Monthly Archives: March 2020

General

Coronavirus Diaries

As I wrote yesterday, it seemed people finally confronted the fact that the Coronavirus is something we need to worry about.

Today, the news continues to be rather grim. The Coronavirus is a more dangerous, potent virus versus the regular flu and now, two days later, it feels like closing off events where large numbers of people are pressed together closely (ie sport events, theme parks) is a prudent move.

Here’s the big question: How long will this go on?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the economic impact will be both very negative and incredibly huge.

Walt Disney World and Disneyland, along with Universal, announced yesterday they would be shutting down. This not only affects the park’s owners/operators, who will lose millions of dollars each day, but more importantly also the park employees, many of whom make close to minimum wage.

I’m reading about the effects to other “mom and pop” type stores, that suddenly there aren’t many clients going to restaurants or stores in general, preferring to close themselves in at home and away from the possibility of catching and spreading this disease.

They’re not wrong in worrying even as one wonders how some of these smaller businesses and especially their employees will survive what could be an extended period of economic slowdown.

Truly we’re going through a new and very frightening situation, both for fear of catching something that could cause significant health problems, and the resulting effects it has on our bottom line.

The biggest hope is that scientists figure out in relatively short order a vaccine and/or effective treatment against this pandemic before it becomes far, far worse than it already is.

Pretty obvious stuff, I guess.

General

Coronavirus Now…

What a difference a day makes.

It felt like a wave of fear was building, from the first reports of the coronavirus appearing in China to the first reports of it being found in other places. Then, more and more, we heard of its spread, until finally it appeared in the United States.

I have absolutely no faith in the current administration and, of course, their first responses to the virus were pathetic.

Donald Trump, once again, goes to his old playbook and what we have is a “hoax”. His surrogates in the right leaning “media” took that particular ball and ran with it, some even suggesting the new of the virus was a “second impeachment”.

Those living in the real world were worried, of course, perhaps overly worried and I started noticing at my local Costco that toilet paper (why?!) and water (huh?!) were being plundered by shoppers.

I can understand wanting some of these things in case of a hurricane but, correct me if I’m wrong, but water that comes out of one’s taps is still drinkable, no? It’s not like the coronavirus is going to make its way to our ground water and we’ll be somehow made sick through it, right?

As far as toilet paper is concerned… I don’t get that either. As it so happened, we actually were low on toilet paper when this whole things started up but, thankfully, I was able to get myself a pack.

This was a few day ago, thankfully, because yesterday things really, really seemed to change.

I suppose the double news of Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson contracting the coronavirus was a shock. They’re in Australia working on an Elvis Presley related film and, according to Mr. Hanks himself, they felt tired and weak and got themselves tested and found they had the virus.

A shocking thing, certainly, to read that such a well known celebrity has it.

Then came word that the NBA was suspending their season. Seems Rudy Gobert, center for the Utah Jazz, tested positive for coronavirus. Ironically enough, he made light of the disease before it was announced he had it.

Then came the Trumpster’s national address.

Ho boy.

After nixing the seriousness of the disease, he comes out, finally, and announces it is a pandemic. He sounds… man, he sounded like he was sick himself. He talked in a monotone and made a bunch of pronouncements which others had to walk back immediately afterwards (Matt Novak at Gizmodo.com offers some of the whoppers and the corrections).

These three things, perhaps taken alone, might not have been that bad, but all three in one day?

Yikes.

I planned to go to Costco this morning and then thought better of it. Finally, at 9:50 am, I realized I wasn’t doing anything better so, what the hell, let me go there. I needed to get some stuff for the house (no toilet paper, paper towels, or water, though!) and figured why not.

Man.

I don’t know if anyone else out there has gone to a store today but it looks like the panic is on. My local Costco was filled with people, the ample parking lot choked up completely.

I did go in, I did manage to get some things I needed, but there was a clutter of people at the back end of the store, where the toilet paper and water is, and I genuinely feared if I stayed too much longer I’d witness a riot.

I grabbed the stuff I wanted to get -not all, alas, some were too near that end of the store and I didn’t want to fight the crowds- and headed to the exit.

Paying for products is almost always a pain at Costco and it certainly wasn’t better because of the crowds.

One gentleman in line spotted what appeared to be an abandoned shopping cart with toilet paper and water in it and headed to it, intent on grabbing the goods there. But another gentleman approached from nearby the cart and our hopeful claim jumper asked him if it was his. He said it was and that was that.

