What I like about shopping at Habitat For Humanity is you never know what some fool might discard, wholly believing he’s jetting some useless bit of trash.I go there mostly for books, and mostly because the books are cheap, but I’m always on the lamb for the rare title or edition you’re unlikely to ever find at your local bookstore.
I was perusing the other day and came across a goldmine.
Some unwitting idgit had donated a whole stack (a very tall stack) of old, battered John D. MacDonald’s, all of them Travis McGees.Sweet Jumpin Jehovah!
Now, for the uninitiated, you may be wondering why this was such a find, why all the heavy breathing.If you haven’t read ol Johnny, well, my friends, you’re in for quite a treat.In fact, I envy you.You’re a MacDonald virgin, and you’re first ride, should you choose to take it, will be sweet indeed.
MacDonald was the last in a long line of what used to be called “pulp” writers, though by MacDonald’s era they no longer made “pulps” (paperback books made from cheap pulp paper).But MacDonald was squarely in the tradition, coming on the heels of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet and Ross MacDonald.However, while ol Johnny may have waltzed out of the crime noir closet, his most famous creation, Travis McGee, was most definitely a white-knight, a true-blue romantic, tossing off the black cynicism of his predecessors.
In the 21 Travis McGee novels, MacDonald mastered a fluid, clear and startlingly immediate style so smooth it makes you want to weep.Every line rings true.Every line seems easy, off the cuff.Like the finest vodka, you never even know you’re getting drunk, it’s all so damn fine.And let me tell you, writing like this, where it seems so easy, is so damn hard to write.
The only other writer I’ve ever read who writes as smoothly is Stephen King, and King (surprise, surprise) grew up reading MacDonald.“He is the great entertainer of our age,” King said.It is my long held theory that King is MacDonald’s greatest apprentice, having learned much at the feet of the master (and here I’m taking credit, cause I’ve never heard any critic anywhere mention these two writers in the same breath).
McGee is not a detective in the classic sense.He is not a cop or a private investigator.By trade, he is a “salvage consultant,” a freelancer who works when he feels like it. Folks come to McGee when they’ve lost something and when going to the authorities is, for whatever reason, not the best option.McGee gets it back for them, and keeps half the value.
We meet McGee, the boat-bum Quixote, in The Deep Blue Goodbye:
“Home is the Busted Flush, 52-foot barge-type houseboat, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale.
“Home is where the privacy is.Draw all the opaque curtains, button the hatches, and with the whispering drone of the air conditioning masking all the sounds of the outside world, you are no longer cheek to jowl with the random activities aboard the neighbor craft.You could be in a rocket beyond Venus, or under the icecap.
"Because it is a room aboard, I call it the lounge, and because that is one of the primary activities.
“I was sprawled on a deep curve of the corner couch, studying charts of the keys, trying to work up enough enthusiasm and energy to plan moving the Busted Flush to a new mooring for a while.She has a pair of Hercules diesels, 58 HP each, that will chug her along at a stately six knots.I didn’t want to move her.I like Lauderdale.But it had been so long I was wondering if I should.”
I’ve read just about every mystery writer on the planet, but there isn’t one I like half as much as John MacDonald.I have great admiration for Elmore Leonard, for John Sandford, and am quite enraptured by the Italian writer Andre Camelleri, but none of them compare to MacDonald.To go one further, there isn’t a character in fiction I’d enjoy spending time with more than my man Trav.I’ve read MacDonald into the ground, cruising through more than one novel so many times the books have fallen apart, literally shedding pages as I read, and still I never tire of him.
The first McGee novel I read was A Tan and Sandy Silence, but one can start anywhere (though I wouldn’t start at the very end with The Lonely Silver Rain).There isn’t a bad book in the series, and I don’t think I could recommend one over another.On the whole, I give them all my highest acclimation:they’ve kept me good company on my search, may they keep you good company on yours.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's new album is in stores TODAY!
Do yourself a favor.
Buy it.
Also out today, the new tour schedule, starting with the Super Bowl Halftime Show on Feb. 1.
Announcement of the tour caused a complete system crash in Scandinavia, as calls for tickets hit unprecedented levels in both Stockholm and Bergen.
Go Bruce!
Tyler's First Listen Formula For the Weak and Weary: Buy the new Bruce album. Find a long stretch of lonely highway with little traffic and fewer cops. Insert disc. Turn volume to MAX. Roll down driver side window. Push play. Hit gas. For best results, play on sunny days at 85 mph.
warning: use only as directed...this blog does not support the disregard or blatant breaking of state or federal traffic laws...if an erection lasting longer than four hours occurs, please contact your doctor.
