Well, this is where I come in. I’m an author now, but I spent decades as a professional musician, and I can say that I wholeheartedly agree with all of the above. Up to a point.

When I was 13, my mother made me take piano lessons. Now, we had a piano in the house and I was always fiddling with it, but couldn’t really play anything of any consequence. On top of that, at age 13, I had other things on my mind way more compelling than major scales. But Mom ruled, so I took the lessons.

Fortunately, my teacher was a guy who worked in the Post Office and played in a little trio on weekends. They did old standards and jazz and whatnot. He didn’t know from classical. One night a week, he would come to the house and show me how to make chords. “This is a C chord, Mike,” he would say before hitting another one. “And this is an F chord.” He got me to listen to the intervals between these chords and how one resolves into the other. Anyway, without getting too technical, what he did was, he effectively taught me to play by ear.

I can’t overstate the significance of this. Within about two or three weeks, I could string a couple of chords together and make a half-assed attempt at a song that was on the radio!  Holy shit! The light clicked on, and from that moment forward, my Mom never had to make me practice again. I was all over that piano.

One night, some eighteen months later, my teacher announced to me that this would be my final lesson. “What, are you leaving town?” I asked. He said no, he just didn’t have anything more to teach me and he didn’t feel he would be earning the money my parents paid him to carry it any further (BTW, he was getting $1 per lesson. That’s one dollar.). Seventy-some-odd little half-hour lessons, and it was all over. So I felt like I was in a rowboat being pushed off into an unstable sea, as he stood on the dock waving goodbye.

Remember what I said about practice? That’s what I did from that day on. Every chance I got. When my parents would go out for the evening, I’d sit at the piano trying out new stuff. And they certainly didn’t mind. They thought it would be just great if they could pull me out for company and have me play a little tune. You know, be the hit of the party. Little did they know I’d been bitten and they’d created the Wolfman.

When I started playing for a living, I took a portable piano with me out on the road so I could practice in my hotel room late at night with headphones. I even took a turntable with me to cop stuff from records (yes, I’m that old!).

Now, you could say that my teacher just guided me rather than taught me, since I had the aptitude for it already, and you may be right. But when he showed how to listen for those chord changes, I put that down as pure teaching. That was something I was just totally unaware of.

So now, I’m writing. My first novel was picked up by a publisher and is coming out this year. I’ve got two more right behind it and working on a third. The writing thing took me a lot longer to pick up, since I didn’t have anyone to show me anything or give me guidance. But I believe I had the ability deep down inside myself, struggling to get out. The cry of the artist, you could say.

Or as Dan O’Shea says, the magic is in the repetition somewhere.

BLOOD’S A ROVER by James Ellroy

reviewed by Mike Dennis

As every fan of James Ellroy knows by now, the third and final installment of his Underworld USA Trilogy is now available.  Through its 640 pages, Blood’s A Rover is a rollercoaster wrap-up of Ellroy’s hellish vision of America in the sixties, seen through the eyes of three principal characters.

1. Wayne Tedrow, former Las Vegas cop and heroin dealer, whose father had intimate knowledge of the JFK assassination plot. Now working with the mob to open casinos in the Dominican Republic.

2. Dwight Holly, previously engineered the Martin Luther King assassination while setting up James Earl Ray as the fall guy (all at the behest of J Edgar Hoover). Now turns his attention to disrupting West Coast black militant groups.

3. Don Crutchfield, LA private investigator with a fondness for peeping through windows at night. Lands a job finding a woman who stole money from his client.  Through this, he’s drawn in to a dizzying array of political intrigue, hate-group conspiracies, and Mafia dreams for the future.

At the center of Blood’s A Rover is the shadowy leftist Joan Klein, known as the Red Goddess, along with a mysterious cache of emeralds stolen from an armored truck years earlier.  All three of the principal characters eventually become obsessed with finding Joan, and the book seems to take a subtle turn once she walks into the story, as she slowly becomes the focus of the novel.

Ellroy has expanded his vision well beyond Los Angeles, taking the reader across America from black militant storefronts in LA to Howard Hughes’ Las Vegas hotel suite all the way to the Oval Office.  He spends a good deal of time deep in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where voodoo potions are the order of the day.

The many, many characters, who appear and disappear with blinding speed, are given to similar-sounding voices, so it’s not always easy to tell who’s speaking.  Their collective voices are, in fact, Ellroy’s own voice, giving him a personal stake in the proceedings.  This is one of the reasons that Ellroy is a tough read.  You have to accept the fact that he resides, to one degree or another, in all of his characters.

