The other night I was talking with Daughter about writing short stories. She had an idea - as usual a good one with great possibilities. It led to a discussion of what you want in a short story, and I put in for the snap at the end. The knuckle in the sternum, the wink, the crack of the whip, the total deflation. Something that provides a conclusion, as opposed to an rambling character study or tableau that evaporates at the end and says “well, that was a thing that happened, and isn’t its lack of meaning a reflection of the lives we live on any given day? Although you can certainly take away something greater if you wish. Up to you.”

I mentioned Raymond Carver to her. Everyone had to read Carver in the 80s. Pure distilled voice of the non-literary world with an ache and an authenticity. I remembered, and I’m not sure if I’m correct, that his editor took out half the lines to create something that wasn’t there in execution, but might have been there in execution. There has to be a point at which editing stops being an improvement, and becomes a new form of creation.

Let’s try. Starting unplanned writing . . . now

I stopped at the gas station and went in for a pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket. I usually don’t buy one, but the jackpot was a billion dollars. A man doesn’t need a billion dollars. A man won’t turn it down, either. I stood at the counter while the clerk printed off the ticket and knew I’d lost already. But I hadn’t lost yet. The clerk slid the ticket across the counter and asked if that was all and I said no, pack of Marlboro Reds. He reached up without searching for the right brand, and I thought there must be a lot of Marlboro men around these parts. Closer to the city you’d have more American Spirit men, the brand with the Native American images on the pack. Pickups and dogs with bandanas, sure, but they wanted a natural smoke with that Injun cachet.

He put the pack on the counter.

“Filter, flavor, flip-top box,” I said.

“Gas?”

“No. Just this - and, this, I guess.” I slid a Jack Link peppered beef jerky out of a box on the counter. The meat was sealed so tight it made Han Solo in carbomite look like Peter O’Toole in a flowing Arab kaftan.

He beeped the meat and the smokes and said “Seventeen sixty-seven.” I gave him a twenty and pawed a bill out of the drawer. He held up a bill and said “do you mind?”

It was a two-dollar bill.

“Money’s money,” I said.

“I got it tonight and can’t give it away. I hate these, there’s no drawer for it and it screws up the count if I put in in the ones. Thanks.”

I nodded and took the lottery ticket and put it in my back pocket and said good night and left, wondering if I’d ever be able to get rid of the two-buck note. People looked at it like it was play money. Some places they call the manager. Maybe I’d never get rid of it. I probably wasn’t going to win a billion but on the other hand I had two bucks for sure, and it would stay with me like a stray dog I’d thrown the last scrap of jerky.

Outside I slapped the pack against the back of my left hand three times, like you do, and peeled the gold string with my fingernail. Popped back the top with my thumb and pulled up the foil to reveal 20 soldiers, ready for action. I slid one out and turned it upside down and put the pack in my shirt pocket. I got in the car and put the jerky in my cupholder. That was for later. I checked under the seat to feel the nap of the towel that was wrapped around the gun. Still there. Good to go. Two hours to sunrise and one hours to Fargo.

Okay, I just did that for kicks & grins to consider what Raymond Carver’s editor would do.

I stopped at the gas station for a pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket. I checked under the seat to make sure the gun was still there. Two hours to sunrise and one hours to Fargo.

I suppose the latter is better and that is why I am not a famous writer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why yes I have added the 1950s B&W Dragnets to my daily media rotation. For a while

Sgt. Friday and Partner Smith go to a movie theater to investigate. I know the ep from radio: The Big Seventeen. Craaaaazy kids are acting out, destroying seats in a movie theater, throwing a peer through a plate-glass window. What is it with kids today? Reefer? Goofballs? Permissive parents who think their Good Son Billy is at the library?

It's a pity the 50s Dragnets are so degraded, because some of the street scenes are interesting. Or not. But still, it's history. Outside the theater:

 

 

It's this scene.

 

 

And how the heck do I know that? Easy. There's an interview outside the movie theater.

 

 

And for one second . . .

 

 

There it is. Is it a real movie? Yes.

A circle of a small town's older ladies decide to award a prize for virtue for a young woman with an unblemished reputation. When it turns out nobody in the settlement qualifies, they instead award it to Isidore an idiotic and bashful young man with a fear of the opposite sex. However when Isidore encounters and spends the night with a countess, who sits on the board giving out the prize, he is suddenly transformed into a worldly figure who returns to the town in triumph.

From there it's a simple matter of checking the LA film ads for the year, finding out where it was playing, and learning it only had one run, in an art house.

I wonder if Webb chose it on purpose.

 

 

 

It’s 1973.

It’s the latest sizzling swinging

THIS IS WHERE IT’S AT TODAY

 

That tiresome phrase, “where it’s at,” would infect the early 70s until it sounded like old stupid slang, as slang always does.

I think it might be impossible to underestimate the falseness of these things. Pure spun plastic. But they “have the original ‘NATIVE LOOK.’”

Sensation Vibration might be due for a comeback.

 

I just want to remind you that these are from a heavy-metal pop magazine.

 

 

 

Genuine reproductions!

 

 

I was always keen to watch this show, but it never was as good as Twilight Zone, and we all knew it. Why? Because it was in color? Because it was in our time? Or just because it wasn’t as good, and had that 70s supernatural crap that seeped into anything unusual? