dv_main

Review: James Batman, I’m not Kidding

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this: I’ve never seen E.T. I’ve picked it up of course. It’s a cultural touchstone, and the defining movie of the Spielberg era. I just figured Steven Spielberg didn’t need my eight bucks.

I think I might be a contrarian. Sometimes where everyone else Zigs, I Zag. It’s not a point of pride. I’m not out there in a black trenchcoat, pontificating about how much better I am than all the heathen masses. Sometimes I just don’t feel the need to follow the crowd.

And I find I’m interested in the hidden gems, the diamonds in the rough, the obscure beauties, flowers growing in the concrete. There’s a gentle sweetness to these discoveries, I want to share them, not crow over them.

Which brings me to one of the stranger things I’ve run across lately: James Batman, a full length black and white Batman movie, also starring James Bond, made in 1966, currently available on Youtube, in subtitles and everything.

Let me tell you, I was shocked at the existence of this movie, and I’ve watched the Mexican Batwoman, Turkish Star Wars and Turkish Star Trek, among many other cinematic oddities. But I’d, honest to god, never even heard of this. So I was thrilled to discover it, and to be able to watch it.

Read more

Murder in Minneapolis

As a rule, I try not to get too political on this blog. I like to talk about writing and life. Politics is messy and bitter.

Having said that, I just can’t look away from the Minneapolis fiasco, and as a basic human being I can’t help but be outraged.

I know this post may be read long after, so let me start with a recap.

On Monday, May 25, 2020, Memorial day in the United States, a deli in the Powderhorn district of Minneapolis, reported to police that a middle aged black man was attempting to pay with a forged twenty dollar bill. Four police officers converged on the scene and apprehended a man, Floyd George, who was in his car who apparently fit the description. There were two other persons in the car. It is not clear whether George was the actual person or simply fit the description. I assume that will be clarified at some point.

George was ordered out of the car, and apparently reluctant to do so. However, he exited or was removed from the vehicle and handcuffed with his hands behind his back. At some point, he fell down. From this point on, he was laying down, on his stomach, hands cuffed behind his back, with three officers on him. One officer was on his legs, another on his back, and the third, Officer Derek Chauvin, knelt with his knee on George’s neck, for roughly seven to ten minutes. The fourth officer maintained control of the scene, keeping bystanders away.

On several occasions, George complained that he couldn’t breath, claimed discomfort, and asked for help. He begged not to be killed and cried out for his mother. There was a strange conversation, where one of the officers who was physically holding George in place kept instructing him to ‘get in the car’ despite the fact that George was physically immobilized by three officers, including the one kneeling on his neck.

After begging for his life and calling for his mother he fell silent. A number of bystanders complained that the officers were killing George, there were demands or requests to check his pulse. An ambulance was called, by the time it arrived he was dead. The body was moved onto an ambulance gurney and carried away, with no apparent resuscitation efforts made on site at any point by either the officers or ambulance attendants. The officers then departed the scene in their respective patrol cars.

Read more

Where the Five Rivers End

A Requiem

How to start this? Five River’s Publishing is a Canadian small press operating out of Neustadt, Ontario. Over the years, they’ve published both literary and genre fiction, young adult fiction, anthologies and short stories, non-fiction, ebooks, print and audio books.

Among their publications are the audio book versions of a number of David Duncan books, and authors including Candas Jane Dorsey, Aaron Kite, Michael Skeet, Nowick Gray, Nate Hendley, Joe Mahoney, Timothy Gwynn, D.G Laderoute, Ann Marston and others, and of course, Lorina Stephens, the owner and publisher herself. Many of their books were award winners, shortlisters or finalists in various book competitions. They distinguished themselves not just by the quality of their writers, but by the high standards of their production and the sheer professionalism with which they conducted business.

They were the publishers of my novel, The Mermaid’s Tale, and were due to publish my next novel, the prequel to the Mermaid’s Tale, titled The Luck, as of August 1, 2020. Just a couple of months away.

And now they are no more.

Shucks.

Read more

Fascism – An Axis of Andes sneak peek

EXCERPT

The Rise of Fascism in Ecuador in the 1930’s

The thing you have to understand about fascism is that it isn’t an ideology at all.

It’s theater.

It’s all about dressing up and marching around and shouting in unison. It’s about being mad as hell and not taking it, whatever it is, any more. It’s about right and wrong, traditional virtues, manly men, womenly women, nervous but alluring sheep. It’s simple solutions to a complicated world, the innate superiority of tribe and fixing the world with a sock to the jaw of some craven jew/marxist/indian/etc. etc.

Fascist ideology is almost always a contradiction in terms. What a fascist believes, what a fascist does is self serving and fluid, fitting the needs of the moment.

There is no real theory. Theory is for eggheads sitting in their ivory towers, contemplating the world, passively studying and forming theories.

Well, while the eggheads sat there and studied, the Fascists were about action. They would go out and act, and let the eggheads study that. And while the eggheads studied, they would act again. Fascists would remake the world, through the sheer power of will and action.

Fascism was not about thinking, it was about acting. It was not about reflection or ideology or theory, it was about passion.

It was all nonsense, of course. But Fascism had the advantage of looking good with all its shouting and bluster and appeals to blood and virtue.

Read more

Death and the Writer

It was my grandfather’s death that made me commit to being a writer.

I always wanted to be a writer. That didn’t mean I was all that regular about it.

Let’s see. There was Batman adventures on the blackboard when I was young. I had my two stories published in the local paper when I was thirteen.

I wrote a couple of short stories in high school. One about aliens coming into the Solar System, discovering that it was already occupied, and not having enough resources to leave. So they were basically parked out in the asteroid belt with no place to go, waiting for us to eventually find them, and not looking forward to it. There was another story about a society of sentient elephants who had banded together to try and escape a failing environment, only to discover that they were living in a giant experiment.

There were a lot of stories in my head, planned, sometimes outlined, sometimes started. Sometimes just rolling around in my head. I spent a lot of time in my head. I’d make up stories, when I was picking up garbage at the drive in theatre prior to showtime, or pumping gas or sweeping floors at the garage.

Read more