The trilogy, spanning from 1958-1972, is a sweeping look at the ugly underbelly of America during that turbulent period, at the precise point where byzantine political plots, racial paranoia, and organized crime collide.  He has said that one could read Blood’s A Rover and glean from its opening the back story of the first two books.  I wouldn’t recommend it.  American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand are necessary steps to arriving at this fitting finish to a cold-blooded epic story.

http://shar.es/mXyXX

Naturally, this isn’t a new story. Many people have seen drastic changes to their hometowns over the years. But David went on to ponder this a little more, concluding that he can’t set any of his writing in Peoria, that it’s all set in Chicago and other locales of his adulthood. Peoria isn’t the same as when he was a kid, he says, and neither is he.

I had never really thought about my hometown as a locale for my writing, and now I know why. It’s a little place called Seneca Falls, nestled in the heart of the Finger Lakes District of central New York State. Back then, its population was 7000, and it bustled with manufacturing activity. Several large factories were there, employing most of the locals and pumping money into the economy. Unlike David’s experience, the town looks almost exactly the same as when I grew up there so very long ago.

Except that today, most of the factories have closed or moved away. The population is still 7000, but they’re on the ropes. Very little money is circulating and the people wear the hard times on their faces. Like so many fading mill towns, Seneca Falls lives in the shadows, on a slippery slope to oblivion.

When I was growing up there, I had no awareness of anything, especially anything regarding the rhythms of life that we all eventually learn. But through reading, television, and looking at maps, I slowly became cognizant of a wider world, a world that called to me all through my adolescence. I figured out that I had to answer the call, so by the time I went away to college at age 17, my mind was made up. I never returned there to live.

Many of the places I lived since then (and there have been somewhere around a dozen) have provided me with great settings for my novels. But I absolutely cannot write anything about Seneca Falls. Because like David, I’m not the person I was during those formative years. Back then, I saw things through the clear prism of childhood, of innocence, before I knew anything about mean streets or good whiskey or dangerous women.

But once I eased into adulthood, and I felt the toxic kiss of corruption, I learned a lot of what I needed to know in order to write crime fiction. I learned it in cities like New Orleans and Las Vegas and even Key West. My novels are set in those cities, and others, because my life in those places, and the choices I made while traveling this long road, transformed me into the man who is writing this today.

As David Heinzmann so aptly put it, I’m writing about places, not where I came from, but where I came to. And most of them exist in a sort of moral twilight.

How about you? Did you leave your hometown? Do you write about it now? Or do you write about the places you came to?

The seven claims I made were:

1. During my poker career, I once won a large pot from actor James Woods.

2. Back in my musical career, I once played piano behind Jerry Lee Lewis.

3. Also, back in my musical career, I often played in a bar in Honduras frequented by “death squad” members.

4. When I was in college, I was in several classes with Bill Clinton.

5. I was arrested in Zimbabwe as a “provocateur”.

6. While in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, I once danced with Miss Trinidad (of the Miss Universe contest, where she went on to finish 2nd).

7. I know, without doubt, who was behind the JFK assassination.

And yes, the lie is #7. Only Deborah Sharp was sharp enough to make the correct call. Everyone else, without exception selected #5, which I’m afraid actually happened, along with #s 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.

Okay, now that that’s done with, anybody got anything they’d like to sound off about? On any subject at all? Come in, please. Over.

SUCKER PUNCH by Ray Banks (2007)

Review by Mike Dennis

The world of small-time boxing makes for an irresistible backdrop in noir fiction.  Films such as Fat City and The Set-Up gained classic status by their dramatic depiction of the hopeless nature of that world and those who inhabit it.  There are very few options for these people, and almost all of them end in flames.  This is the message delivered in Sucker Punch, a 2007 novel by British author Ray Banks.

The big time in the sport, represented by championship bouts in Las Vegas, is clearly out of reach for everyone involved in this book.  But that doesn’t stop them from dreaming, and when you think about it, that’s what boxing is all about:  one man’s dream to escape a life of grinding poverty.

Liam Wooley is not the central character in the book, but he’s the fighter from Manchester, the one with the big hopes.  He’s got talent, no doubt about it, but his temper may prevent him from “turning pro”, which is his immediate goal.  He’s laconic to a fault, a sort of young Charles Bronson, who just wants to train in the gym and be left alone.

