Tag: Montgomery Clift

How to Bring a Blush to the Snow

Monday, and the 3rd of July. It is back to the office with me today, but of course tomorrow is a day off with pay so this week is going to be weird and off-kilter too. Yay? But this week I have page proofs to go over, errands to run, and a life to get back on track. I feel rather disoriented from being gone for an entire week for a change, which was weird. I did wind up feeling much better yesterday as the day progressed; we made a Costco run in the midst of that dreadful heat advisory (felt like 114) and I also did a lot of laundry. I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded; it isn’t full yet. I am going to try to stay efficient this week, and hope that efficiency–doing the dishes when I get home from work every night, keeping up with the laundry, putting things away rather than let them pile up–is maintained as we move sluggishly through the rest of this blazing hot summer.

We started watching a true crime documentary series last night called The Suspect, and got two episodes in (out of four total). The show is from CBC, and is about a murder and trial in St. John, Nova Scotia. It’s always interesting to watch these shows and see how the police and prosecution actually operate as opposed to the way they do in fiction. It’s actually kind of terrifying, really, and of course, it gave me an idea for a book to go with this great title I came up with in the car the other day.

I’ve also been thinking about my writing and what I want to do with it and where I want to go. I really am not in a place where I should be coming up with new concepts and structures and characters for a new novel when there are already so many in progress around here that I need to finish at some point, not to mention the short stories, too. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I slept so deeply and well last night. I woke up a few times, always afraid that’s the end of the sleep for the night, but I was literally out like the power after a hurricane. And I had no resistance to getting up to the alarm, either. I feel rested, which is wonderful. I wish I could figure out a way to get sleep like that while I am traveling, but I also think I over-caffeinate when I travel, too. I don’t nearly follow my necessary daily routines when I am traveling; I don’t drink nearly as much water and, like I previously said, over-caffeinate. This inevitably results in me becoming dehydrated, and when I am dehydrated I generally don’t get hungry, either, and I often wind up skipping meals and so forth, which means my blood sugar drops precipitously as well. In other words, I need to retrain what I do when I am traveling and/or on the road and take care of myself better than I usually do while away.

I feel terrific this morning and my mood has also significantly improved. I don’t think I’ve completely rehydrated yet, either; but I feel so much better today than I did yesterday that it’s almost like I’m an entirely new person. This is always lovely, frankly. There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep; I just wish I could unlock the secret to getting good rest every night, but no such luck.

We also watched Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, which was okay. If you’ve never read a biography of Hudson, or seen any previous documentaries about his life, there’s nothing much new here. I’ve learned a lot about Rock Hudson doing research for Chlorine–if you’re writing a novel about a closeted gay actor in the 1950’s, who better to read about than Rock?–so this documentary was nothing new for me. It was well done, and I liked that they interviewed his surviving gay exes or gay friends (for the record, I’ve also researched Tab Hunter–whom I met a few times–and Montgomery Clift, Anthony Perkins, and several others. I find that I really like doing research, to be honest. The whole time I was gone at Dad’s I was reading and learning more about Alabama history, which I think will make my future Alabama novels much better than they would have been, and also inspired more ideas for Alabama books.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the rest of the day. It’s been so long since I’ve been at work…anyway, have a great pre-holiday Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

Cathouse Blues

Monday morning and I am off to the office to cover for a co-worker rather than work at home. This works because my work-at-home day this week will be Friday, and then the next week it will be Monday again, so I’ll have four days of not going into the office around my birthday, which is kind of nice. I didn’t have any trouble getting up this morning–I woke up actually at 5:58 and stayed in bed through another two snooze cycles starting at 6, as usual–and now I sit, swilling coffee and feeling awake, as the clock inevitably makes its way to the time when I have to start getting ready to leave for work.

Costco was delivered yesterday, and it really is a remarkable convenience. I still need to run past their actual store one night after work this week–some things can’t be delivered, or they don’t offer them for delivery; it’s also entirely possible they do have the stuff in stock just don’t deliver it and that’s why I want to run by just to make sure. It’ll be an easy in-and-out, and after work one day should do the trick, I would think.

