The Associates

I loved The Paper Chase. It arrived on TV in 1978 and, a critical darling but ratings nonstarter, lasted only one season.

So, being the kind of person I am, I tracked down the book (by John Jay Osborn Jr.) that inspired it. I read it. I loved it. I read it again. I've probably read it three times over the years.

The show returned to TV for a second and third season on Showtime, and I had the good fortune to have Showtime then and got to watch them all.

I really liked the character Hart, the protagonist, the Iowa boy now struggling through law school.

Did I mention I grew up in Iowa?

Anyway, in the throes of Paper Chase fever, I purchased another novel by the same author, The Associates.

I stuck it on my shelf, planning to read it.

Flash forward two or three decades.

I grabbed The Associates from my shelf last week. I read it.

It's the story of a guy just starting out in a big NY law firm. He confronts some stereotypical partners and falls in love with a fellow associate at the firm, a headstrong divorcee.

The book is written in a chunky, episodic style and suffers a little from being, well, very seventies. The characters, their assumptions, their stereotypes, all belong to another age. It took a long time for me to get drawn in to the novel, and I did end up enjoying it, but nowhere near on a Paper Chase level. If nothing else, its depiction of the pressures involved with working in a big law office made me happy my Paper Chase induced flirtation with going to law school never panned out.

Structurally, I can see similarities to the arc of The Paper Chase - a young midwest guy as fish out of water, romance with a "liberated" gal, a wise but distant mentor, a philosophically minded pal, a race to conclude a big law project, the discarding of traditional values at novel's end. But The Associates just never clicked for me. I can see, however, why the novel spawned a(nother short-lived) TV series, since the set up and broad strokes of young folks versus partners plus political and romantic tensions has a strong appeal (and I suspect L.A. Law somewhat fulfilled this).  Fun fact: the TV series starred a young Martin Short.

As a novelist, Osborn ended up penning one more (which I wouldn't mind reading - I like Osborn's style), then seems to have given it up, remaining a law professor. Kingsfield's shadow looms large, and it seems Osborn ended up trying to step into his creation's footsteps.

Office Politics

She walked by my cubicle without so much as a glance.

Nice.

Three years together, two years of being just plain coworkers on top of that, and it ends like this.

Snubbed.

I stood, peeked over my back wall.

“Medlin.”

He glanced up, raised his eyebrows in reply.

“Hand me a donut.”

His eyes returned to his screen but his hand held up a Powdered Sugar Delite.

"Thanks.”

I accepted the donut, held it gingerly, trying my best to avoid sugary dandruff.

Fifteen feet away, she stood at the copier, her back to me. I could hear the CHUNK Wok-Wokka CHUNK rhythm of collating papers.

I judged the weight of the Powdered Sugar Delite, the distance to the copier, the folds in the dark navy blouse she loved so much.

I let it go.

It hit the bulletin board, leaving a halo of sugar on the Equal Opportunity in the Workplace poster, bounced off the top of the copy machine and landed on the break room counter.

She didn’t move.

Her collating job finished. She gathered her papers, plucked the donut from the counter and whirled around.

As she walked past me, she slowed ever so slightly, opened her full lips and shoved the donut into her mouth, licking her lips as she glared into my eyes.

She disappeared around the corner.

I frowned, then shouted. “Made you look!”

KXII Action News Theme!

Back in the mid-eighties, I worked for tv station KXII, channel 12, in Sherman Texas. I did various things at the station, including working on the 6 and 10 news broadcasts.

Here's the beloved (to me at least) theme tune we used back then.

The One That I Want

I’m writing this while listening to the soundtrack to Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. I think that tells you a lot about where I’m coming from in this review.

Somehow, some way, lost in the midst of the burbling twitter stream, I began following Allison Winn Scotch. Her twitter presence combines a lot of amusing snarky stuff and interesting, insightful writing-life stuff. And then I found her blog, which focuses on the art and craft of writing.

