosexuality just out of view there. Tab Hunter, Rock Hudson, and of course, the agent who represented all the beautiful boys: Henry Willson, who more than anything else is a tragic figure that I can’t help feeling sorry for, despite how awful he actually was…I am more willing to give queers forgiveness because of the toxic times they lived in and how they had to survive. (Roy Cohn, on the other hand, can burn in hell right next to J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson) Reading The Man Who Made Rock Hudson, a very well written biography of Willson, really made me feel sorry for him in many ways and understand perhaps why he was so damned awful.

It was also the times.

William J. Mann, by the way, has done some excellent queer Hollywood history non-fiction, if you want to a good place to start reading up on it.

I’m really looking forward to doing more research on physique magazines.

  1. This was the birth of gay porn, really, which makes it all the more interesting to me. ↩︎

How Do You Do

Good morning! How is everyone feeling on this day after the holiday? I feel good, actually, and very well-rested this morning and ready to get through my last day in the officer for the week, which feels kind of weird. I did some more thinking about writing yesterday, primarily how to structure the second chapter so we learn more about the main character’s past without getting bored, which is always the worry. I also cleaned up and did chores around here, so tomorrow I won’t be playing catch-up on everything heading into the weekend. I still have Monday off, which is going to be another lovely at-home day–and will shorten the week dramatically, which is nice.

Paul worked at home yesterday but rarely came downstairs; it’s weird how we can both be home all day and not see each other a lot. We need our plumber to come in and do some repair work; the sink upstairs isn’t draining, there’s an issue with the shower, and of course the garbage disposal/dishwasher situation needs resolving as well, which will be great to get all fixed now. Yay! It’s just a matter of when Randy has time to come out and work on it all.

I read for a while yesterday morning; Horror Movie is quite good, and am looking forward to spending some more time with it this weekend. I also should be reading queer writers this month, and it does not speak well of me that it took me this long into the month to realize and recognize that. Bad gay, bad gay! I will resolve that by reading the new John Copenhaver, and I may make July my Queer Reading Month. I also worked on one of my Pride posts yesterday but didn’t finish it. I’ll try to get another one done today–International Male catalogues would be a good one, especially since they are no longer in business; it’s an important part of gay male fashion history, isn’t it? I did spend a good part of the day watching old “what the 1970s were like” videos–pop culture and some news, mostly; but it’s nice to be reminded of things like old commercial jingles, or what fast food work uniforms looked like, and what movies/television shows were being released and were in the zeitgeist.

In other “Louisiana is becoming a Puritan dictatorship” news, our shitbird governor signed a bill requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom in the state. Never mind that Roy Moore tried this shit in Alabama only to get slapped around for it by SCOTUS, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the Christofascists running that branch of the government would uphold this law. The idiocy of this, not only on a Constitutional level but a Christian one as well; it’s basically apostasy and everything Jesus warned about in the New Testament, but of course all the people who think they are decent human beings only because of a fear of going to hell are also into ostentatious displays of their faith–because it is so hollow no one will know they are Christians from how they behave and how they treat people, which is how you are supposed to bear witness.

Not to mention that they should believe that they have a new covenant with God through Jesus, and the Old Testament’s rules and edicts about behavior are the old covenant; so why would you show your devotion to Christ by displaying relics of the old one? Which Jesus had nothing to do with it? Again, it’s very hard to take Christians seriously when they don’t even understand their own faith, you know?

Not to mention there will be lawsuits–which Governor Landry “can’t wait” to be sued. Um, that’s Louisiana taxpayer money you will be using to defend these unconstitutional laws, and while his Bible-thumping is playing well with the racist cosplay Christians of the state, the ones who’ve never read or studied their Bible but do what their preacher says, I’m going to say his popularity will undoubtedly crest within the next two years and people are going to start turning on him, as they did with Bobby Jindal. Louisiana votes may not be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but they eventually see through charlatans who tell them what they want to hear and do nothing for them. Jindal and David Vitter both found that out the hard way.