So, yes, I raced down to Wenatchee late after work to buy the new Stephen King book...on the day it was released. And, yes, it's only a collection of five stories already published, that I already own...in multiple copies. But, damnit, this book is new, it has a bitchin cover, and King did write intros for each of the stories, making comments about the film adaptaions.
Yeah, well...I know, I know, but it really is a bitchin cover.
One of the things I love about King is his own humility, and his ability to cut through the crap and tell it like it is. On the movie adaptation of Children of the Corn, he says:
"On another note: Children of the Corn has generated more awful sequels than any other story in my oeuvre. There's Children of the Corn II, III and IV, at least. Possibly more (I eventually lost count). If my internet connection weren't down as I write this, I'd check and see if there wasn't even a Children of the Corn in Space. I almost think there was. The only one I was really rooting for was Children of the Corn Meet Leprechaun. I wanted to hear that little leprechaun guy shouting, "Give me back me corn!" in his cute Irish accent."
Honestly, if you haven't really read King, this collection, while not the best place to start, is still a pretty good beginning point. All five of the stories are good (including Children of the Corn, in spite of the terrible movies the story is excellent) and two of the pieces, Low Men in Yellow Coats and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption are amongst King's finest writing. Low Men in Yellow Coats happens to be one of my top dozen or so favorite works...by any writer.
King also gives a list of his favorite adaptations of his works, which are, alphabetically, as follows:
Apt Pupil Cujo Dolores Claiborne 1408 The Green Mile Misery The Mist The Shawshank Redemption Stand By Me Storm of the Century
Stay tuned, friends and neighbors...my own Top Ten Favorite King Adaptations will be coming soon!
An odd choice, I realize, but ever since I started watching House I’ve come to terms with a number of realizations.One, House is my favorite show.Of.All.Time.Second, it is compulsively watchable.Once begun, I was watching two, three episodes per night, planning my life two weeks out in anticipation of my next trip to Wal-Mart to buy Season Two, Season Three, circling the coming glory day on my calendar.Third, I finally discovered someone on television who reminds me of myself, which means I have finally joined the jubilant millions of home-viewers reclining blissfully on aging couch cushions from the Pacific to the Atlantic, stone-zoned night to night in front of the boob-tube, ecstatic in my connection with this character inside the light-box who’s just like me (at least, sort of).
It’s already affecting my life.
I’ve taken to making sarcastic comments in the face of obvious questions, a habit I’d worked for years to erase from my repertoire.No more.Now that I’m House-ified, the sarcasm flies.It zings.It whizzes.And, baby, it burns.
I started keeping containers of Tic-Tacs in my pocket, conveniently half-loaded so I could take them out at random and rattle the container.Finding this unimpressive, I moved them into an old prescription-med bottle, all those fine little white breath mints a convincing Vicadin impersonator.
I even talk like House.I can’t stop saying “Differential diagnosis,” which is a phrase that just sounds badass no matter how you use it.
I took my truck to the shop when the clutch went out.My mechanic popped the hood, stuck in his head.I leaned over his shoulder.
“Differential diagnosis for a screaming clutch?”
I got pulled over last week.The cop tapped my window politely with his thumb.I rolled it down.
“Differential diagnosis, Officer, for why you pulled me over?”
I woke up on my day off with a mean hunger.I opened the cupboards and stared down at the dog.
“Differential diagnosis, Tito, for Sunday breakfast?”
Try it out.It’s addictive.
But most of all, I find myself wanting to do things because of watching House.Here’s a short list of my current inspirations:
I want to go back to wearing beard-stubble.
Greg just looks good unshaven.I just look good unshaven.And you wonder what else we have in common.
I want to play the piano.
I’m already a loner, and playing the piano when you’re all alone just seems sexy.
I want a friend like Wilson.
Wilson puts up with nothing but shit, and he sticks around.We all need a friend like this.I need two.
I want a cane.
Two ideas to think about:You can hit people with it.Sympathy-sex.Ponder this for a while and ask yourself if I’m on the wrong track.
If nothing else, you ought to do yourself a favor.Buy Season One and watch it.You won’t be sorry.
Lately I’ve been rocking to the 1991 Bruce Springsteen album Human Touch. No surprise finding me boppin to the Boss, but Touch has long been the album most fans consider his worst. Its reputation sits squarely at the bottom of the Springsteen canon, his first effort (along with the simultaneous release of Lucky Town) after disbanding the E Street Band (yeah, that fiasco remember? These guys were so good they couldn’t have a real breakup over drugs or sleeping with each other’s wives…Springsteen had to disband them). Touch got raked, and raked hard, basically for not being the E Street Band, regardless of what strengths it may have actually possessed.