Since I noticed that she was a New York Times bestselling novelist, I grabbed one of her novels from the library. Now, she writes what some might categorize as chick-lit, which is absolutely a category of fiction that I haven’t really experienced. Her new novel came out last week and a couple months ago she began holding contests to give away advance copies. Well, I managed to, um, not exactly win a contest, but in some other way tricked her into sending me a copy (a little more about that can be read here). So with those caveats, here’s a look at the book.

The One That I Want follows Tilly Farmer, a woman ten years or so out of high school in age but whose life still revolves, in many ways, around that exact same small town school. She works as the school’s somewhat ineffectual guidance counselor, helps put together the big musical production and also plans the annual prom – still the highlight of her year. She’s trying to get pregnant and, in her mind, lives the perfect life.

But then she runs into an old friend, one she really hasn’t associated with since middle school, and is somehow given a strange gift – the gift of clarity. Tilly begins to have visions, very precise visions, of her own future. And she doesn’t like what she sees.

In seemingly effortless prose, Scotch presents a capsule of a life, a very typical life, and the way we can all be tricked by our own preconceptions. Tilly desperately wants her life to be happy and fulfilling, so she has forced herself to believe that it is. Her visions, however, crack open the façade she’s built around herself and reveal the not-so-pretty truth – about herself, the way she treats others, the way others treat her.

“Imagine, if you can, that you are sixteen again.” So reads the opening sentence, and it neatly encapsulates Tilly’s life. In many ways, she IS still sixteen. She clings so hard to her little town, to her little school, to her little life, that she’s unable to allow herself to grow, to really mature. She wants the world to be a pretty prom picture without having to experience the discomfort that led to that pose.

By novel’s end, Tilly’s world shifts. She’s released the narrow parameters within which she’s maintained her family members, allowing them to be who they really are, and, in so doing, released herself to become a fuller person. She’s finally engaging with the world as it really is. And isn’ t that what we should all be doing?

This is an engaging and entertaining novel, great for, yes, reading at the beach. It’s comfortable and well-paced and just insightful enough to make you pause before leaping into the surf.

P.S. I am so dense that I did not realize that the title of the book was an allusion to the musical Grease until three days after I finished reading it.

The Future Soon

I've got a new short story posted at 365 Tomorrows.

Hope you enjoy it!

On the Beach

Gilligan sits on the beach, staring as always at the empty horizon.

He gnaws the last few pieces of meat from the Skipper’s thigh bone, then tosses it into the pile where it lands beside Mr. Howell’s skull.

Or was it Mrs. Howell’s? It’s so hard to tell them apart anymore.

He begins to drop the Skipper’s hat into the fire, but stops before letting go. He grins, uses the hat to whack himself in the head, then tosses it into the flames.

Good times.

The Hardest Choice of All

I don't know how I got the money. Saving up from allowances maybe. Hard to recall that detail all these decades later.

What I do remember is the decision. The difficult decision, almost impossible to make. Standing between the two rows and having to decide: which will be my first record album.

I'd purchased and received some singles over the years: Popcorn and Last Train to Clarksville and A Cowboy's Work is Never Done among others. But I did not own an LP.

I now had the money but I had to decide, what was it going to be? My tastes were odd, I think, even for the early seventies. The first song I taped off the radio onto cassette was Also Sprach Zarathustra, Deodato's jazzy version of the theme from 2001 A Space Odyssey. Later recordings on that same cassette included themes from TV shows (such as The Time Tunnel) recorded by shoving the microphone up to the television speaker. Yes, my preference for film & tv scores manifested early.

But in the aisles of Richman-Gordman that day, I knew nothing of soundtrack albums, just the pop records filling the bins. So I had to choose. I wanted an album that contained songs I knew, and I had it narrowed down to two artists: The Carpenters or Olivia Newton John.

I still recall moving back and forth between them, checking out the contents of the records, trying to decide, trying to decide. I loved Have You Never Been Mellow and Please Mister Please and Olivia was, well, really really cute. But the Carpenters had Close to You and We've Only Just Begun -- and both songs on the SAME record.

I took the albums out of the bins. I gazed into Olivia's eyes, so magical, so inviting. And I bought The Carpenters. And I loved it. For many years, their version of Help! was the only one I knew.

