So there's this guy, Ashton Allen, doing the singer-songwriter thing. He's pretty good. I had an opportunity to meet him (he came in to play at the store this past Wednesday) and he's a good guy.

It's a not-quite-folksy pop album, where the lyrical hooks are just as good as the musical lines. The production is good, staying out of the way of the song-- no beats or samples here, not even much in the way of electrified hardware; most songs use either piano or acoustic guitar as the foundation. It's a lot like Kings of Convenience, particularly in some of the tight harmonies-- you might also compare him to Eliot Smith.

I've uploaded a few tracks; take a listen.

his site
the album, Dewdrops

From NPR
(As heard locally on 6 January, 7 pm, WABE 90.1 FM)

The Inifinte Mind. Topic: Writer's Block.

Of course, given the nature of this journal, I could take all my entries, throw them into a blender, hit frappé, and re-post more or less at random for the next year and very few people would be able to tell the difference.

There's my car. I thought it was fixed. It decided otherwise, and developed a new problem in the past week. A big, fat, nasty problem. However, this really isn't different from the crap I was complaining about last year about this time.

There's my social life. The carefully crafted half-life that I've maintained for years. The bar scene. Outings. Reviews and field reports. I talk a good game, but (with a few recent exceptions) the result is still largely empty.
(like empty calories, I know they're bad for me, but I still enjoy the consumption)

Still and all, you take any one of my bar reviews, and there is no real expiration date. I could have written them last week.

Up to a point. Some bars have closed.


And the novel.
The freakin' albatross of a novel.
I found myself saying, yet again, to a dear friend that I was "working" on the novel. One hand held a beer. The other was in my pocket. Still, something in my voice apparently managed to convey the air-quotes so well that she immediately knew that when I talk about the project, I'm not quite serious yet. Even alone, in the cold dark lonely hours of early morn, I am in some ways just kidding myself on the progress that is being made on that front.

It's a compulsive disorder. Rearranging small details, ignoring larger problems. (I've cited this problem in the past, often by referencing the analogy: "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic")

Have I given up?

No.

Hell, no. But this is like going for a graduate degree... where the academic advisor, head of the department, and final jury are all yourself. It is a key study in the application of singular willpower. If I occasionally fail, it is because I have few role models.

Or rather, that I seem to come up short to the role models that are out there. ("Damn you Hemingway! why did you have to be so skilled, and so stupid. I mean, suicide? Sucker punk, you gave up. but until then... man. It's a lot to live up to.")

##

Before now, every other year or so, I'd be taking on a new job.
I've been with the bookstore now for 4 ½ years. I've never had a job this long, unless you count the stuff I did for the housing dept. in college.

It's humbling. Like my dad, I'm becoming a company man. (Dad has worked for the same corporation for, roughly, 5 years more than I've been alive. Which becomes more impressive each year.) This is a dead dynamic; nobody does this anymore. And yet, I find myself settling in. Other than the occasional thought that I should be making more money (at this. at something.) I find I really enjoy the job.

Yeah, yeah, we've all heard me complain about the customers. Well, you fuckers are demanding. You (as customers) have unrealistic expectations of folks who, quite honestly, are working for just a few dollars above minimum wage. The situation really exasperates me. Dude. I can't afford to hire graduate scholars in film and music, with exhaustive knowledge of all genres and a comprehensive study of the past 110 years (of film) (or 800 years of music) particularly when you're telling me 4 and 5 times a day that you can "get it cheaper at Sam's" or Target. or Fill-in-the-blank.

You want my help or not? Expertise is not free. There are some costs, perhaps hidden to you, the carefree consumer...

Well, bitching in this forum does no good. I'd have to re-educate the entire American public, and from recent census data that'll soon be 300 million of you damn bastards. (just a bit past the scope of this journal) And honestly, Americans aren't noted for their desire to learn...

##

At one point in my personal odyssey, 180 lbs. was a new low:

And now, 180 makes me feel fat. I hit 170 lbs. somewhere in mid year; I think there may be some muscle mass losses/gains as part of the equation, too, but since I don't have a good way to figure out my % of body fat-- well, there you go.

My ankle still gives me problems. I know it has healed (as much as it will heal) so I guess I need to figure out how to brace it or whatever so I can get back on my running program.