And hilariously, they don’t even follow the Ten Commandments themselves. What is a cross if not a graven image? How many of them take the Lord’s name in vain (which isn’t saying god damn it or Jesus fucking Christ, but rather false prayer or using the Lord’s name for something false–like claiming to know God’s will)? How many of them bear false witness? How many of them honor their parents? How many of them condone or look the other way from adultery? And on and on it goes; in fact, placing the Ten Commandments in classrooms–indoctrination–is actually taking the Lord’s name in vain.

So many “christians” (like our governor) love to take the Lord’s name in vain and are in for a big shock when they reach the pearly gates and find out they were self-righteous, not righteous in the Lord.

And yes, I speak evangelical.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Roll Away the Stone

Saturday morning and Sparky flatly refused to let me sleep in this morning, but in fairness, I got a little more than an hour of extra sleep. My back feels a bit stiff this morning, but I do feel rested, and the coffee will most likely clear the cobwebs. I have to run to the grocery store today, and that may be all I need to leave the house for today, which is perfectly fine with me. It looks beautiful outside, but I am sure it is the usual forecast for New Orleans: hot, humid, chance of rain. I haven’t looked at the hurricane center yet to see what’s going on with the tropical systems trying to form, but I’ll most likely do that once I’ve finished this.

Yesterday was a nice work-at-home day. I did pick up the mail (got my copy of James Polchin’s Shadow Men, a queer true crime case from the 1920s, which is all kinds of awesome). After I finished working for the day, Paul and I finished watching season 3 of Bridgerton, which we both greatly enjoyed, before moving on to The Acolyte and the new season of The Boys, which is its last. I did some writing–I started pulling the novella apart, in order to do an outline and get a better idea about how to expand it; I actually want to start writing today, if I could be so lucky, I also intend to spend some time reading today; I need to reread some things I have in progress, and would also like to get started on my next read, Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, which I am really looking forward to; Tremblay is one of my favorite writers. I also want to get the house cleaned up some, as well as make a grocery run at some point in the afternoon. (We don’t need much, really, but really need what I have to get.)

I also worked on my body culture pride post, which actually has now turned into quite a lengthy personal essay; so much so that I may not ever post it here. The essay itself can go on my Substack; I’ve been putting the Pride posts there as well as here because, I don’t know, it just seemed like a better place for them–which seemed silly to post them in both places. Last night, the recognition that the essay was probably a Substack only post made me think about what I am doing with a Substack and a blog, and last night I realized that I should use the Substack for longer form personal essays and keep the blog as it has always been; a daily report on my life and the occasional discussion of a book, television show, or film I’ve greatly enjoyed; the reviews might go in both places, too. I think I can still make the body culture post, but the essay will have to be whittled down and revised; maybe I should do it from the perspective of life lessons learned from getting in shape and actually working as a personal trainer. (Again, seeing that turn into a longer form essay even as I talk about it here and think about it as I type.) Writing these is also an exercise in memory for me, which also is kind of helpful as I am researching the early 1970s in the Chicago suburbs.

I have to admit I greatly enjoyed season three of Bridgerton. Penelope has been one of my favorite characters since the show started, and I’ve always deeply empathized with her as she was ignored, made fun of it, and made to feel invisible. It made sense for her to be Lady Whistledown, and the choice given to her by the show–either Lady Whistledown or the love of her life–was very cleverly done. I wanted her and Colin to resolve everything and get their happily ever after, but I didn’t think it was fair she had to give up who she was in order to get it, you know? This season really emphasized how shitty life really was for these society women during that period, and I’ve always been fond of the actress who plays her mother (she was magnificent in Rome as Atia of the Julii), and this season gave her a chance to really shine as well, as she realized the daughter she always overlooked and never thought would amount to anything was actually the true jewel of her children–and who made the best match in the end. (I also predicted the end several episodes in, involving the Featherington money and title.) It was, all in all, very well done, and I think it may be my favorite of all the seasons, and precisely because Nicola Coughlin is such a compelling actress. It’s nothing serious, of course; Bridgerton is a light fluffy confection, meant to look beautiful and present this wonderful tapestry of what Regency England could have been like, and who doesn’t love a tricky romance with obstacles that must be overcome?