My second LP was probably Westworld, found in a cut-out bin at a discount store. Or it may have been Live and Let Die. Either way, it was movie music. Pop radio had already lost its tenuous grip on me.

I still own that Carpenters LP. I may go drag it out right now.

Ching Ching

She looks at my nose, my hat, my shoes.

She shakes her head.

She jots down some notes.

She lifts my lapel, takes a close look at my gold science club pin, the one I’ve been wearing since high school, how any years ago now?

She’s pretty. High cheekbones, long hair. Not what I expected.

“So what happened here?” she asks me.

She reaches into my pocket, grabs my wallet, starts thumbing through it. No money. I could have sworn I had a couple hundred bucks in there.

She shakes her head. She stares into my eyes. She has green eyes. Not what I expected at all.

“I’m done,” she says, standing. “Tag him and bag him.”

Guess I’m done, too. May as well go toward the light now.

Twinkie Deconstructed

This is what I learned upon completing Steve Ettlinger's Twinkie Deconstructed.

Everything we eat comes from rocks, corn and petroleum.

Okay, that's an oversimplification, but Ettlinger's journey through processed food kept coming back to those three things as the starting point of many ingredients. Yes, we're dependent on foreign oil for so much more than just fuel for our SUVs.

Ettlinger's book started with a question from his son. While perusing a Twinkie wrapper, he asked where polysorbate 60 comes from. Ettlinger eventually set out on a journey to trace the history of all the ingredients on the Twinkie label. He travelled through numerous factories and underground mines to locate the source of twinkie-ness.

This list, from his website, gives a breakdown of where it all comes from.

THE TWINKIE NEXUS of INGREDIENTS

The Twinkie-Industrial Complex of Twinkies’ Raw and Final Ingredients

As Described in

Twinkie, Deconstructed

ANIMAL:

chickens – whole eggs

cows - whey, caseinate, animal shortening

bacteria, yeast, fungi – vitamins B1 and B2, folic acid, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, sodium stearoyl lactylate, polysorbate 60, whey

VEGETABLE:  

corn – corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, modified cornstarch, corn dextrins, dextrose, glucose, corn flour, polysorbate 60, sodium stearoyl lactylate

soy – soybean oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, soy protein  isolate, soy lecithin, sodium stearoyl lactylate

canola – shortening, sodium stearoyl lactylate

cotton - partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, sodium stearoyl lactylate, cellulose gum

wheat – flour

palm trees - partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, mono and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate

olive oil – mono and diglycerides, colors

sugar cane  - sugar

sugar beets – sugar

vanilla orchid – natural flavor

trees – cellulose gum

MINERAL:

crude oil or natural gas - artificial vanilla, artifical butter flavor, artificial colors, vitamins, sorbic acid, polysorbate 60, sodium bicarbonate, cellulose gum

limestone – monocalium  phosphate, calcium caseinate,  whey, SSL

phosphorus – monocalcium phosphate

trona - sodium bicarbonate, sodium stearoyl lactylate

salt - salt, bleach, colors (and as source of lye and HCl in all processing)

gypsum – calcium sulfate  

iron – ferrous sulfate

air – ammonia for nitric acid for niacin and colors

sulfur – ferrous sulfate

water – water

Mmm. Tasty.

I've been reading books by Michael Pollan and watching Food Inc and generally trying to be more aware of what I'm eating. This nook was another big step toward encouraging me to avoid prepackaged, processed foodstuffs. 

My favorite example, from early in the book, comes from the reveal of how iron gets into enriched flour. Of course, enriched flour is a good thing, with the added vitamins & minerals helping to eliminate the (now forgotten) disease pellagra. (Although if everyone ate a balanced diet and used whole wheat flour we wouldn't need enrichment, we'd be getting all the vitamins & minerals we need.) Now, when you make iron into steel, a big coating of rust covers the steel. So it's bathed in sulphuric acid, where the rust falls to the bottom, ultimately getting separated from the acid then ground into powder and sprinkled into flour. Voila! You've just enriched your flour with iron.

Yummy!

And so it goes, from oil refinery to chemical processing plant to your mouth.