But, jeeze, can you imagine people willing to grab items in what appears to be an unclaimed cart?!

I paid and headed to my car but the fun wasn’t quite done yet.

I parked pretty far away and found the parking lot, already pretty full when I arrived, was at capacity. Drivers asked me if I parked nearby in the hopes of getting my spot.

When I did get to my car, there was already someone with his turn signal on waiting to take my spot. I put away the stuff quickly, but getting out of the space proved a chore, with cars heading out of the lot blocking my rear and not allowing me to fully pull out.

I did manage, finally, and headed first into the heart of the lot before turning and heading out (trust me, it was the best way to do this).

All the while, I worried I’d be hit by someone not paying attention.

When I finally did get out of the lot and home, I decided that was it for me going out today.

Can’t wait to see what happens in the next few days.

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, a 3/11/20 Update…!

It’s been increasingly hard for me to find the time to write these entries of late.

Too much time spend working and, frankly, I’m really weary. Like trying-not-to-fall-asleep-as-I-type-this weary.

The daylights savings, of course, didn’t help, as each time this happens, whether we move forward or back, it seems my body has a harder and harder time adjusting to the changes and wonders just what the hell I’m up to out there.

Last week in particular was extremely grueling, though I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say someone went on vacation and I had to handle the slack… and it seemed like everything conspired against me to make every day they were gone absolute torture.

Despite this, we’re out of the fire now and most of the issues have been dealt with.

I’ve scratched away whatever time I can get to work on the latest Corrosive Knights novel, which will be book #8 in the series but will hopefully be good enough to stand on its own.

These last few days I’ve felt myself on fire, moving through what I feel will be one of the better, more suspenseful parts of the novel and moving into the second and last half… ish.

There are still plenty of things up in the air regarding that second half of the novel but at least for the first half I feel like I’ve accomplished mostly what I’ve wanted to. I’m cautiously optimistic many of these parts of the book will not require too terribly much in terms of revision and corrections but, once again, we’re still rather early in the process so who knows.

This is the second draft of the book I’m working on now and while there are still holes here and there that need to be filled, the bulk of the story and characters are figured out.

So its off to get myself a cup of coffee and off to work.

Let’s see how things work out today!

Movies

Fuzz (1972) a (wildly) belated review

I saw the movie Fuzz only once before, a very, very long time ago and, once again, today (free time and all…!).

I saw the whole thing before. I had to have, because I recalled elements of the film from the beginning, middle, and end. Thing is, I couldn’t recall the movie’s plot too well and though I recognized this scene or that scene, the movie as a whole was rather “new” to me.

At least with regards to the story told.

Based on the Ed McBain (ie Evan Hunter) 87th Precinct novels, Fuzz has a screenplay by Mr. Hunter along with a pretty impressive cast for the time.

Playing Detective Steve Carolla is Burt Reynolds, in the movie he did quite literally right before he hit the stratosphere with Deliverance (also 1972). We’ve also got Rachel Welch as Detective Eileen McHenry, Tom Skerritt as Detective Burt King, and Jack Weston as Detective Meyer Meyer.

As the big bad, “The Deaf Man”, we’ve got none other than Yul Brynner as the mastermind extortionist/killer/blackmailer whose set his criminal sights on getting a fat payoff by scaring the city’s big politicians into giving him lots of money for not killing them.

Here’s the movie’s trailer:

As should be pretty clear from the trailer, the film is often played for laughs, presenting us with a police department which is barely functional as such, with a host of screw-ups and oddballs that in many ways seem patterned after the same oddballs and screwups we saw two years before in the movie version of M.A.S.H. Its worth noting that movie featured one Tom Skerritt in it as well.

The laughs, alas, are often forced, as in the case of Corolla and Meyers inexplicably dressing as nuns while engaged in a stake off in a park (yeah, a set of nuns that look suspiciously like two men in a park will gather no attention whatsoever, amiright?!). Worse, after that part is over, they keep the costumes on for the interrogation of the suspect once they’re back at the station! I guess they had no change of clothing?

I can’t help but think the director thought it hysterical to have Burt Reynolds dressed up as a nun and therefore kept the joke going for longer than it probably should have.

There are no less than five stories -probably more if I were to dissect things more fully- going on. The biggest involves the “Deaf Man”, and for the most part the others wind up folding into each other by the movies climax.

Well, most of them.