Cal Innes, a former private investigator, is out of prison on probation.  He forges prescriptions to quench his pill habit and does odd jobs for Paulo Gray, owner of a seedy gym in Manchester.  Paulo gets an invitation to send a fighter to Los Angeles to compete in a small tournament, where it’s rumored that high-level scouts will be in attendance.  He decides to send Liam, his best prospect, and asks Cal to keep him company on the trip and make sure he shows up for the bouts.

Told from Cal’s point of view, the novel takes them to LA, during which time Cal can’t find anywhere to smoke, he rubs Liam the wrong way, and he meets Nelson Byrne, a stranger in a bar who says he’s a former fighter, but now “does some coaching and scouting”.  Hmmm.

There’s enough British street slang in this book to fill a soccer stadium, and I often had to pause to try to decipher it.  But Banks was able to deftly switch back and forth from British voice to American in those scenes where Cal is speaking to Byrne.

I was over halfway through the book before I realized that nothing was really happening.  The first hint of real conflict didn’t come until later, and normally, this is the kiss of death for any crime novel.  Banks’ prose, though, is so hard-hitting that it holds your attention through it all and makes you forget that the story is just standing still.  David Goodis was a master at this, forcing you to turn the page on the strength of his writing alone.

Banks’ Manchester, always cold and drizzly, brings to mind Goodis’ Philadelphia, a miserable, bleak place where the minor players have no shot and where their dreams are easily extinguished.

Be careful when you read Sucker Punch.  You’ll need to take a shower to wash away the grime.

• Thank the person who gave this to you. (Thanks, Jeff.)
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (OK, done.)
• Link to the person who nominated you. (Check.)
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

After careful thought, I decided that six lies would be too easy, so I have elected to tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.  The truths are all absolutely true, but please don’t ask me to elaborate on any of them. Can you guess which is the lie?

1. During my poker career, I once won a large pot from actor James Woods.

2. Back in my musical career, I once played piano behind Jerry Lee Lewis.

3. Also, back in my musical career, I often played in a bar in Honduras frequented by “death squad” members.

4. When I was in college, I was in several classes with Bill Clinton.

5. I was arrested in Zimbabwe as a “provocateur”.

6. While in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, I once danced with Miss Trinidad (of the Miss Universe contest, where she went on to finish 2nd).

7. I know, without doubt, who was behind the JFK assassination.

Okay, there you have it. Step right up and take your guess. Meanwhile, the other writers I am nominating are (drum roll, please):

Tom Piccirilli (The Last Kind Words), Morgan St James (The Seven Deadly Samovars), James Scott Bell (Plot & Structure), Charlie Stella (Johnny Porno), John McFetridge (Let It Ride), Vegas Linda Lou (Bastard Husband: A Love Story), links posted to the right.

THE GAMBLER

Review by Mike Dennis 2010

“This is it, fellow,” the motorman said impatiently.  “End of the line.”

That’s the opening of William Krasner’s The Gambler (1950), a gritty noir novel of one man coming face to face with his own limitations.  That man is Ben Wulfson, who, unlike most noir protagonists, starts at the end of the line and pretty much stays there.

He’s just returned to town from an eight-year absence, which is never fully explained.  He makes his way to commission row, which looks like an area straight out of David Goodis’ black vision of Philadelphia.  It’s full of sooty buildings and merciless streets and people with few options, but right away, Ben feels at home.

He wants to get back into the swing of the gambling world, which he knows well, so he hooks up with Tim Coogan, a pasty-faced young man who worked with him years earlier.  Together they set up a dice game.

Now, if you run a dice game legitimately, you’re going to make money in the long run because the odds are immutably in your favor.  Problem is, Ben doesn’t want to wait for the long run.  He wants to make a pile of dough fast, then get out of town for good.  So he introduces doctored dice into his game.

The game cruises along, Ben and Tim make some pretty good money, and then Ben meets Alice, a girl wandering aimlessly in the park, clutching a crust of bread.  She’s wet, cold, and very sick.  Out of sympathy, he takes her back to his fleabag hotel room to dry her out and warm her up.  They develop a strange, distant relationship, but each of them welcomes it in his/her own way.

Problems arise when Ben’s loaded dice are discovered.  Then the local gambling kingpin decides Ben’s game is disrupting the natural order of things.  Meanwhile, his own troubled family issues reverberate throughout the book.  The cops, the gangsters, the gamblers, Ben’s family…they’re all out to get Ben in one way or another, as each scene narrows his window of opportunity to escape.