[cough] [hack] Yeah, the exercise program. I can't deny that (given the beer, and the overall lack of urgency in what is technically a 'running' club) I was somehow losing weight. (weird stuff, but weirder stuff has been known to happen) This year wasn't a total loss. I weigh about the same now as I did last January. But after four solid years of improvement, it feels like a loss.

##

My social life (outside of bars and taverns) is a murky dismal morass that makes the fine waters of Loch Ness seem practically transparent in comparison. There was the mess from last June/July (by last, I mean 2004) which I wont re-hash (or even link to) but I'd have to say that while life now is more "normal" it's not better.

Sometimes the weight of it is just... depressing. And that may be all I want to say about that.

##

Hell, now I just want to finish this entry up, tie it back to whatever point I was trying to make and say, fork it, I'm done.

Given the nature of this journal, I could just post more or less the same crap, and few would know the difference. On some level, I keep going for those few (thanks, Amy) and of course, on some level I keep doing it just for me.

I'm a selfish bastard. I do get some utility out of the damn thing. I'm not sure I'd have been able to keep this up for two years if that weren't the case. ...and on a selfish note, I guess I'll leave it for tonight.

I have gotten into the habit, when settling in for an evening (insert image here of a Edgar-Allen-era poet, complete with stylish moustache and deep crimson velvet smoking jacket, taking his place in a large leather armchair, pipe in one hand, a thick leather-bound tome in the other, as the de rigueur black bird alights on a bust of Pallas sitting on the mantle above the large brick arch that forms the fireplace in my voluminous study-slash-library) of stocking canned beer in a cooler, tailgate-style, just within arms reach.

[*cshk* glug, glug. *ah!*]

Yep. More white-trash than white-tie. But please, continue to picture me in the study. I love that image.

Setting aside for a moment the advisability of drinking the vast quantities of beer that power the fevered imaginings of my poor deranged brain, there is at least one good reason for keeping beer close to hand-- namely, the aforementioned feverish, deranged, and mercurial nature of said lump of grey matter.

(I go all kinds of polysyllabic after a few beers.) (strange but true; I am more facile with the muttersprach-- and apparently, any number of foreign tongues-- after knocking back a few cold ones, than I might dare to attempt while sober.)

If I had to actually go get a beer-- walk to the fridge, etc. etc.-- who knows what esoteric ephemera would be lost in the living room or dining room along the way. It's bad enough I have to respond to the exigencies of my bladder.

Now, anyone who might be impressed by my own meagre efforts with the language of Shakespeare and Milton should pick up Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. That sucka can throw down. His prose is so thick I can only take it in 5 page increments. His prose is so thick I could use it to hammer in railroad spikes. He lays on a narrative line that must be deciphered; oh, the gist will be plain enough on a first read but this is no pulp-bestseller-beach-read-novelty; Peake is work. An argument could be made that the Gormenghast trilogy is an 1100 page free-form poem, as much as it is also a novel. And like some other classics (Chaucer, Spenser) it remains an uncompleted work-- at least from the outline of it's author's original intent.

But before I got sidetracked into elegiac praise for those-who-have-gone-before, I was attempting to shed light on my own unique process.

Step 1: fire up the laptop.
2.open beer
3.attempt to write a masterful work of epic fantasy
... and repeat steps 2 and 3 in a recursive loop until the beer overcomes the delusions of grandeur, or the delusions of grammar, or the delusions of adequacy.

To be fair, I should say that I also write while sober. (as is evidenced here; a number of posts for tabulas have been done during my lunch breaks at work. More sober I cannot get.) I also write while hungover, and tired, and sick, and when temporary economic circumstances dictate that I can't afford the vasty quantities of beer that are my usual wont.

But call me biased (I am; I also have an agenda, to proselytise the sober masses of the subtle revelation to be found at the bottom of pint glasses) I think my best work is done when I stretch myself a bit.

After running 5 miles.
After a nine hour shift at work.
After just 2 hours of sleep
After helping a friend move
And after drinking.

