Axel Howerton is a former entertainment journalist, and the author of the Arthur Ellis Award nominated detective caper "Hot Sinatra", the modern gothic fairytale "Furr", and the forthcoming "Wolf & Devil" urban fantasy series. His work, including short stories, columns, poetry and essays, have appeared the world over, in no fewer than five languages. Axel is the Prairies director of the Crime Writers of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, the Calgary Crime Writers, and the Kintsugi Poets. He is also the editor of the books "Death by Drive-In", "AB Negative", and "Tall Tales of the Weird West", and is the organizer behind one of Canada's first recurring "Noir At The Bar" events, #NoirBarYYC.
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I said I would finish the book by end of February and, while it has yet to come to fruition, I am still struggling along and finally set to plow into the final countdown (cue Gob Bluth theme music…)
As usual, Life constantly intrudes, laziness precludes and plain ol’ procrastination denudes… My littlest Dude has had three – count em’ – THREE first birthday parties this month… not to mention car trouble, money trouble, double trouble, hubba bubble and the steady increase of chronic bitchiness in that useless excuse of a right leg. Of course, as Our Saint of Holy Euphemisms puts it:
“Pain or damage don’t end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man… and give some back.”
That Al Swearengen, he was an erudite cocksucker.
Still. I am in the home stretch and 2.5 days to go. Who knows what damage I can do to poor old Moss Cole in that time. Although I did just finish a scene where our intrepid antihero finally got to dish out a little abuse of his own via Tazer electrodes to the ballsack. I leave you with that and return to my labors. Catch you on the flipside, bastardes.
I’m still plugging away on the novel and trying to shove the myriad of story ideas, new contrivances, and tweaks on existing tales into the back of my brain. I find myself steadily losing steam as moments to work on this seem to get fewer and farther between, but I just keep pushing that self-deadline back, little-by-little, and hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Partially as a treat for my 2 or 3 regular readers, and partially as a means to renew my vigor, I have decided to post one of my favorite segments of the book. This is first-draft stuff – so be kind and generous… please? – but, by all means, leave me some commentary to help me get back on track.
A little background to get you up to speed… Mossimo Cole – reluctant P.I., wasted musical wunderkind and regretfully dedicated orphaned grandson – is on the trail of a stolen Sinatra record of the rarest nature. Obadiah Stetch, the cantankerous old Club promoter/record producer that has hired him has been ‘less than cooperative’ and the exact details of what is on the album are still in question. Cole has been braced by Las Vegas mobsters who also want the record, so it must be valuable, and his single lead is an orderly from the old man’s Rest Home who may or may not be related to an old enemy of Stetch. Confusing matters is the unexpected romantic entanglement Cole finds himself sharing with Stetch’s daughter Rose, and his growing affection for Rose’s little girl, Holly.
Cole’s best friend and primary source of aggravation is Danny Fox – a loudmouthed, frequently drunk, but highly intelligent and well-read Irish punk rocker also known as Foxy Thunders. I based the character of Danny on a dear old friend of mine who was always in the middle of a good time. While not quite the drunken fool that Danny is, Ryan Fox was the definition of Bon Vivant – living Life the way he saw fit, always at the center of the jubilation and always there for his friends. He had become a mainstay in the local Rockabilly punk scene. I say ‘was’ and ‘had’ because he passed away a few short weeks ago, long after I had written these chapters and, sadly, before I sent him any of it to read. In memoriam I went back and changed the name from ‘Danny Boyle/Danny Thunders’ to ‘Danny Fox/Foxy Thunders’… the least I could do for an old pal. R.I.P. Ryan ‘Foxy’ Fox, a most hilarious rogue and a Gentleman of the highest order..