I’ve always wanted to write a romance, but in all honesty am not really sure if I can. I think I’ll put that on the writing agenda for 2025. Why not try? It would most definitely be a challenge to write, and I always prefer challenges.

And on that note, I am going to finish this, get another coffee, and get my day underway. Have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on. I’m tricky like that. 🙂

This is NOT why I am a football fan, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. 🙂

A Cowboy’s Work is Never Done

Sunday morning, after a gloomy rainy day (marvelous thunder and downpours off and on all day) where I pretty much just stayed indoors. I walked over to get the dry cleaning in the morning, and by the time I got back it was starting to sprinkle, and shortly after I came inside the floodgates opened. I curled up in my chair and read The Rival Queens for a while, then Paul got up and we finished watching Bodkin, which I enjoyed but didn’t care for the ending too much, after which we watched LSU lose to North Carolina (fourth ranked; LSU is number 24 and was only ranked after the SEC tournament, so no disgrace there, and they play to stay in the regional again today, against Wofford again. After the game we started Anthracite, a new French show on Netflix that is kind of off-kilter and very interesting. I did some writing in my journal, and I did do some chores around the house so it wasn’t a wash of a day, and really, who cares if it was? I really need to stop being so down on myself and recognize that sometimes I need downtime just like everyone else. I do want to do some things today, though–the whole day can’t be downtime, for sure. I also slept really well last night, for ten hours, which is insane. I am sleeping a lot lately and getting very good sleep, which has been lovely.

I have decided to do the occasional Pride blog post, about “things that made me realize I was gay” growing up, or things that I appreciated that probably were indicative of my sexual orientation from a very early age. Revisiting that dark closeted teenage space for this book hasn’t been terrific, but I think it will also help me deal with it, frankly. The 1970s are also an interesting time to go back to, as well, trying to dredge up memories that are long lost in the dark dusty recesses of my brain. I started a couple of said pride posts yesterday–one about The Other and one about Starsky and Hutch (which was really the first modern himbo show; more on that later)–and am thinking about other ones. My favorite gay anthems? I don’t know. But this year it seems very important to celebrate Pride–and shove it down the throats of the MAGA traitors and their evangelical cosplay Christian allies (looking at you, Mike the Self-righteous Johnson). After all, I can’t go anywhere without having a fucking cross shoved in my face.

Hey “christians”–more teaching by example and less demonstration of how Christian you are not, what do you think? Maybe then people will stop deserting your houses of worship, because they see the lies, self-righteousness, and utter hypocrisy that masquerades as faith in your befouled churches of blasphemy and apostasy.

It looks sunny outside this morning, so I think perhaps the rains of the last three days have now passed. That’s good, because I do want to go to the gym today to continue my rehabbing of my left arm. I am going to try this morning to get this and at least one other of the Pride posts done today; some writing and some chores, and when that’s all wrapped up I’ll head over to the gym for some rehab, come home and get cleaned up, and then read some more. I think I may stay away from LSU’s games today; if they beat Wofford again they face North Carolina again at six pm, for two games in one day, which is rough–and much as I love my Tigers, I can’t spend the day watching baseball, either.

And I am excited about writing again. It’s a lovely feeling. I’m not sure entirely what all I want to accomplish at this point other than trying to get the work done, but I definitely can get it all done if I keep my nose to the grindstone and keep working. I’m on my own schedule, so the only person being hurt if I take a day or so off from writing is me.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably see you again later today.