It’s weird going in on Monday morning and getting up so early an extra morning this week–I don’t have to stay the entire shift today, so will most likely leave earlier than I usually do on my day shifts in the office. I suspect we’re going to go back to our old way of doing things in September at last, and I am hoping that means I can swing back around to evening shifts once again–which would be super lovely. An adjustment again, to be sure, but one that should be much easier than adjusting to getting up early every morning, which goes against every grain and fiber of my being.

Heavy sigh.

I didn’t get a lot of writing done this past weekend–not really a surprise, to be honest–but I was pretty worn down by the time the weekend rolled around again, and so I am not terribly surprised I didn’t get a lot of work done this weekend. By the time I got home on Friday I was feeling fatigued already, and of course, I didn’t have much energy the entire weekend, either. Which is fine–I was able to do things that didn’t require much thinking, like cleaning and so forth–and while my mind couldn’t really wrap around reading over the weekend, I did start rereading my Sandman graphic novels, which help make the show even more enjoyable, to be honest; seeing how well the books were adapted into the show–well, I may need to watch the show again because I can’t stop thinking about it and the concepts it explored. It really is an exceptional television experience. We also got caught up on Five Days at Memorial, which I didn’t realize was still airing, so we are caught up on everything available, and we also caught up on American Horror Stories–the last two episodes were vastly superior to the first two, but still, not the greatest–and I also watched The Manchurian Candidate (the original, with Sinatra and Angela Lansbury) for the first time; it was a bit dated, and I also couldn’t help but think how much better it would have been if someone like Montgomery Clift or Paul Newman had played the male lead rather than Sinatra (I’ve never been much of a fan of his acting, really). It was interesting, and of course Paul didn’t see the big twist coming–the Angela Lansbury thing–and she was fantastic. It was also very much of its time–Communist scare, evil Soviet and Chinese Communists, brainwashing–but I’d also like to go back and read the novel on which it was based at some point.

I have an errand to run today after work–picking up a prescription–which is why I am wondering if it would be smart to swing by Costco on my way home; I can catch I-10 right here outside the office and be there in like five minutes, give or take, plus it’s much easier to get uptown from Costco. Decisions, decisions–but why not get it all over with tonight, then go home and shave my head and face for the week? It does make the most sense. Ah, well, no need to decide now.

And on that note, this is my birthday week–I will be sixty-one on Saturday, ee-yikes!–which only bears mentioning (it’s not something I care about excessively, to be honest) because all of my social media will announce it eventually this week at any rate. So I am heading in to the spice mines; y’all have a marvelous Monday!

I Would Have Loved You Anyway

And suddenly, it’s Friday again: WEEKEND EVE!!!!

Late September is a gift Mother Nature gives to New Orleans; one that’s kind of owed to us after the brutality of a normal New Orleans summer. I greatly enjoyed my walk Wednesday afternoon, and walking to the gym after work yesterday was equally marvelous. The gym workout felt incredible; my muscles had clearly been aching to be worked and stretched, and they feel absolutely wonderful this morning. My creativity is slowly coming back–the walk on Wednesday kind of kick-started it all; and I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about this upcoming new series book I have to write, that I am looking forward to writing. First and foremost, as with all my books set in New Orleans, it needs to be more about New Orleans than what I’ve already written on it; I think I am going to spend some time over the next few days revising and rewriting those first four or five chapters to get more of a “New Orleans” feel to them; I think that’s what is missing and why I feel so dissatisfied with them.

I definitely need to reread them, at any rate.

I also need to reread and edit the first three chapters of Chlorine; I’d like to get chapter four written this weekend as well as–if not an actual outline for the rest of the book, than at least– a working synopsis of how it all is going to come together in the end. I am very behind and i need to start getting caught up, even if that means no more lazing around in my easy chair watching documentaries from the BBC/Odyssey about ancient Egypt with a bizarre British Egyptologist/historian with raspberry colored hair as the star–but the woman clearly loves not only history but all things Egypt, so it is very difficult to not get caught up in her enthusiasm about her subject. Each documentary is about an hour, and I’ve not been watching them in order; I’ve watched the one about Amenhotep III and the Armana revolution, as well as the one about the foreign conquerers, leading eventually to the final recognized dynasty of pharaohs, the Ptolemies–who fascinate me; there’s so much more there than the story of the final and most famous Cleopatra (yes, she’s fascinating, but I’ve long been more interested in her sisters/rivals, Berenice and Arsinoë).