Ettlinger's a good writer and, though the process becomes somewhat repetitive with yet another chemical plant extracting yet another oil-based ingredient, it's a great look at where we get all the packaged stuff that lines grocery store shelves - and is slowly killing us all.

Bon appetit! 

A Hard Rain

I pulled into the church parking lot and nearly ran over Satcom 5.  It lay on the pavement, shattered, flattened, like something attached to the back of Wile E Coyote after he smacked into the side of a mountain. The four solar panels spread out like cracked mirrors, still attached to the central core. Even from a distance I recognized the remains of the American flag painted on its side.

I stopped the bus and told the kids to sit tight.

Tendrils of smoke rose from broken components, the burnt electric smell stinging my nostrils. I kneeled, trying for a closer look. Couldn’t have been here long. Fresh. I glanced around, but the church grounds were still empty in the dawn light. I still had time to clean it up before the Fire Brigade caught whiff of the wreck.

“Joey,” I shouted toward the bus. “Grab a bucket.”

We swept up what we could, salvaged a few bits and bobs and shoveled the remains into a ditch behind the Family Life Center. Joey and a few of the older boys covered the whole pile with leaves.

 “When will it stop raining satellites?” Joey asked.

“I don’t know, son.” We put our tinfoil hats back on. “I don’t know.”

Rosebud

In honor of Orson Welles birthday, here is a list of books I’ve read about him over the years.

I owned Pauline Kael's Citizen Kane Book for years before finally reading it. I remember it as an evisceration of Welles and epistle to writer Herman Mankiewicz.

Then I read Road to Xanadu by Simon Callow and was just completely mesmerized by it. The book is amazing, as was Welles’ early life. Absolutely essential reading.

I loved the book and Welles so much afterward that I started seeking out more about him.

This is Orson Welles is a compilation of interviews Welles did with director Peter Bogdonavich. Amusing and anecdotal, like sitting in a room with Welles for a few hours.

Moby Dick – Rehearsed is a play written by Welles, an adaptation of the novel which I bet made for a riveting evening of theatre.

The Big Brass Ring is a screenplay by Welles that got made by others after his death.

Orson Welles by Joseph McBride is one of the other main bios of Welles and I don't recall a lot of details about it, but know I enjoyed it.

The Theatre of Orson Welles by Richard France was more of an academic book, one I got through interlibrary loan. Callow's book made me really wish I could have seen Welles' live productions with the Mercury Theatre and this helped flesh out more of that. 

I got Callow’s second volume, Hello Americans, shortly after it was released but I’m just now getting a chance to read it. Can’t wait.

Well, there you go. I told you it would be pretty much a list.

Oldest Trick in the Book

Burt shoved the gun against my forehead.

“Cute,” he said. “Very cute.”

“Thank you,” I stammered.

“Reese never mentioned you were funny.” He moved the gun to my chest and whispered in my ear. “I hate funny.”

“Me, too,” I said. “And clichés. I hate clichés.” Crap. Couldn’t stop myself.

Burt jammed the muzzle into my ribs.

“Are you saying I’m a cliché?”

“Just your dialogue,” I replied. “I mean, come on, ‘I hate funny.’ It’s like an episode of Rockford Files or something.”

“You want to see a cliché? I got a cliché for you. How about the dead guy with a big hole in his head?”

“You’re actually pointing at my heart right now.”

“Shut up!”

Ouch. He’d shouted that right into my ear.

“Listen,” I said. “Let’s just go back to Reese and talk to him. I’m sure he’ll understand if I can just explain it to him.”

“Explain it to me, funny man.” Burt took a step back, the gun still pointed at me. “Go ahead.”

“Well,” I began, casually stepping toward him, “it’s like this.”

Burt reflexively took another step back. And dropped into the open manhole.

“Whoopsie,” I said, grabbing Reese’s briefcase and heading off to the airport.

Turns out I’d lied to Burt. Actually, I love clichés.

New Short Story Published - Marathon

I've had a new short story published over at Pow Fast Flash Fiction.

Please check it out here.