Enchanted

Sunday morning! And LSU Gymnastics won the national championship yesterday! Woo-hoo! That accomplishment is worthy of its own post, so tune in later for that, okay? It was very exciting, I have to say, and the Lost Apartment was filled with excited cheers even as we held our breath as LSU clinched it all with a fantastic final rotation on balance beam. We kind of celebrated this throughout the night by watching replays and highlights before episode two of Sugar, which I am loving. Colin Ferrell, yum.

I was very tired Friday from running all those errands, and so was Paul. I was still fatigued yesterday, the physical and mental kind that I’ve not felt in a while–but sadly more evidence that my stamina is not back and needs to be worked on. The heat is also back; yesterday was pleasant, but Friday was eighty-eight degrees…in April. That doesn’t bode well for the summer, especially for one that’s going to be a more active hurricane season. But while I was so tired yesterday I managed to use what little nervous energy I had to clean and organize, and the apartment actually looks better this morning. It’s still not up to par–I need to do the floors to get there–but it’s nice to walk down to a neater first floor. I do need to run the dishwasher this morning, and finish filing before I read and write for the day. I do feel a little dragged out this morning, but hopefully getting caffeinated and cleaned up will take care of that problem.

I did do some things writing-related yesterday. I found the epigraphs for the next Scotty book, for one, and also wrote the opening of The Crooked Y in my head yesterday as I cleaned and organized. I created some working folders for projects that are forming in my head, and I did write notes down in my journal occasionally. I also did some electronic file cleaning up, which is proving to be an endless, endless process that may never be finished. But as long as I can still search for everything in a finder window, it should be okay. I also thought of how to open The Summer of Lost Boys, too. I’ve been listening to the Billboard Top 100’s for the years I am considering setting the book in, and I think I am settling into 1974, which was when I originally wanted it set in the first place, the summer (in my life) between junior high and high school. It’s kind of fun, if a little painful, to go back to that time and remember it for myself, but I think it’s going to be a really strong book once it’s underway. I also started getting the current book a bit better organized. I feel better about things, if that makes any sense? Hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot of writing done. I want to finish the rewrite of “Passenger to Franklin” and start the revision of “When I Die,” before diving into the book headfirst and trying to get the rest of it plotted.

I think I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately, in all honesty, and I need to get calmed down and focused again. I need to remember how to harness my brain ADHD-driven creativity and focus on one thing the way I used to be able to do so. I have been very pleased with the (sparse) writing I’ve been doing, but I also think that might be partly due to the stamina issues I’ve been having since the surgery. I am trying to rush to get back to “normal” (or what passes for it around here) and getting ahead of myself, and I need to reign in my impatience and take things slower. It’s okay because it’s temporary, and this too shall pass. Take a breath, remember you had a rough go of things last year, and you have to build everything back to the point it was before the injury.

I’ve also been remiss in not congratulating award winners lately in my field; I am very pleased to report that J. M. Redmann won the Hansen Prize for queer crime fiction for Transitory, which is now also a Lambda finalist AND a two category Goldie finalist. Yay Jean! I’ve known Jean for almost twenty-five years now, she was my boss’s boss for about eighteen years, we’ve co-edited anthologies together, and now I am her book editor. Transitory is a terrific book, and being Jean’s editor is pretty easy, actually. Ivy Pochoda recently won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best Crime Novel for Sing Her Down, and Ivy is pretty awesome, too. I am behind on her books (I’m behind on everyone’s books, really) but her Wonder Valley was fan-fucking-tastic. Way to go, Ivy! (That was a loaded category, too–other nominees were S. A. Cosby, Cheryl Head, Jordan Harper, and Lou Berney.)

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines, eat something and get cleaned up and ready to go for this glorious morning. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat at you again later.

Wax and Wane

Thursday and last day in the office for the week. I was very tired yesterday, despite not working on Tuesday, and so when I got home I didn’t do a whole lot of anything. No chores, nothing of that sort. I didn’t even read anything! The heat and humidity have returned and it was so miserable when I went out to the car after work yesterday that I felt drained by the time I got into the coolness of the Lost Apartment. I slept decently last night–not great, but restful, waking up a couple of times throughout the evening, but I feel a bit groggy this morning, which is also fine. I think we have a fairly light schedule today at the office and I have some other things I need to get done around seeing my clients. But I’ve almost made it through another week, survived it all, and now we’re at another three-day weekend, which is lovely. I have a lot of work to get done around here this weekend, so the extra day is going to be super great to have.