The story involving Rachel Welch’s McHenry winds up being something of a strange one. She’s new to the station and was brought in to serve as bait to catch a rapist. In the meantime, she has to put up with boorish, sexist attitudes of others (I must say, seeing this sort of stuff today is rather uncomfortable) while trying to do her job. Eventually she’s romanced by Skerritt’s Detective King but her story winds up concluding well before the film’s actual conclusion.

Reading up on the film, I found that Rachel Welch refused to do any scenes with Burt Reynolds. The two co-starred in 100 Rifles in 1969 and, apparently, she developed a dislike of Mr. Reynolds. There is a grand total of one scene where the two characters are in the same vicinity/room, but they never exchange dialogue and I wonder if the actors were even there filming at the same time (I don’t believe they’re ever in the same frame together, though I could be wrong).

Even worse, Ms. Welch’s role is so minor -she reportedly worked a grand total of 9 days on this film, which amounts to an extended cameo- that it could have been cut from the film without really affecting the main story. In fact, if she had been cut from the film it might have helped to focus more on the “Deaf Man” and what he was up to. Regardless, her story within the film abruptly ends when (MINOR SPOILERS) she captures, singlehandedly, the rapist and that’s pretty much that. She’s not involved in the movie’s main climax at all and essentially disappears while the movie still has some 15 or so minutes left!

Still, when viewed as an artifact from another era, Fuzz does offer some interesting oddities.

It’s rather refreshing the way they attempted, for example, to show that a station filled with “professionals” whose job it is to capture criminals succeed in spite of everything they do. The movie’s message is humorously cynical: Sometimes its just dumb luck that allows you to succeed rather than brains or dedication.

Fuzz isn’t a great film nor do I feel it will be rediscovered at some future point as a lost classic, but it is competently done with good acting by the principles and enough stuff happening to keep your interest, even if when all is said and done it might not amount to all that much.

Recommended for fans of 1970’s era crime dramas and fans of either Burt Reynolds, Rachel Welch, or Yul Brynner.

Others, beware!

General

So… Joe Biden…?

Politics… BEWARE…!

A few days back Bernie Sanders did incredibly well in the primaries, specifically scoring a decisive win in Nevada and looking for all to see like he’s got a near lock on the Democratic Presidential Nomination.

With the so-called “Super Tuesday” on its way -and which happened yesterday- I wrote the following on February 24th (you can read the whole thing here):

There are those who are ready to pronounce Sanders the official Democratic candidate for the Presidency and, based on how he’s doing so far, this isn’t a terribly out there position to take.

Welp, looks like good ‘ol Joe Biden proved, following Super Tuesday yesterday, that he’s far from done and over.

In fact, one could say that Super Tuesday was essentially Joe Biden’s coming out party and at this point he has the larger number of delegates, though to be fair we still don’t know the ultimate results of California.

Regardless, Joe Biden did extremely well. Was it a result of several other more “moderate” candidates dropping out? Was it the result of people fearful of Sanders’ campaign?

Hell if I know.

The pundits have been flummoxed, it seems, since Trump’s run and eventual win to figure out the mood of the country and who will eventually be the Democratic candidate for the Presidency.

Regardless of who it is, I suspect there is a damn good chance whoever it is will win against Trump.

Why?

Because 1) He barely won to begin with and 2) unlike 2016, the Democratic base is not just energized to kick him out, they seem to be super-energized.

That’s not to say the Republican base and those who want more of Trump won’t show up, either.

It’s just that if the margins stay roughly as they were, which seems possible given Trump hasn’t done much to expand his base, we’re going to get roughly the same amount of Republican votes and perhaps a more enthusiastic Democratic vote, which could (that being the key word) work against him.

As with so many things, we’ll see.

After all, it seemed like just yesterday Bernie Sanders was a lock to be the Democratic Presidential Nominee…

Oh, wait.

It was just yesterday.

Regardless, I believe we now have a two person field: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

We’ve still got several states to go.

Who will come out on top?

Books/Literature, Movies

Clive Cussler (1931-2020)

On Thursday, February 27th news came out that author Clive Cussler had passed away at the age of 88. Here’s a link to an obituary written by Michael Carlson presented on theguardian.com:

Clive Cussler obituary

In many ways, Mr. Cussler is responsible for the author I am today, even if I haven’t read a single one of his books since probably the very late 1980’s or early 1990’s.