5 Things I Learned from David Lynch

Like most of mainstream America, my first exposure to the work of David Lynch came with the release of The Elephant Man, his first bigtime Hollywood production. Bankrolled by Mel Brooks, the film was striking and, except for the strange elephant-noise collage sequences, pretty straightforward in a narrative sense. It provoked a lot of discussion with my fellow high schoolers and I, for one, loved the use of black and white.

Next up was Dune, a film that came with a crib sheet handed out at the box office. I again enjoyed a lot of the visuals in the film and really dug the atypical soundtrack music by the (unfamiliar to me, because I am a nerd) rock band Toto. I’d tried to read the novel Dune several times in high school and never made it past, oh, 1/3 of the way into the book. I was therefore startled when nearly the entire film consisted of ideas and scenes that I’d read in the novel. I guess that’s why the SciFi Channel ended up doing a miniseries version years later.

Then came Blue Velvet. So disturbing. So strange. So wonderful. I loved it. And when I read (in Rolling Stone, trying to temper my nerdosity) a couple years later that Lynch was developing a new TV series, I couldn’t wait to see it.

Twin Peaks absorbed my thoughts and attention in a way no other TV show had since, I don’t know, Star Trek when I was a kid. And I couldn’t wait to see Wild at Heart upon its release. I’d become a Lynch junkie. I sought out his Industrial Symphony. I spent hours listening to Julee Cruise. I baked pies. I considered drinking 14 cups of coffee a day, as he reputedly did. I thought of ways to come up with images and scenes that were seemingly tangential to the main scope of a piece.

By the time Twin Peaks, well, peaked, I’d come down from my Lynch high and the Twin Peaks movie Fire Walk With Me didn’t help restore the luster. I saw and enjoyed (if it’s actually possible to say you “enjoyed”) Lost Highway but I haven’t seen any of his other, later films.

But those critical years also taught me a lot about the nature of creativity.

1. Read the Art Spirit by Robert Henri. This book was mentioned by Lynch a couple of times in interviews, so I sought it out. It’s addressed primarily to visual artists, painters, but there is so much in there that applies to the creative process in general. I gave away my first copy to another writer I thought would appreciate it. The takeaway message I got from Henri was about focus, about paying attention to the moment, of fully investing yourself in the creation of a work. Be there, let it flow out and don’t second guess and rearrange and fret. Let it flow. I should probably read it again soon.
2. Diversify. Lynch is a writer, director, painter, sculptor and musician. He works in film, television, stage and galleries. He hits and misses. He doesn’t put all his eggs in one basket. He lets his muse tell him which way a particular idea should be expressed. He lets it flow. Again with the flow.
3. Put a fish in the percolator. One of the strangest and most wonderful moments in early Twin Peaks comes from Pete, the odd fellow who first discovers the body of Laura Palmer. Pete offers Agent Cooper some coffee and, just as Cooper takes a sip, Pete warns him not to drink it – “There was a fish in the percolator.” It’s an image that makes you laugh and then makes you try to figure out why there would be a fish in a percolator. It’s nonsensical and, quite possibly, the first time that phrase has ever been uttered anywhere in any language. Lynch creates unique moments that, with one line, can define a character. Doesn’t this say everything we might want to know about Pete? Stuck with a scene? Stick a fish in the percolator. Or find out what the log has to say.
4. Damn good coffee – and hot! Yes, this is more Twin Peaks, but that whole coffee and pie thing helped reinforce that idea of living in the moment, of trying to fully appreciate where you are and what you are doing. Sip that coffee, smell it, spit it out if it’s too hot. And don’t just eat the pie, savor it. And don’t forget to thank the person who brought it to you.
5. Go to extremes. Some of the creepiest moments in an already creepy film come when Willem Dafoe’s head separates from his body in Wild at Heart. And a dog walks off with a hand.  And both these moments are actually funny. I remember laughing and laughing when I saw the film. It’s okay to go to absurd lengths very once in a while. Wrap a girl up in plastic. Go ahead and start your film by tunneling underground to see ants, thus making explicit the implicit idea of your film. Don’t be afraid. Go where you need to go.

Found Poetry, Almost a Haiku (Elvis)

If I have to kiss
another fat girl, I'll puke.
Where the hell are my pills?