I need to get caught up on my emails–which won’t take nearly as long as it used to, because I don’t get nearly as much as I once did, which is kind of nice. It’s not that I consider email to be an odious chore or anything, and it’s not like I get problem emails anymore (thank God; I no longer cringe and cower and have to steel myself before pulling up my email), but there’s also not as much urgency with them anymore, either. The decline in the amount as well as the not-quite-as-urgent sensibility of it has resulted in my being pretty lazy about it. (My email provider also recently changed a lot, which is irritating because I don’t like the way it looks now and it wasn’t an improvement to make it easier to use; the Spotify app on my phone recently did the same thing. The lovely thing about technology is the constant need to have to relearn how to fucking use it. That was sarcasm font, by the way.)

So, rather than being my usual lazy self and wasting time finding things on Youtube (primarily to see if they are there), lately as I sit in the easy chair with a purring kitty in my lap I’ve been trying to do some research, that hopefully will stick in my head. Mostly I’ve been looking up videos about the HUAC and Confidential magazine in the 1950s, among other things for that period–also beefcake and peplum–as research for Chlorine. I’m also digging into the 1970’s–mostly music and pop culture, along with historical stuff from the decade–because I want to write a book called The Summer of Lost Boys, which has been simmering in my head since the earliest days of the pandemic. I’m leaning towards setting it in 1975–the summer I turned fourteen and started my sophomore year of high school. It has some potential I think, and while the idea is still amorphous up there in the clouds in my brain, I really like the idea and think it could be a really good book…but I really want to get these two noirs done in first draft this summer. If the heat and humidity doesn’t wear me down too much, I should be able to get both drafts finished by the end of summer.

Unless I get lazy, which is always a possibility. The heat seriously doesn’t help, either. But the thing I always forget is the best thing to do when you get home from work in New Orleans in the summer is take another shower and get cleaned up. I sleep better and I feel better and it generally results in me being a lot more productive. I need to do laundry tonight, put away dishes, and reload the dishwasher, and I am going to start rereading this book that I am about to revise per my editorial letter (I still will be getting one for Mississippi River Mischief, too) and I want to finish reading my book, which I’ve stalled out on now for a couple of weeks…but I need to finish it if I want to move on to my AMAZING TBR pile. I have some errands to run tomorrow morning, too, before starting in on my work-at-home duties, and after that–I am hoping to not leave the house again until Tuesday when I return to work. It would be nice to get some more de-cluttering done this weekend, but I also want to relax, write, and read a lot.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. May you have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will see you again tomorrow.

Rocks Off

That’s a rather charming title for a blog post, isn’t it? As you may have noticed, I generally pick a list of songs to use as titles for the blog, and I am currently (perhaps obviously) now working my way through the Rolling Stones’ extensive discography, which will occasionally provide something a little off-color (the best was the Pet Shop Boys; every song title sounds like a great essay title about gay life), like today. Today’s title just makes me think of sex and “getting your rocks off”; I don’t think I am familiar with the actual song, in all honesty, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the gist of the song.

Whatever gets your rocks off, man.