His first four released novels featured intrepid hero Dirk Pitt and were, in order: The Mediterranean Caper (1973), Iceberg (1975), Raise The Titanic! (1976), and Vixen 03 (1979). He wrote one novel, Pacific Vortex, before these others but it wasn’t formally released until 1983.

But for me, the novel Vixen 03 did things to me.

For one, this was the first “adult” book I ever read cover to cover, and very likely in 1979/80. I still carry a tattered, beat up copy of it:

It isn’t the actual copy of the book I had way back then (I suspect not, anyway), but it is exactly the same print/year as the one I originally had and read.

So delighted was I by the book that I had to get my hands on the other Clive Cussler novels which, at that time, were limited to the three others I wrote about up above.

I thought all of them were quite good, but it was Raise The Titanic! that seemed to really make Mr. Cussler a star. In fact, in 1980 a movie version of Raise The Titanic! was released. The movie wasn’t all that good, taking away most of the suspenseful subplots involving the Soviets racing to raise the Titanic on their own…

The movie’s making and eventual release seemed to sour Mr. Cussler on Hollywood adaptations of his works and it wasn’t until twenty two years later that another movie adaptation of his novels, the 2005 Matthew McConaughey starring film Sahara, was released…

This film also didn’t sit well with Mr. Cussler and all kinds of lawsuits followed because he claimed the studios were holding back on profits.

Regardless, Mr. Cussler became something of a regular on the Best Seller lists, churning out novel after novel after novel, though in more recent years he always seemed to have a co-writer, which to me indicated maybe the co-author did more of the actual grunt work in creating the work.

Getting back to my original point, I loved the first four Dirk Pitt novels. They excited and inspired me to pursue my own literary pursuits.

However, something happened after those first four books were released: He released more books and I began to realize he was essentially writing the same novel over and over again.

Vixen 03 was followed in 1981 with Night Probe!, then Deep Six (1984), Cyclops (1986), and Treasure (1988). Treasure would be the very last Clive Cussler novel I’d read (he has 25 Dirk Pitt adventures listed over on Wikepedia, along with a voluminous amount of other series).

The Dirk Pitt novels which came after Raise the Titanic!, including Vixen 03, seemed to have the same general plot: We start in the past with some kind of historical event (the sinking of the Titanic, the crash landing of the Vixen 03, the derailing of the train in Night Probe), then fast forward to the “near future” (Mr. Cussler’s books were light science fiction, usually taking place a decade or so after the date of each novel’s release), and Dirk Pitt and company are in a race against time and some very nasty bad guys to get whatever cargo was in the lost vessel we witnessed sink/crash/etc. in the opening act.

To me, the repetition became too much and I left the books, never to return. Many years later my wife, at my recommendation, read Vixen 03 and was turned off by the way Mr. Cussler wrote the character of Dirk Pitt. She said he was what people nowadays view as a “Mary Sue”, only in this case Dirk Pitt was a male “Mary Sue”: A character who can do no wrong and is rough and tumble and gets all the pretty ladies while always being right about everything.

I can’t help but feel Mr. Cussler viewed Dirk Pitt as his alter-ego as he too was involved in similar underwater activities before hitting it big as a novelist. Frankly, I find it amusing even if it is all rather silly.

But Clive Cussler was certainly not the first -or last- author to repeat stories over and over again, but he was the first in my case where I realized this is what was being done.

Thus, Mr. Cussler did two very important things for me as I was growing up and thinking of writing myself: 1) He inspired me to write as well as I felt he did (I may have to go back to those original four novels and see if they still “read” as good as my very young mind felt they were!) and, equally importantly, 2) He made me realize that as a writer I didn’t want to became a repetitious storyteller as I felt he became.

For this is the secret to becoming a writer, whether good, bad, or otherwise: You read others’ stories and analyze what works and -sometimes even more importantly- what doesn’t and you make novels/stories that follow the good while avoiding what you view as the “bad”.

Mr. Cussler taught me, through his writing, the importance of creating exciting stories but also taught me it can go bad if you decide to repeat yourself. Sure, he made a ton of money off his books, and there is a lot to be said about that, but he lost me as a reader and I didn’t want to create works that featured the very same elements time after time.

In the end, though, its sad to read of Mr. Cussler’s passing and one day I hope my novels are even a tenth as popular as his were.

Rest in peace, big guy.

Even if your later works didn’t appeal to me, those first four books have a special place in my head… and heart.