R.I.P. Ryan ‘Foxy’ Fox
At this point, Danny has told Cole about a bootleg record expert named ‘Olaf Skogerbo’ or ‘The Swede’ who may have the goods on the ‘Hot Sinatra’…
Admittedly, I have wallowed in cultural stereotypes in a couple of instances here, but only in the hopes of subverting them with unexpected traits and attitudes. Also, throughout the story, I have tried to use discrimination as a means to differentiate the protaganist from some of the more unsavory characters, also I thought throwing the two stereotypes together would be hilarious. So read on for Chapter 10 of Hot Sinatra and leave me your comments, suggestions and (constructive) criticisms.
No, I am not going to be finished the first draft of the book by midnight. Per usual, Life rears it’s ugly head and derails my best laid plans. Sick baby… sick me… the Holiday season and the ever-lasting cock-block of full-time employment have set me back a tad. That being said, a new year and a fresh decade are upon us and I, for one, embrace the change and the chance to redeem the last wasted decades of my Life. The book will be done in time to get my proof done before July. Period. End of fucking sentence.
Secondly, I realize that the last post, which was supposed to be a kick-ass widget for, well, KICK-ASS, didn’t work a lick. Oh well, qué será, será. I have removed the big white square where it should have been. Doesn’t change the fact that I am stoked to see it.
Now… onto the 2009 LIST OF STUFF THAT MADE MY YEAR.
‘Bruises’ by Chairlift
I know it’s totally cheez. I know it’s terribly unhip of me to like a song from an iPod commercial. Suck it. This song takes me straight back to 1987, when I was a mere lad of 13, standing awkward, hopeful and blissfully unawares on the brink of truly discovering the great mystery of Life… women. I remember standing in the corner of a Jr. High School gym, at my first ‘school dance’, 80’s wool-blend preppie suit, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, skinny leather tie… waiting for one of the big-haired, Wham-lovin’ teeny-bopper girls (who all look vaguely like Molly Ringwald in my memory) to take my hand and lead me to the promised land of slow dances and lip-smacker kisses.
This is the most unrepentantly 80’s style synth pop I’ve heard since the Thomspon Twins seperated and the Flock of Seagulls took wing for distant shores. And I love it. What I love even more is the lyrics, perfectly expressing the obsessive, and often self-destructive, need to prove our love and gain the acceptance of people we find ourselves in thrall to.
AWAY WE GO
I’ve enjoyed most of Sam Mendes’ previous flicks, but always felt that , while he has a deep mastery of the cinematic art, he needed to work on establishing realistic characters and feelings of sympathy or empathy towards them. Well, I now stand corrected. AWAY WE GO was my favorite film of the year. Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski both played against type. The writing was deep, full of emotion and felt more real than any 10 Hollywood blockbuster bullshit fests (no doubt due to the literary graces of the almighty Dave Eggers). The thing that most moved me, heowever, was one single scene between Rudolph and Krasinski’s characters and their best friends, played by Chris Messina and the always phenomenal and criminally underused Melanie Lynskey. Messina and Lynskey play a married couple with an armload of racially diverse, yet happy, well-adjusted and obviously loved, adopted children. We learn that Munch (Lynskey) has had numerous miscarriages in her attempts to provide a ‘natural’ child. It’s almost mentioned in passing and the focus remains on what a happy and incredible couple these two really are. After a night of friendly revelry and sweet comraderie between the friends, all of the previous assumptions about Tom and Munch are shattered during a conversation at an after-hours club where Tom reveals that Munch has – mere days before – suffered yet another miscarriage. And during his confession and the heartwrenching monologue he carries about family and loss, Lynskey appears on the stage and dances to The Velvet Underground song ‘Oh Sweet Nothin’ slowly turning a seductive non-strip-tease into a heartbreaking expression of pure sadness. It’s an amazing scene. As anybody who knows me would be able to tell you… ‘Oh Sweet Nothin’ is one of my all-time favorite songs to begin with, but the emotional uppercut Mendes manages to deliver in that scene through the use of that song and Lynskey’s amazing talent for understated, yet powerful emotive acting blew my brains clean out my ears.