(I have more experience of drink than of the other exertions) Something about physical exertion, or mindless tedium, or apparently, deliberate chemical poisoning, seems to free up my creative side. I think that my creative brain is still working even when it is not actively engaged, and in fact may do better after a period of dormancy. It has a chance to build up a charge, an internal battery that just awaits a quiet moment and the right kind of contact to release a creative spark.

And yet, while the flash and bang are satisfying, there are dangers to be faced when attempting to leash the wild lighting of creativity. Nothing seems to fall into place. Vast energies are released, but they are hard to channel into appropriate efforts. It takes more than spark to write fiction.

(some lament that the muse never visits. My muse is present, but she tends to trash the place.) (better than writers' block, though, by a fair piece)

And if you'll forgive me, I've got a large leather airchair and a couple of cans of muse left in the cooler, waiting for me in the study. I just might be able to get some real work done before I have to turn in for the night.

Turkey Broccoli Stroganoff.
This one started out as a back-of-the-soup-label recipe. I've been tinkering with it for a while.

Serves one-- for about a week and a half

Hardware:
The old reliable electric skillet.
Something to cook pasta.

Shop:
1 medium-size sweet onion
garlic. I go four cloves, adjust to taste
a little butter
1 lb. mushrooms. (crimini, aka baby portobella, fresh & pre-sliced)
1+ lb. ground turkey. (my Publix always has these packages with a pound and a third)
one 10oz. package chopped frozen broccoli.
two cans of cream of mushroom soup
two cups (16 oz.) of sour cream
at least one package of egg noodles.

It's a big recipe, and I usually go through two 16 oz. packages of the egg noodles. I often make this one for the plethora of leftovas. (the leftovers also freeze well)


Procedures:

Dice the onions, mince the garlic, start those over medium-low heat in the skillet with a little butter. When the onions go translucent, add the mushrooms. When the mushrooms soften and shrink, turn up the heat to medium-high and add the meat.

Mmm... meat!

And after the turkey is browned, you can add the broccoli. Why broccoli? Well, we all could likely use the vitamins. And the addition tastes pretty good; the flavours play well together. Some have commented on how it looks, but hey-- if they don't want any, more for me, right? You can leave it out, no worries.

Since I usually just dump in a frozen block of broccoli bits, I have to work it around a bit to get it unglaciated. And about this time I set up a gallon or so of water to cook the noodles in.

Once your broccoli is back to the bits stage, it's time to crack open the cream of mushroom soup. Dump in both cans. (You may need to add a cup or so of water, depending on how much liquid remains from the mushrooms and broccoli.) Work that around a bit, set the skillet up to simmer, and then go open a beer. (Or start typing in the recipe. Or both. But remember: you set a pot of water to boil.)

Cook the noodles to specs: on my package, that's seven minutes after reboil. When you have a minute or so left, add the sour cream to your Turkey-broccoli concoction and viola, stroganoff. You can turn off the skillet-- residual heat will be enough to warm over the sauce-- just stir to incorporate and then go take care of your noodles.

When the timer beeps (or you're pretty sure it's been seven minutes...) drain the noodles, toss in a bit of butter, and serve with your now-completed sauce. (Salt and pepper to taste)

Substitutions:
If instead of regular ground turkey, etc., you buy ground turkey breast & white button mushrooms (and leave out the broccoli) the end result will be a lovely creamy white sauce suitable for any fine dining experience.
-- I like my version better.

Sides:
This is more of a one-dish kind of thing. But garlic bread is nice.

One last note:
This is a budget-stretcher, in that some stuff (pasta, canned soup, frozen meat) can be bought on sale and kept nigh forever; and also, you can go store-brand. Mushrooms, broccoli, noodles, cream of mushroom, sour cream-- and come to think of it, also the turkey-- were all Publix's store brand. It tastes the same to me.

edit 1/17: Well, it was a good idea.

Go. This is a great idea.

Browncoats Rise Again.

(via boing boing. They have all the good stuff...)

Joss Whedon needs financing. The fans desperately need more Firefly. So, we harness the power of the 'nets to get the one side to help the other.

Pass along the word. Please. Pretty please? You have no idea who out there might be a Firefly fan. Actually, you probably have a pretty good idea; the fans tend to be pretty vocal. Unusually engaged. Hence, the fundraiser.