Ah, the 1970s were such a different time, weren’t they? I’ve been going down a lot of 1970s wormholes lately, not just for the sake of the nostalgia afforded (all those lovely memories of the Top Forty AM stations in Chicago, WLS and WCFL, that I grew up with; WGN before it became a nation-wide cable channel) but because it’s also a bit of research, you see. Yes, after I finish writing the book I am writing and editing the one I turned in last month and then editing the one I am turning in at the end of this month, I plan on writing Chlorine and a different book I’ve been planning for a while, but after that I am thinking about a 1970’s book–or a romance; I can’t decide which I would prefer to do next. Romance is a whole new ball game for me, which is part of the appeal, but then I look at Romancelandia on Twitter and think, yeah, not so sure I want to go swimming with those sharks. I’m not even sure what precisely is going on in that world anymore, either; I don’t know if RWA ever recovered from the “burn it all to the ground” December of 2019, and I think Romantic Times has also gone away? It’s funny, though, every time I dip my toes into the waters of another genre something inevitably will run me screaming back to crime fiction, my publishing safe space as it were. I do feel like doing something completely different from everything I’ve done already–it’s always fun and challenging to go in another direction than you usually do, and I think it helps me with my mystery writing, frankly–but I am not sure if a romance is the way to go. I have what I think is a great idea for one, but….it’s not like I haven’t thought that before, either.

Of course, writing what would be best for my career and my “brand” (whatever that may be) never enters my head. Which is probably why I am not a New York Times bestseller and a household name–yeah, that’s why, Greg.

But I went to my doctor’s appointment and am pleased to report that the arm was just a pulled muscle and lingering tendonitis (he added that I should keep it wrapped until the swelling goes does–yes, there is some weird swelling), got my prescriptions refilled, and started the process rolling that will hopefully result in my getting hearing aids at long last. My weight was high, but my blood pressure was also fine and all vitals were good, so…yay for that at any rate. And now I find myself home earlier than usual and more time to work on my writing than I ordinarily would, so hurray! I also got Art Taylor’s new short story collection The Adventures of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions, from Crippen and Landru (order direct from them! It’s better for everyone!), which is very exciting–Art is one of our best crime short story writers, period, and has won every possible award in crime fiction for short story writing at least once, and I love his work. I started reading Abby Collette’s Body and Soul Food while I waited for my appointment and it’s off to a really good start, which is very cool.

I am really excited about the hearing aids, Constant Reader, you have no idea. I’ve always had trouble hearing conversations in crowded restaurants and whenever there’s ambient noise, and it’s gotten progressively worse as I’ve gotten older. (I smile and nod a lot…) And since I’ve long since stopped caring how I look, who cares if people can see me with my hearing aids in? (I wish I’d stopped caring about that a lot sooner than I did, frankly.) So once I get this done and a load of dishes in the dishwasher and a load of clothes going in the washing machine, I am going to dive headfirst into my book and see what I can get finished today.

So, best to head into the spice mines else I’ll never get started.

Mystified

Monday morning and all is quiet in the Lost Apartment. I am heading back into the office this morning–I have a lot of trainings to get done today, as well as plenty of my own day job work that needs to get finished–and then I hope to come home and get some work on the book done, as well as some cleaning up around here. I made dinner last night and I made chili in the slow cooker, so the sink is full and the counters a bit on the sloppy side. I feel well rested this morning, which is something I’ve noticed happens on Monday mornings now that I have shifted my work-at-home days again; when it was Monday I always somehow woke up tired every Tuesday morning and starting the week off being tired was always unpleasant, as it continued building until the weekend. I think I needed this past weekend to get rest, to be honest; I’ve been feeling a lot of fatigue lately. I’m also worried a bit about burnout, too–I am not feeling 100% this morning, to be honest, but my COVID test was negative, small victories–and I am wondering if it might not be my blood sugar. I’ve noticed lately that my blood sugar sometimes spikes and then wanes, and again, I have to wonder if that has anything to do with my eating habits and so forth. I felt hungry a lot all weekend, yet nothing sounded either appetizing or appealing to eat. I didn’t make dinner on Saturday–I was going to make Salisbury steaks–and so while the chili cooked yesterday I made the steaks. They were good–Paul didn’t have any, he waited for the chili–and then this morning again I felt like my blood sugar was low enough for me to be concerned about it. (the last time I had lab work done it was high; which reminds me, I need to have it done again soon.)