Krasner paints a desolate picture of people on the other side of town, where no one ever goes.  The scenes are described in great detail, maybe too much so in spots, but all in the language of true noir.  Even the scenes that take place under the daytime sun feel dark and hopeless.  Under his hand, light is co-opted by shadow as easily as ambition is extinguished by reality.

The author of only eight novels, Krasner spent most of his career writing scientific essays for journals and magazines, as well as a lot of TV and radio scripts.  Don’t let that fool you, though.  The Gambler is a bitter, uncompromising tale, very well told.

I want to write about writers groups.  Critique groups, specifically.  I am a big believer in them.  And it doesn’t matter what kind of writers are in a particular critique group.  If you join, you will become a better writer.  That’s all there is to it.

There are very small critique groups, limiting their membership to maybe three or four people, and then the size escalates from there.  In the small groups, each member may get up and read, then listen to the criticism of his fellow members.  Or each member may distribute a copy of his read to the others who take it home, examine it, mark it up, then deliver their critiques at the next meeting.

In the larger groups, the piece is almost always read aloud by the writer to the other members, who then critique it on the spot.

I’m currently a member of four writers groups here in Las Vegas, two of which are critique groups. They are:  the local chapter of Sisters In Crime, the Las Vegas Writers Group, the Henderson Writers Group, and an as-yet unnamed crew.  The Henderson Writers Group (one of the critique outfits) usually attracts 20-30 people to each meeting.  The writers are a mixed bag, writing in all genres, published and unpublished.

These last few weeks, I’ve been reading a chapter a week of my latest novel to this group.  Prior to these reads, I had gone over that novel countless times, looking for ways to make it better, adding stuff here, deleting stuff there, moving other stuff around, fixing typos, and so on.  I thought it was pretty close to right when I brought chapter one in to read.

Well, the critiques I received were things which I hadn’t seen in all the times I’d been over that book, and you know what?  I never would’ve seen them. They were things that, for some reason, my brain was not geared toward spotting.  Some of these things were obvious to everyone but me, while some were extremely subtle…moving a phrase from the end of a paragraph to the beginning, for example.  Either way, they’d escaped my attention altogether.  That’s the beauty of these groups.  All those other eyes and ears, backed up by brains different from mine, can and will see stuff which I could never catch.

And it goes without saying (although I will say it) that my novel is much better because of the critiques I received from this group.

Memo to all writers, published and unpublished:  If you want to improve your WIP, and ultimately your writing itself, join a local writers group.  They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere!

It got me thinking about noir songs in general, and after considerable thought, I would nominate the Marty Robbins classic, El Paso, as the greatest noir song of all time.  Written and recorded by Robbins in 1959, it’s set in the lawless West of the late 19th century. Don’t let that fool you, though. This tune is strictly noir from start to finish.

Guy walks into a bar, spots a hot-blooded Mexican babe, watches her dance, gets ideas. Of course, in true noir fashion, you know he’s totally fucked right out of the chute.  Anyway, after a few drinks, he argues over her with another guy. The quarrel escalates until BANG!  Our guy shoots him dead. The dead guy has friends, though, and they begin to move in on our noir protagonist. He runs out the back, steals a horse, and rides away into the night, followed by this makeshift posse.

He gets away clean and is headed for New Mexico when he’s overcome with pangs of love/lust for the girl. Finding that he just can’t bring himself to leave her forever, he heads back to El Paso and to the cantina where she dances. As he does, he’s surrounded by his pursuers, who shoot him down. Mortally wounded, he lies there as the girl rushes to his fallen figure. As he takes his final breath, she kisses him goodbye.

Fade to black.

Cut! Print it!

What makes this even more compelling is this little followup story.

Many years ago, when I was playing music for a living, I did a show with Marty Robbins and he told me he believed that he was that cowboy/central character in a former life! As in “reincarnated”, and he said his memories of that incident were so clear, so strong, that he was able to write a timeless song like El Paso, giving it such a vivid feel. He explained to me exactly what it felt like to watch the girl dance and how he got excited over her, then how shocked he was immediately after killing the other guy during their argument.

I have a noir novel coming out this year called The Take, and I don’t mind admitting that it was heavily influenced by two lines in El Paso:

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina, wicked and evil while casting a spell.

My love was deep for this Mexican maiden. I was in love, but in vain I could tell.

I even named the girl in my novel Felina.

Come on, you’ll have to admit, that’s pretty noirish. But maybe you’ve got a nomination or two for Greatest Noir Song of All Time.