I think next payday, I'll send them $50. Yep. $50 for absolutely nothing. Just on the off chance that this will work. Because, you know the bastards at Fox aren't going to do anything about it.


The site is still open (link) but the organizers are going to something else with the movement, something more in line with how hollywood really works. I bet it was those damn FOX executives again.

A couple of links for first-timers:

from the Weekly Standard, about 7 months ago when the movie Serenity came out:

"You can read a tidy summation of the movie's TV incarnation, Firefly, here. Think of it as Star Wars, if Han Solo were the main character, and he still shot Greedo first."

Yep.
Watch Firefly. Watch the movie. Then buy them. Then send money to the active browncoats resistance

It's been 4½ years since I started working at the bookstore. The flip side of that is that I haven't worked as an independent consultant for the same 4½ years.

So getting an email out of the blue asking me to sort-of pick up where I left off is a nice complement. Not that anyone needs me full-time for an inventory audit, or to streamline bar service, or to analyse sales trends. None of that crap.

I got an invite to a meet-and-greet sort of event; the management at a local pub is pulling together a few folks (including some of the general public) to ask how they can improve their service, and the overall pub experience. Building on strengths, that kind of thing.

It's nice to know a few of the my old contacts in the industry are still out there. I guess that's one advantage to having the same email address for 6+ years. (this may be a factor in how long I keep paying for mail forwarding from my old mail.com account)

It's a few weeks out; maybe I'll post a follow-up if the evening is notable, or enjoyable, or some such.

at some point I'll need to post an update that is a bit more than just a (editorialized) link.

I think I may even have a topic. Watch this space. I should be able to get something typed up this evening.

Yeah, so...

an update in volume to come later...

So anyway, having made a personal promise to the one person who always forgives me but who knows I should be doing better (that would be a promise to myself) I am now taking some time to write. For now, all I have is my "lunch" break (we always call it lunch at the bookstore, even when your 30-min. break is at 9pm) but we'll see how far I can get in a half hour.

Enough with the writer's block. If I can't write fiction, then let's write about the process, yet again.

I will make this effort, not because I have anything so momentous to write about, but because I have to write. Something. Anything. Doesn’t matter; content is flexible-- but the process cannot be put off any longer. If I do not get into the habit of writing everyday for some set quota, say, at least four pages, then I might as well give up now and concentrate my energies on something else.

Even four pages of excuses is better than no output at all.

I do not know when the change will take place, when I magically transition from writing nothing in particular to writing a novel. Maybe the essay is my native form, and I should continue to write about things that concern me, in my own voice. Maybe I am a new light in the realm of philosophy, and if I worked up a guiding moral principle, and some theories on thought, time, space, and god, then I’d be well on my way to writing vast tomes of nearly incomprehensible bullshit. Not being a true bullshit artist, I guess I will have to stick to other forms of writing, and skip the philosophical treatise.

Maybe my model can be taken from certain Victorian novels, where the narrator is present (first person ‘I’) but is not a character or direct participant in the action he is describing. Something along the lines of
“Now Mr. Wright, a man whom I could describe as stern and unemotional, would not describe himself that way. In the dark privacy of his own thoughts, he sees his actions toward his family as doting, caring, even mushy. His youngest daughter might disagree, since she seldom sees her father because of his work commitments. I would have to agree with her.”

Here the narrator is present, but we get no feeling of engagement. He obviously knows about the characters, but his knowledge is that of a careful historian, perhaps, not someone actually on the scene. The construction would likely seem quaint to the modern reader, and the narrator, with his constant asides and other commentary, would seem both annoying and a bit condescending. “Here, dear reader, let me parse that out for you so you know what to think about this man.” As an exercise, it might be good practice. Writing a whole novel that way would quickly bore even me.

I need to take up the practice of writing. The operative word being ‘practice’. I will have to hash my way through a whole first draft (not just another 100-page false start) just to see how bad it can really be. It will take a certain amount of will, greater than the act of merely typing out a daily quota, the soon-to-be-mythical four-pages-a-day. I will have to not only write each day, but more importantly, I will need to write the damn novel. I can knock out a page of stream-of-consciousness in less than 15 minutes. This stuff is easy, like skimming the surface of the pond that is my mind, never plunging deeper for the real treasures but contenting myself to gather up the scum that floats on top.