I also watched, for the very first time, the original film of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which, surprisingly enough, I’d never seen. I’ve never really been much of a Lana Turner fan (I’ve never had a lot of respect for her as an actress–certainly in Peyton Place and Imitation of Life she never seemed to inhabit her characters and simply followed her director’s orders) and I’ve never really thought she was all that pretty; there was always something artificial about her to me–though the body was definitely stunning. The costume designer was incredibly smart in putting her always into white ensembles, that went with the stiff white hair, and John Garfield was pretty good as the homicidal, lovesick drifter; he had the right “beaten around by life” lived-in look that was perfect for the character. Cecil Kellaway as Cora’s husband was the best performance in the film, really; he stole every scene he was in, but was the movie progressed Turner seemed less stiff and mannered, and Garfield’s performance of a man so driven mad by lust and love that he would cold-bloodedly murder Cora’s husband to be with her (Body Heat was often compared to Double Indemnity, but I think it’s more like Postman, in all honesty). I also felt the changes to the script and to the ending actually worked better than in the book (same with Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce, even though I love Cain as a writer). I also couldn’t help thinking, as I watched, what Marlon Brando or Montgomery Clift could have done with the role of the drifter, and Marilyn Monroe could have done with Cora. (Dream casting: filmed in 1954 with Brando and Monroe; with Karl Malden as the husband–what a film that would have made!) But it’s a very good movie, very well done, and I greatly enjoyed it; it’s definitely a classic. I’ve never seen the remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange, but what a terrific version could be made today, starring someone like Robert Pattinson along with Margot Robbie or Rosamund Pike.

It also got me thinking about noir again, and what fun it is to write, plot, and think about; as well as got me thinking about Laura Lippman’s marvelous Sunburn and everything by Megan Abbott.

I’ve also been, since my walk the other day, thinking about my noir story about the condos built recently on my street, “Condos for Sale or Rent” and so maybe I can squeeze in the time to work on it a bit this weekend…

Big dreams, as always, but at least I am thinking in terms of getting things written again, which is a big step in the right direction.

We also finished watching season two of The Other Two, which is fantastic and has one of the best, most honest and realistic gay characters–struggling actor Cary Dubek–that I’ve ever seen on television. The premise of the season finale–Cary takes a photo of his butthole to send to a potential Grindr hook-up, only he has his camera on LIVE rather than PHOTO, and the little LIVE feature means you can not only see his face at the beginning but you can also hear the flight announcements (he does it in the First Class bathroom on a flight from New York to LA)…and it kind of goes viral. It’s hilarious, and the fact that this is the primary STORY for the gay character in a TV show (granted, it’s HBO MAX) had me impressed for the writers’ willingness to go there, but how fucking funny it all turned out to be.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines, and a happy Friday to all.

Morning Rider on the Road

So, going back to the office wasn’t a terrible experience. We didn’t see any clients yesterday–we’re hoping to get the supplies we need delivered today, so we can get started again tomorrow–but I was able to go into the office and get some things done before coming home and doing some more work at home as well. I am going in again today–good to get the routine back on track again–and am hopeful that tomorrow will be another step forward in returning to normality.

It looks like we’re going to feel something from Hurricane Nicholas, which looks to be following a particularly strange path for a tropical disturbance, but the majority of whatever it may be won’t be until Thursday. It’s gray outside my windows this morning, but I think overall the weather should be fairly decent today? I suppose I should check.

Yes, it’s supposed to rain all day today, with the heaviest fall around eleven this morning. Yay. But I kind of like gloomy, rainy days, to be perfectly honest. My preference for them is to be at home under a blanket with a book, but you can’t always get what you want.

When I visited my parents a while back, one of the books I took with me was James Jones’ unabridged From Here to Eternity, which apparently included the scenes referencing gay bars and gay activity amongst the soldiers–and how some weren’t averse to making some extra money getting paid for sex. It’s always been one of my father’s favorite books (and movies), but I had never read it. I started it a few times when I was a teenager (I always enjoyed World War II stories) but with these scenes restored (they were cut from the original publication, for obvious reasons) I thought it might prove of interest–particularly since I have an idea (don’t I always?) for a book set on Oahu that opens on December 8, 1941. I got maybe three hundred pages into the book, and literally reading it was torture. I finally gave up and moved on to something else; I don’t remember what it was, but I certainly enjoyed it much much more than I was enjoying From Here to Eternity–and the primary reason I was hating the Jones novel was because all of the characters were, basically, assholes with few if any redeeming qualities. Last night as I sorted things for work at home, I decided to watch the film again–the original, from 1953–and…yeah, I’m not really certain it holds up after all this time either. My primary takeaway from the film was how ridiculously lean and fit the actors (Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra) playing the main leads were. It’s funny, because the book’s frank look at sexuality (Clift’s character falls in love with a prostitute; Lancaster has an affair with his superior officer’s wife, played by Deborah Kerr) is so ridiculously tame by our modern standards; crime series currently airing on network television are more risqué than this film–let alone soaps. (Kind of like Peyton Place–there’s more lurid content in an episode of The Young and the Restless than in the entire book!) I wasn’t overly impressed with the film, to be honest–and it was hardly a glowing depiction of the military. But it was interesting…and made me think about that book I mentioned earlier than I want to write someday.

But the gym is back to its normal hours, and so I’ll be able to get back there to workout after work today. Yay! I’ve actually missed going to the gym in these turbulent times; I did make it over there last week for a quick workout one day, and I am really looking forward to things going back to routine again. I like my routines, I like my patterns, I like my ruts, frankly; and again trying to remember what all was going on and what all I was working on before this disruption began has been challenging. Head down, nose to grindstone; get it all together, man!

We also watched a few more episodes of Only Murders in the Building, which we are really enjoying. I’m not really sure if this is a murder mystery, or about three true crime aficionados who’ve become convinced they are not only investigating a murder but making a podcast about it at the same time. I am really enjoying the show; the Martin Short character gets on my nerves periodically, but I really like the Steve Martin character, and those apartments! I can only imagine what those apartments are actually worth in today’s Manhattan rental climate.

I am also hoping to get back into Velvet was the Night soon. I read a chapter last night (or was it the night before?) and am really enjoying it thus far, and we haven’t really gotten into the story itself yet; Moreno-Garcia is letting us get to know our two main characters first; she really is a gifted talent, and am looking forward into delving more into her work in the future–perhaps either Mexican Gothic or Gods of Jade and Shadow will be up next. I love that she doesn’t limit herself to genre, which used to be a no-no in this business; you were supposed to pick a genre and if you wrote in another one, you used another name (Michael Koryta has written both crime and horror under his own name; lately he’s started publishing the horror as Scott Carson). God, how this business has changed in the years since I took my first tentative steps into it so long ago. Some of those changes are for the better–prime example being Moreno-Garcia slipping between genres effortlessly under the same name–and some not so much; I miss writing gay erotica from time to time…although I love that my erotica fell out of favor with “current” readers of gay male pornography because when I write it, it’s about lust and sweat and masculinity and control–as opposed to roses and music and love and fading to black and cuddling when fading back in.

And I need to get back to writing, which I am assuming will happen once I feel more settled, with the ground more stable beneath my feet again. Today is the 14th, which means I only have 16 days left in which to finish the first draft of Chlorine like I had wanted; I think I am going to continue working on it, while prepping for writing the next book and revising some of the other things I have on hand that aren’t finished or in early draft form; I need to make a list, don’t I?

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. I will check in with you again tomorrow, Constant Reader, never fear!

Blow

Good morning, Sunday, how are YOU doing?

I overslept (for me) again this morning; which felt nice; I’ll take oversleeping over insomnia any day of the week, frankly, and this morning I am going to swill coffee, read some more of S. A. Cosby marvelous Razorblade Tears, and then will write for a while before going to the gym later on in the early afternoon. I still haven’t gotten phô yet–maybe next weekend I can make to the Lilly Cafe and finally get some.

Yesterday saw me relaxing and organizing and cleaning for most of the day, at an incredibly casual pace–so casual, of course, that I didn’t get everything finished that I wanted to get finished (natch); but progress was made and I will always take some progress over not making any. I finished writing Chapter 2 of Chlorine yesterday, also setting up Chapter 3 to be written for today (after some reviewing of Chapters 1 and 2 before getting started on that today). I like that I am starting to feel connected to this manuscript; it’s finally taken root in my head and all the other considerations about it no longer matter to me other than the two most important: that I finish writing it, and that i write the best book I possibly can.