BLACK BOOKS
This is a BBC series from back in the very beginning of the decade (2001-2003) but I only recently discovered it after becoming enamored of Dylan Moran’s stand-up. The show features Moran as a curmudgeonly Irish bookshop owner who spends his days smoking, drinking and chasing away customers with his outbursts of misanthropic anger. My wife has repeatedly asserted that this character – Bernard Black – is what I would have been, had I been raised in the Motherland and never gotten married. True. So true. The show also features the hilarious Bill Bailey as Bernard’s oddball man Friday and Tamsin Greig as their ubiquitous gal-pal Fran, who drinks, smokes and cavorts even more than they themselves. Watch for a bevvy of cameos from England’s best, including Pegg and Frost, their SPACED costar Jess Stevenson, the lovely Lucy Davis, Nina Conti, and Martin Freeman as well as Annete Crosbie and Sam Kelly. My new favorite TV series EVER!
Right! Which one of you bitches wants to dance?
JACK CHOP
The best viral video I saw this year was the special Halloween offering from Adam Green, director of HATCHET and FROZEN. Starring Paul Solet as the Boston Southie version of smilin’ Vince Shlomi of TV infomercial and hooker-slapping fame. You have never heard so many perfectly placed ‘Fakkin’s’ in all your life, kid. And I quote “It’s Holloween, ya got Trick r’ treatahs up the ass, your kids are runnin around like retahds… YOU ain’t got time to be cahvin’ a muthafackin’ punkin’ KID!’
In April 1964, Van Morrison answered an ad for musicians to play at a new R&B club in Belfast, Ireland. The new venue at the Maritime Hotel needed a full band to play for opening night. Morrison, who had already been touring Europe in various showbands and R&B combos since he was 17, quickly cobbled together a band from his pals in a band called The Gamblers. They called themselves ‘Them’ and headlined the Maritime, gaining momentum and acclaim until they were signed by Decca and released two albums, THEM and THEM AGAIN from which erupted 10 singles including such classics as ‘Gloria’, ‘Mystic Eyes’ and ‘Here Comes The Night’. They toured the US in 1966 and found themselves at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go with The Doors in the opening slot. After disputes over finances with noted Decca scumbag Phil Solomon and with their US work visas expering, the band returned to the Emerald Isle and soon broke up, with Morrison going on to become one of the most influential folk-pop songwriters of the past 30 years. I recently rediscovered my love of THEM with my unearthing of a couple of vinyl LP’s of those two albums and was absolutley boggled by how truly influential they have been, and hwo well they still stand up today. There is no better slave for the soul than a good rolicking collection of R&B boogie and Van Morrison and Them are among the greatest to ever grace the genre.
J.J. Abrams big screen resurrection of STAR TREK could have easily become an inexcusable fiasco. Rebooting the longest-running, world-wide, nutso fanboy franchise in human history was a risky proposition to start with, let alone using the ol’ ‘time-space/alternate reality’ chestnut, but J.J. came through for Trekkers and non-Trekkers alike. The new TREK flick was a rollicking adventure story filled with top-flight FX, humor, romance, bromance, derring-do, macho rivalry and just enough reverence to Gene Rodenberry’s creation to avoid backlash from the unruly geek mobs. The cast was stellar and perfectly chosen to emulate their predecessors without resorting to cheap imitation. Both Chris Pine and Zach Quinto now have huge Hollywood careers to look forward to. Anton Yelchin and Zoe Saldana have cemented their backup cred and John Cho was rescued from the wasteland of endless HAROLD & KUMAR sequels. My personal favorites were Simon Pegg as a lovably upbeat Scotty and the always reliable Karl Urban absolutely nailing the irascible personality and sardonic wit that the late, great DeForrest Kelly imbued Dr. McCoy with in the original pantheon of TREK.
Here’s to a whole new world of ‘Boldly Going Where No Human Has Gone Before’ in the Twenty-Tens.
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