I suppose that I shouldn’t congratulate myself for writing the requisite four if all I am doing is pounding out one of these crappy-journal-entries. I should be making forward progress, rather than going over the same ground one more time. I’m like a man who claims to be a jogger, in that each morning he gets up early, grabs his running shoes, and then cleans them, sometimes changing out the laces, maybe cleaning the sides with a brush. He has a great pair of shoes. If he ever started running he might do well, once he builds up some endurance. But until he actually puts on the shoes and leaves the house, he’s just polishing his ego. He’s not a runner; the only thing he is running from is his fear of failure.

If you do not try you will never fail.
You won’t succeed either.

An easier way to fill four pages would be to practice writing dialogue. Then I could take two of my characters, based on the precious character sketches I put so much time into, and set them in a situation where monosyllabic conversation could ensue. A series of yes and no type responses, followed by the required he saids and she saids and the all important carriage returns. Line after line would go down like blades in front of a lawnmower, and manuscript pages would pile up like grass clippings. I could fulfil my quota and go out to the pub in a third of the time, and I could claim the resultant output to be superior to my other entries, because the characters would ‘come to life on the page.’
Or something like that.

It may seem that I’m doing nothing, but this is more than just shoe-polishing. The more apt analogy would be that of running in place. I’m not going anywhere, but I am engaging in activity. If I do it hard enough I might even break a sweat. And when I do leave the house for a jog, I will be better prepared because of the work I did earlier.
Writing may even be closer to actual work than I suspect, even more than just running in place. The act of writing is the same, translating thought into printed word, no matter which way you go. I may not make it to the end of Novel Avenue, but no matter which course I run down, I am in fact still running. I can explore any backtrack, mud road, cobblestone or blacktop path I wish. I am still running. I can start or stop anywhere I like, even end up running in circles, and the process is the same.

The important part is the process, not the destination. Right now I am practising the fine art of word architecture. Diction choices, sentence structures, varying lengths of phrase and paragraph, all these are tools that can be adapted later, when I know where I want to go. And until I figure out where I want to go, at least I am writing.

So I finally got in my copy of Youngblood's Center.Level.Roar (also available elsewhere, if one must, but check the review over on the B&N link first) I'd heard a chunk before; now I have the whole album.

From the liner notes: "this album was made entirely with horns, percussion, and voice. there is no sampling/looping of any instrument"

That's an important point. Let me riff on that for a bit, and then get back to the CD review.

Now, I know it's not a debate taking place in the pubs, classrooms, and break rooms all across this fine nation, but maybe we should be discussing it: why aren't there more musicians in hip hop?

I'm not talking about [cough] "Artists". Plenty of hip hop artists out there (check out a CD store). And what they do is a creative endeavour. (most artists, most of the time) At its best, a good lyric line will always be poetry (I'm going to drop Will Smith's name here, if only because he has a good command of the English language and can write a lyric without resorting to pejoratives or obscenity, and of course, the name is recognizable to even the most white-bread audience) (though, if you want an expert on rap and hip-hop, look no further than some punk ass 13 year old in the middle of white-bread suburbia)

I like a good lyric, no matter what sort of music it is set to. Or even if there's no real music at all-- Snoop has a guy doing an annoying-mouth-click-thing on drop it like it's hot. (And what do Bjork and Snoop Dogg have in common?: ) But if all you have is a beat and a repetitive hook... Is this art? Is it music? I know there are good and bad examples no matter what music genre we'd care to examine-- and rock is no exception-- but is there any redemptive value to found in the line "yeah, back that ass up"

If all you want is a beat, buy a metronome. I want music.
I respect musicians.

Any idiot can take a pre-existing song and throw in the occasional "Uh" and "Yeah" and maybe one or two lines. We're looking at you, Puffy. Near as I can tell, your top hit was just a Police cover-- and the singing parts were still done by Sting, damn it.

But I could rag on Sean Combs all night. I mean, maybe if he bothered to learn guitar or something...