The whole Chlorine thing is remarkably improbable about how it came to be in the first place. I’ve always wanted to write about 1950’s Hollywood and the gay closet/underground that existed there; it was an incredibly turbulent time, with television stealing film audiences, HUAC investigating Communists, and J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI going after gay men and lesbians. It was also during this time that the biggest closeted movie star perhaps in Hollywood history, Rock Hudson, came to success–and there were plenty of other closet cases on the headlining pictures with their names above the title: Montgomery Clift and Tab Hunter–and plenty who may have been bisexual but definitely had experiences with men, like Marlon Brando, Anthony Perkins, James Dean, and so on. I idly wrote about this notion I had for a noir set during that time, with the main character a hustler with no talent but a lot of good looks and charm, that opens with another closeted actor’s nude, dead body being found in the morning on Santa Monica beach–only the drowning victim also had chlorine in his lungs, so he clearly drowned in a swimming pool and his body was moved. I riffed on this concept here on the blog for a little bit, and then thought nothing of it.

Yet Chlorine landed with my peers in the crime writing community for some reason–I got a lot of tweets and DM’s about what a great idea it was, and that I needed to write it. Some people continued pestering me about it, enough time and enough people, for me to go ahead and slot it into my writing schedule….but even then I kept putting it off and not taking it or myself seriously; was I the right person to write such a book? Is this interest in such a book even something that could turn into sales or whatever? You know, the usual self-doubt that plagues me on a daily basis. I sat down and wrote a very rough first chapter several years ago, just to see if I could get the tone right, and the voice properly done; I was rather pleasantly surprised with how it turned out, and so I put aside any thought of imposter syndrome and figured, okay, I CAN do this.

But the syndrome came again when the calendar time to write the book rolled around; I spent the last month or so writing anything but this manuscript…and finally sat down to revise and reshape that first chapter so that it set up the second even better, and I also had an idea of how to do the second as I worked on the first. It took me a few days, but I now have a very nice 3700 word second chapter written; and today I am going to work on writing the third. I wanted to wait until August and spend that entire month writing it, but finally decided that I was being decidedly un-confident, so while I still want to have the first draft finished by the end of August, I decided to go ahead and get started on it in the meantime. I still want to work on Scotty for the rest of the year, from September on, but there’s also a lot of other things I need to get done, so I need to stop being lazy and get my ass into my chair and writing.

We watched the Olympics some yesterday–I am amazed at the sports I couldn’t care less about most of the time but will watch avidly during an Olympics–but it again seems weird that there’s no audience or crowd…and this whole weird vibe these Olympics are giving off–no you smoked weed so you’re banned; you’re a serial sexual assaulter so we’ll make accommodations for you–has kind of tarnished the whole thing for me in some ways. There has always been cheating and stupidity at the Olympics (another example of how media has brainwashed us all into the mythology of the Olympics), but for some reason this year it seems more intolerable than usual. But I love watching the US swimmers–it’s weird without Michael Phelps in the pool–and I will undoubtedly watch more, especially the gymnastics.

But…..still.

I also figured out last night how to change a story I started writing at some point during the last decade and make it actually work–“The Brady Kid”–and while the new idea I have for it may not work after all, it’s an interesting idea for a story and something I definitely want to try writing.

And on that note, Razorblade Tears is calling me, and so it’s off to the spice mines for a bit to read, swill coffee, and prepare to start writing.

Christmas Tree Farm

And now it’s Christmas. I woke up this chilly morning to a barrage of well wishes in my inbox; thanks, companies who have my email address; I appreciate your concerns about my holiday and how it is going to go. It’s cold this morning, but the sky is blue and the sun is shining and there are no clouds to be seen anywhere in the sky; it was also cold yesterday but much more dreary outside. This morning appears to be one of those mornings where it feels colder inside than it does outside.