I worked on the book this weekend around my fits of fatigue and television watching; yesterday we watched House of the Dragon (enjoyed), The Serpent Queen (not one of the better ones), and Interview with the Vampire (I was rather disappointed with this episode, which is a shame; I loved how they were doing Claudia when they first introduced her but missed the mark with this one, methinks). We also started watching A Friend of the Family, which led me to remark at some point, “You know, the 1970’s really were awful for the most part, weren’t they? The clothes, the cars, the furniture, the home decor, the hair…everything was a style crime.” Watching this, it’s very hard to imagine that such a thing could happen–there seems to be this sense of innocence in non-urban areas (sorry, but Pocatello, Idaho doesn’t really count to me as an urban area, apologies to Idahoans) that lasted from the 1950’s through the 1970’s so things like this could happen. And while fathers and mothers were always deeply concerned about their daughters’ sexuality and keeping it locked down until they were “safely” married; it would never enter the minds of good Christian people that someone who went to church with them and was a close family friend (although there was some incredibly questionable behavior, and the ‘family friend’–played with just the right dose of charm and smarm by Jake Lacy–really crossed many lines) would be a child molester or a pervert or a sexual deviant; people were sooooo convinced back then that you could actually spot such a person because they were so vile and depraved it had to show; the character I find the most interesting is the family friend’s wife, who was clearly emotionally (if not physically) beaten down by her husband and clearly had what we now call ‘Stockholm syndrom’–that, to me, is the interesting story. How could you write such a story from her perspective and gain the reader’s sympathies and understanding?

Paul is leaving for slightly over a week on Friday and there’s no LSU game this weekend–there are some interesting games on this weekend, but nothing I actually need to watch; I can always check scores and watch highlights if I need to; the big conference games this weekend are Georgia-Florida and Tennessee-Kentucky–no need to watch either, other than they are rivalry games and thus one can never be sure of how might actually win the game; Florida and Kentucky certainly needs the wins more. How wild would that be if both undefeated teams in the East went down to defeat in the same weekend? So, I think I’ll spend the weekend writing, reading and cleaning. I don’t really need to hit the grocery store for much since Paul will be gone, either. We’ll see how much I can get done, and we’ll see how productive my evenings are going to be. Scooter will be much more needy than usual, but rather than just hanging out in my chair and watching tv with him in my lap I can actually watch television in bed when I get home at night…an interesting thought.

I am also enjoying my reread of The Haunting of Hill House, and my God, how much do I love the way Shirley Jackson writes? I think my holy trinity of women writers of dark fiction (I can’t really call Jackson a crime writer, although there’s some terrific overlap) are du Maurier, Jackson, and Mary Stewart. Stewart isn’t really a dark writer, though; I don’t know what to call them but those three women are probably, if I had to pick three, my holy trinity. The Haunting of Hill House is so melancholic and dreamlike; the word choices and the sentence structures and the paragraph construction things of absolute beauty. I also love the character of Nell (I wonder how much she influenced Stephen King in his creation of Carrie?) and how sad and lonely and despondent she is, particularly since she is so young (just past thirty). Then again, at the time it was written that was pretty much middle-age and she would have been considered a spinster.

The weather has turned into the beautiful fall we always enjoy in New Orleans; that we long for yet forget about during those long, hot, damp hideous days of summertime. I am also expecting some things in the mail; an anthology I contributed a story to a very long time ago is supposed to drop this month, and when I met with the Crooked Lane publicist at Bouchercon she told me I’d get my box of author copies in late Halloween; so I am resisting the urge to run to the post office every day just in case. It has been eighteen years since I had a hardcover release of any kind; it’s kind of lovely to have one again after all this time. I need to start posting about the new book a lot more once November 1 pops up on the calendar; as the countdown to the release date draws near I need to amp up the promotion. Does it work? I don’t know, to be honest, and that often makes it hard for me to want to make the effort at all.

And on that note, I need to get cleaned up and head into the spice mines for the day. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I will speak to you again tomorrow morning in the darkness of the predawn.