I know there are musicians out there. Starving musicians, for the most part, because I don't know that there is the amount of studio work available now, as there used to be. Everything is in a box-- a loop, a beat, a sample. Where is the live stuff anymore? I mean, I like a good P-Funk musical hook as much as the next guy (likely more than the next guy) but if we cannibalize all the old music, there will the nothing to build upon for the next great music genre. I don't know what that will be (who could have predicted Eminem from Elvis?) but I do know a lot of artists put a lot of heart into the music to get us from Gilbert and Sullivan to where we are today.

Have you seen Standing in the Shadows of Motown? There was a group of roughly ten guys that played behind all of Motown's great acts. Career Musicians. Not looking for glory, but playing the music and making the #1s possible. I can think of at least one other crew of dedicated studio players-- and I'm sure you've heard of them, even if you didn't know you've heard of them: Stax records out of Memphis had a core group, that went on to New York at some point, and hooked up with a couple of front men and started rehashing the old hits. Were they just a cover band? ...yeah. But the Blues Brothers opened the eyes of a lot of kids in the 80s (and beyond) to a great (and almost lost) musical tradition. And-- important point-- instead of sampling a tape, they got the original artists-- Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Bones Malone, and a bunch of other guys I won't remember off the top of my head..

So, back to Youngblood.

Youngblood Brass Band might be called jazz, or maybe rock, but Funky. Oh yeah, we could call them Funk. They are part of the New Orleans music scene, one of the great Second Line Brass Bands (Rebirth, Olympia, Dirty Dozen, Soul Rebel, et. al.; OK., I'll pull a scene most might recognize-- the small 'marching' band following the casket in a N.O. style funeral, playing 'saint's go marching in'. yeah. those guys. They do other gigs, too.)

And now, they have lyrics. Hip Hop Brass.

Honestly, with the number of extremely talented young musicians coming out of Clark Atlanta, Morehouse, Grambling, Florida A&M, Jackson State, and a bunch of others I'm sure I'm forgetting about (I don't know if tickets are still available for the Battle of the Bands this Saturday at the Georgia Dome, but I should check) I don't see why there aren't more 70s-style horn lines out there for all kinds of music projects. Of course, Youngblood is more than a nostalgia trip-- I like it so much because it is new. If I wanted to hear EW&F or BS&T I've got those albums. This is in the same vein, but newly minted gold.

And Nat McIntosh is a Tuba GOD. The tuba needs to be the next rock instrument. (disclaimer: my own hunk of pipe is a saxophone; I could be called an impartial observer) Notwithstanding bass guitar gods like Vic Wooten, or even a classic bassist like Edgar Meyer, there is something to be said for the divine blat of a bass line propelled from the barrel of a mass of weapons-grade brass pipe at 30-60 Hertz.

Guitar rock has taken us far, but I think more artists need to rediscover the acoustic. And not just MTV's unplugged. We built instruments for centuries before a very bright man named Les Paul (not to mention Moog and his electronics) sent us down the road that freed music from the confines of vibrating strings and air. But the vibrations are music, whether they come from the speaker rattle or the thrum and rush of old fashioned instruments. It may be time to put musicians back in music.

From the liner notes: "this album was made entirely with horns, percussion, and voice. there is no sampling/looping of any instrument"
Now, go listen to Avalanche. And stand in awe. (even more impressive is the track "handbills for no man", which is like Booby Mcferrin, only cool, and with a tuba. -- I'll make you go buy the album for that one)

"marching to the beat of infinity's drum"

[edit: I also got around to uploading some Afroskull, after saying I'd do so for at least 6 weeks.]

[author's note: Let's at least get him to a hospital. He's been bleeding for 10 weeks now]

Busted Seventh: a novel experiment
-- first -- previous -- next --

Mitch tumbled into the back of the cab and immediately reached for his money clip. He peeled off a couple of bills, without looking at them, and handed them to the cabbie along with an explanation. “Look, I'm bleeding. The faster you can get me to an emergency room, the less likely I am to bleed all over your back seat.”

The cab driver seemed dubious, but quickly grabbed the offered money and nearly as quickly threw the car into drive.

Mitch sat rather uncomfortably in the back seat, half-laying down on his left side and keeping his injured shoulder away from the upholstery. No need to pass my misfortune along, he thought, and there was also a half formed thought that whatever might usually be found on a cab's seat would probably not be good for open wounds.