I was a slug yesterday, admittedly so. I just didn’t have the energy or the inspiration or the drive to do a whole lot of anything all day–i feared this would be the case, and was proven, rather early on, to be correct. I spent the morning finishing reading The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, and yes, this was magnificent research for Chlorine, but at the same time is was a fascinating journey into what it was like to be gay in the entertainment industry in the post-war period, and needless to say, it was a fascinating read. And while it was completely impossible to feel deep sympathy for Henry Willson–he did terrible things, and used his power to force beautiful young men with Hollywood aspirations and dreams into having sex with him, among many other terrible things; and although it was also the era when beautiful young women also had to have sex with producers, directors and studio executives to get ahead, that doesn’t lessen, or in any way mitigate, what he was doing to those young men. Willson was gay but was also homophobic, and serves as an interesting case study into the mentality that drives and draws gay men into sociopolitical conservatism–and the cognitive dissonance that must exist in order to embrace a self-loathing world view. Willson was a friend of Roy Cohn, probably the most horrible gay man to ever exist in this country, but that friendship really came as no surprise. Reading the book was a fascinating, if horrifying, reminder that it wasn’t all that long ago that the closet was the only option and going to a club or being involved with another man or even going to a private party, was putting everything in your life–career, family, whatever–in jeopardy.

And needless to say, I have a lot of great ideas now to work into Chlorine; I’d say this book was probably the single most important resource I’ve come across in my research for the book–more so than even Tab Hunter’s memoir or the biographies of Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift; yesterday afternoon as I digested what I’d read, plot twists and story kept coming to me–scenes, character development–and I am, as always, looking forward to that day in the now not so distant future when I’ll be able to write this book…although I am also thinking reading a biography of Anthony Perkins also might not be such a bad idea.

We finished watching Tiny Pretty Things yesterday, and I have to say it was quite delightful fun–but the dialogue! OMG, the dialogue was sometimes so jarringly bad it took me right out of the show. I don’t blame the cast at all–some of the dialogue was so fucking bad not even Streep or Lange or DeNiro or Pacino could have made it work–but everything else about the show was marvelous. It was well plotted and planned very well; apparently there are two novels set in that ballet school, and the first season ended with an amazing cliff-hanger as well to set up the second season, even if the crime from the first was still unresolved–at least, thus far. I’ve always thought ballet was the perfect setting for noir–the sacrifices it requires, the commitment necessary, and the willingness and desire to push your body through incredible pain to achieve great beauty…it’s amazing to me. Do I wish I had some ballet training? Kind of, although I don’t think as a child I would have had the drive to push myself through the pain…but you also never know. I’ve always been able to commit fully to things I’m interested in or enjoy; the question would be whether or not I would have enjoyed it enough to commit to it. Hard to say, really.

I do know if and when I start writing about ballet, I’ll need to immerse myself in it. I do think the young men who commit so fully to dance–particular in our culture and society, which still sees such things as “unmanly” and “gay”–are fascinating, and most books about ballet–shows, etc–inevitably default to the female point of view and perspective; no one has, to the best of my knowledge, ever really delved into the world of ballet from that masculine perspective.

We also watched the second episode of The Stand, which isn’t really generating a lot of buzz as it airs; which is kind of curious to me. Someone mentioned it on Twitter last night, something along the lines of “How bad must this version of The Stand be if there’s no on-line discussion of how hot Alexander Skarsgard is in it?” I hadn’t really thought about it–I’m kind of enjoying the non-linear story-telling technique they are using, even if it does kind of lesson the impact of the apocalyptic end of the world from the flu story King told in the first part of the book–which is one of my favorite parts of the book, honestly. (I do love the book, even if it’s been years since I reread it–it used to be one of my comfort reads) There were some responses to the tweet about how bad the show is, and I don’t know that I would go that far–I’m enjoying it thus far, even if the non-linear story-telling is kind of jarring–but the lack of conversation about the show is pretty telling, I guess.

I didn’t do any physical writing or editing yesterday, but I did spend some time thinking about it, and i hadn’t planned on doing any writing or anything today, either, what with it being holidays and all (remember, I suspected this would happen yesterday morning), but that’s okay, really–not going to beat myself up over it too terribly; it is what it is–and today I will most likely try to get some of this mess cleaned up; my office area is a disgrace as always, and I have paper and folders and books stacked everywhere. And we are definitely watching Wonder Woman 1984 today.

And that, Constant Reader, is as good a segue as any into my return to the spice mines. Have a lovely holiday, everyone/

This Is Me Trying

And so here we are, sliding into Wednesday like we’re stealing third base.

I just realized yesterday morning that this coming Monday is Labor Day. A three day weekend! Huzzah! And one that I completely forgot about until Facebook memories reminded me about past Southern Decadence weekends, which are always Labor Day weekend–except for this year, of course.