So why am I going on about it?
Well, cause it’s a damn good album, that’s why. And I like it. And it’s my blog, so I’ll write about whatever junk thrills me…if even for just the moment. So here are some notes on the worst album Springsteen ever released.
Okay. Touch really is Springsteen’s weakest album, but lets remember this is the guy who left songs like Pink Cadillac, The Promise, This Hard Land and Frankie on the cutting room floor because they…uh…weren’t good enough (the only real equivalent in rock history was Dylan’s spectacular misplacement of the cindering track Blind Willie McTell…also left on the floor…imagine). Springsteen’s weakest songs are still better than 90% of everyone else’s best material. So let’s get past that.
The truth is that while the album is no Born to Run, some of his best writing is here. The title track is literally one of his half dozen greatest songs, and to hear it alone is worth spending the $15 bucks.
Girl that feeling of safety you prize It comes with a hard, hard price You can’t shut off the risk and the pain Without losing the love that remains We’re all riders on this train
Human Touch is as good a track as Born to Run, Brilliant Disguise, Badlands, Backstreets, Born in the USA, and for this single reason the album deserves attention. However, there’s more here than one great track. In fact, the first three tracks are all masterpieces. Soul Driver is one of Springsteen’s coolest lyrics, with a drop-dead brilliant weaving of metaphorical imagery. And the sad and biting irony of 57 Channels, its swift, stinging social commentary makes this little number one of the Boss’s most underrated songs.
No one knows which way love’s wheel turns Will we hit it rich or crash and burn Does fortune wait or just the black hand of fate? This love potion’s all we got One toast before it’s too late
Then there are the off-the-cuff rockers that Springsteen has always been able to write but has rarely released, songs that would be career makers for other artists, but when Springsteen cuts them his fans are nearly always disappointed. We all expect another Thunder Road, and when he releases a “normal” rock song, we tend to hate him for it. But songs like Roll of the Dice, Gloria’s Eyes, All or Nothin at All, and The Long Goodbye are actually all solid rock songs, and better written than anything you’ll find on the radio today. They’re fast, strong tracks, laced with constant nods to the legacy Springsteen inherited from Motown. This is soul-rock, and the nearly all-black members of the band he brought together to cut this album attests to this heritage.
My soul went walkin but I stayed here Feel like I been workin for a thousand years Chippin away at this chain of my own lies Climbin a wall a hundred thousand miles high Well I woke up this morning on the other side
And then there’s Real World. The song that almost makes it. This is one of Springsteen’s finest lyrics, and it falls mere inches from being one of his best tracks ever. I’m not entirely sure why it doesn’t stick, why it falls short, though it does. There’s no doubt that it doesn’t attain the level of Human Touch, but it is a damn fine song, and if you ever get a chance to here the live version Springsteen does of this number, himself alone on the piano, that acoustic version will send chills down your spine. By himself, Springsteen strips the song to its bone, and without the soul-rock beat, there is nothing between the listener and the desperation, pain, and eventual belief in hope and love that powers this lyric. It is essential Springsteen, that unique combination of the understanding that life is hard, damn hard, full of suffering, but that the only way to make it through is to believe that life is worth living, that love and decency can and do exist.
Well I run that hard road out of heartbreak city Built a roadside carnival out of hurt and self-pity It was all wrong Now I’m moving on
I built a shrine in my heart It wasn’t pretty to see Made out of fool’s gold memory and tears cried Now I’m headin over the rise I’m searching for one clear moment of love and truth I still have a little faith But what I need is some proof tonight I’m looking for it in your eyes
So, while Touch certainly ranks low in the canon, and no one would really argue you ought to give it more time than Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town or The River, still, don’t write it off. There’s plenty here worth listening to, and some of it is utterly brilliant. Springsteen has always been THE greatest songwriter of his generation, and he didn’t lose that ability on Touch. He just didn’t have the E Street Band.
What I like about shopping at Habitat For Humanity is you never know what some fool might discard, wholly believing he’s jetting some useless bit of trash. I go there mostly for books, and mostly because the books are cheap, but I’m always on the lamb for the rare title or edition you’re unlikely to ever find at your local bookstore. 
I’ve read just about every mystery writer on the planet, but there isn’t one I like half as much as John MacDonald. I have great admiration for Elmore Leonard, for John Sandford, and am quite enraptured by the Italian writer Andre Camelleri, but none of them compare to MacDonald. To go one further, there isn’t a character in fiction I’d enjoy spending time with more than my man Trav. I’ve read MacDonald into the ground, cruising through more than one novel so many times the books have fallen apart, literally shedding pages as I read, and still I never tire of him. 