He took a minute to take a quick inventory. Ball point and notebook. Lighter. Cell phone. Napkin. Money clip, with $174. In the pockets of his jacket he found his passport, his wallet-- with all it's associated cards and receipts-- and the purple velvet bow tie. He checked the length of the bow tie, and along with a wadded napkin rigged a quick bandage over his shoulder. It's a shame I don't carry a handkerchief. When did those go out of style, I wonder?

He shook his head as if to clear cobwebs. I must already have lost a lot of blood.

And one last item: on the floor of the cab, where it had fallen from his hand when he fell into the cab, was about two and a half feet of narrow white ivory or bone. The shaft of the arrow he had been shot with. Mitch picked it up to examine it. It was smooth, for the most part, but even though he didn't see any engraving he could feel some sort of shallow carving along the shaft. The fletching was unusual, too, since the flights were carved from the same pale material, rather than the more typical feathers.

Typical? Hell, what's typical or usual about getting shot in the freakin' back with a cloth-yard arrow? Mitch thought. This isn't from your Ted Nugent fan at the local gun-and-tackle shop, this thing is a beast. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd needed a special compound bow

Mitch glanced out the window, and noted the driver was taking him straight down Cherry Street, probably to the University Hospital midtown. Fair enough he thought, and who do I know at the University or the Hospital? Besides Kate, that is.

##

He paid the driver and stumbled out of the cab. He had given up trying to apply direct pressure to the arrow wound, since it's location on his back made that almost impossible anyway. He managed to walk a more or less straight line through the automatic doors, and walked up to the desk at the far end of the waiting room.

“Can I help you?” a young receptionist asked without looking, before noting the pallor of Mitch's face, and the rather grim expression he wore on it. She stood and reached across the desk to help support the flagging Mitch.

“Yes.” Mitch replied. “I seem to have been shot in the back, and I was hoping you might have a doctor available.”

And then he passed out.

##

Still half asleep, Mitch thought he heard a voice. “Mitchell O'Connor O'Brien of Connaught. Seventh son of a seventh son. You have been called to serve.”

-- to be continued --

Tonight I'm going to buy a pound or so of a fine looking steak, two pounds of 'shrooms, at least one case of beer, and then after dinner I will write. If I'm writing Mitch, I'll post that here. If no, then you likely won't see an update until Tuesday. Maybe Thursday.

I've got a handle on Mitch's character now. it actually came to me when I posted a comment to previous post. I thought of a stereotypical hack writer from the 40s or 50s. Hiding out in Mexico.

Heck, I'll pull it out as a quote for you:

"...the romantic image of the typewriter-and-whiskey-bottle combo, the lone writer chugging along at 36 words and half a cigarette a minute, listening to the creak of the labouring ceiling fan as the setting sun casts long shadows into a dingy room at the absurdly named Excelsior Hotel, waiting for nightfall and the smell of roasting pork to call to him from the small cantina across the street. Already he could hear the faint strains of mariachi, the murmured conversations in Spanish, the louder words of gringos who think if they just talk loudly and slowly enough they can make themselves understood.

"Soon the sun would set. Soon he will finish the assignment for his editor back in LA, and he can go down to sample the cervesas and the senoritas..."

That's Mitch. He's a reporter. Now I need to explain why he would habitually carry a gun. (first line of #2, for those of you following along and playing the home game)

"You know, if we figure in the cost of Guinness, it'd be cheaper for me to live in Dublin."

I know at least 8 people hooked into my review of Youngblood. How do I know? Well, the B&N warehouse sold out. It's not a trade secret; I can check the onhands in my supply chain from work. (I have that power. It's a small kingdom, but it is mine)

Before I blogged it, we had 8 copies at a warehouse down in Florida. And now we don't.

Amazon says they still have it (amazon would claim to have plutonium if you searched for it)-- other sites are saying it's a special order or a backorder, from 2 weeks to a month and a half.

I'm not taking credit. But I did link direct to bn.com. So. Well. Thanks. Now if I could only sell 8 copies of something I had a direct financial stake in.

It's been 15 months, but once again, I'm on top. Go to Google, search 'parenthetical aside', and whammo, you're infested with me.

(still working on step #2)