Maybe, at some point this weekend, I’ll curl up with Frank Perez and Howard Philips Smith’s definitive history of the event, Southern Decadence in New Orleans. You should really consider getting a copy–and while you’re at it, you could get the e-book of Bourbon Street Blues, which is set during Southern Decadence. It’s so weird not having Decadence this year–this year has really sucked for everyone. I feel bad for the few people who are having a good year in some way, because the massive suckage has ruined everything–which really makes celebrating those successes all the more important for the rest of us, to claim a small victory over this shitty year whenever we can.

In my sad, almost desperate attempt to find something good in this year, I realized that, failing everything else, I’ve read some amazing books this year; have watched some excellent television shows; and the pandemic work-at-home-making-condom-packs has also enabled me to watch a lot of films I’ve never seen, which has also been not only educational but interesting. The Cynical 70’s Film Festival, for example, has been pretty awesome, and has reminded me a lot of what it was like growing up in that decade of earth tones and mood rings and disco balls and bell bottoms–just yesterday at the office between clients some of the kids and I–I wasn’t the one who brought it up either–started talking about the Bermuda Triangle, which was a thing in in the 1970’s (this was triggered by the storm system heading up the Atlantic coast, which startled both of my co-workers, who’d always thought Bermuda was in the Caribbean–I laughed and said, yes, I’d always thought the same until I read The Deep and this led into an entire discussion of Bermuda’s geographic location which led, as free form conversations tend to do, a lot of jumping around on the topic of Bermuda, which led to the Bermuda Triangle). It wasn’t a real thing, after all; just another one of the many weird conspiracies and so forth that existed and proliferated in that crazy decade–although Area 54 and UFO’s seem to be turning out to be an actual thing (both of which were very popular topics of discussion and wonder in the 1970’s–hence Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

Maybe I should look into the Bermuda Triangle. Hmmmm.

Last night the Insomnia Curse was broken and I slept like the dead. I woke up at five, looked at my alarm, and rolled over and went back to sleep. My alarm–which I hadn’t set–went off  at seven this morning (maybe I dreamed it; it was set for six from the last two mornings) and so I was able to shut it off and sleep a bit more. I feel marvelously rested and awake this morning (despite the Internet outage; I am freeloading off the Cox Wi-fi–which I don’t understand; I have access to this as a Cox customer, but my home wireless is out; how can one work without the other? I don’t know and I don’t want to hurt my brain by trying to figure it out). Anyway, according to the Cox website our home wireless should be back up by around 1:30, so I am okay with using this until such time as ours comes back up. It’s okay; there’s any amount of on-line work stuff I can do until the wireless comes back up and I can stream movies whilst making condom packs again–today’s choices range from Bonnie and Clyde (technically a late 1960’s movie, but it was one of the films that signaled the change in Hollywood film), All the President’s Men, and Klute–but I am always amazed at how helpless we’ve become without the Internet or access to it, you know?

I was extremely tired last evening when I got home from the office; I was tired a lot during the day, but kept having these weird spurts of energy, and even had one after i got home from work. I sat down in the easy chair after doing the dishes and unpacking my backpack and rewatched this week’s episode of The Vow, which I kept dozing off while trying to watch on Monday night. It’s a very interesting show–cults have always been of interest to me (the 1970’s, by the way, was a big time for them) and I have always kind of wanted to write about one. When we were living in Kansas, there was actually a local one; the Way. There had used to be two colleges in Emporia, the county seat: Kansas State Teachers College (which evolved into Emporia Kansas State College and finally to what it is now, Emporia State University) and the College of Emporia. C of E was a religious school; Presbyterian, to be exact, but it had gone bankrupt and closed down in or around 1973, after which the campus was purchased by the Way International–which was a cult. When we first moved to Lyon County, since my sister and I were both teenagers, everyone warned us about the Way College of Emporia and to be careful. The members were easy to identify, really; for one thing, they always traveled in pairs, wore Polo-style shirts with name tags identifying them as members of the Way International, and they also wore khaki style pants. They also were always smiling and had a glazed look to their eyes. There were also all kinds of rumors about what went on at the campus; armed guards–and I remember seeing them–patrolled the grounds and the boundaries, keeping the curious away; and of course there were always stories about weird bonfires and ceremonies being seen from a distance, and “this guy I know is friends with a cop and they always get calls from the people who live around the campus about dogs disappearing and hearing screams from the campus and…” you know the type of thing; the story that has grown exponentially from what was originally said so you aren’t really sure what the kernel of truth in the story actually was; I actually have a file folder labeled The Cult in my file cabinet with some research I did about the Way International over the years, with an eye to writing a novel about it some day. (Obviously, The Cult is too obvious a title to actually use for such a book)

Who knew Kansas in the 1970’s was such a gold mine of material for a writer?

I’ve also been researching Chlorine while being too tired to focus on either reading or writing anything–I am definitely itching to get back to Little Fires Everywhere, and when I finish working today I am going to get Chapter Seven of Bury Me in Shadows whipped into shape for sure–and there’s such a glorious wealth of material about the closeted stars and closeted Hollywood of the time; I am kind of surprised no one has done a noir about underground gay Hollywood of the time already. (Of course, now that I’ve said that, there will probably be eighty-five million of them before I get this damned thing done) It was such an interesting period–obviously, there are biographies of the gay stars of the time (Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Perkins, etc.) and there’s even a biography of Henry Willson, the gay agent played by Jim Parsons in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, who represented all the beefcakes male stars of the time–but I am also interested in the ones who never quite made it as movie stars, either, and the clients of Willson who were beefcakes but not gay–like Guy Madison, who was certainly gorgeous and hunky and eventually had a hit TV show. I bet their stories are just as interesting as Rock Hudson’s and the other big closeted stars.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. Have a lovely Wednesday, everyone.

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Your Mama Don’t Dance

Well, Monday has rolled around again after a lovely, restful weekend, and I am hopeful that this week–the tail end of July and the beginning of August–will be lovely and productive.

Yesterday I managed to have the hole in the page open and finished off Chapter Nineteen–which, once I started, was much easier than I’d thought it would be, and I was also able to get Chapter Twenty set up at the end of that chapter. I’m also, as I go into the final act, aware of things that I need to set up earlier in the manuscript; which is lovely, even though this is wrong way around; I should have known all this when I was writing it, which is my usual way of doing things. (Although, if I am being completely honest, the Kansas book wasn’t written this way, and I only figured out how to end Royal Street Reveillon while I was writing it; this is a trend I don’t like and needs to end now. Perhaps when I start writing Chlorine, things will follow the more traditional Greg writing path.)

Speaking of Chlorine, I did manage to find my copy of Tab Hunter’s memoir, Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. I met Tab Hunter years ago, at a Publishing Triangle party in New York (he was with Joyce Dewitt–yes, the one from Three’s Company, and she was absolutely charming), and he was still incredibly handsome and a very nice man. He eventually came to the Tennessee Williams Festival (yes, I played Good Husband and asked him if he would do it, got his manager’s card, and passed that along to Paul), and was again, just as handsome and charming as ever. We have a signed copy of the book, but I’ve never read it–it’s been in the TBR pile for over a decade–and I am delighted now to have a work-related excuse to read it, along with any number of other Hollywood histories and books about show business and celebrities from the 1950’s. (Must find biographies of Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, and Anthony Perkins…and George Cukor, for that matter.) It’s going to be ever so much fun to submerge myself in post-war Hollywood and Los Angeles.

Steph Cha’s novel Your House Will Pay also continues to fascinate, entertain, and enthrall. It’s quite excellent, and I am savoring the pages, the chapters, the development of the parallel stories of the two families tied together by a trauma in the past. It’s also incredibly immersive; the characters are so very terribly real, as is the world they inhabit. It’s turning out to be so much more than I thought it was going to be–and I was excited for what I thought it would be–so it’s even more of a gift than I originally thought it was going to be.

We are also getting drawn in more to the Prime series The Boys, which is also, like the Cha novel, turning out to be so much more than I’d anticipated. It’s darker, for one thing, and kind of exceptional in showing how powerful a single, average human being actually can be, without the assistance of extra-special powers of some kind. It’s also a much more complex examination of how extraordinarily gifted humans would be monetized, branded, and image controlled–very similar to the Hollywood period I am going to be immersing myself in shortly. Yay! It’s a fascinating period, and definitely one I want to know a lot more about.

And on that note, tis time to get back to the spice mines.

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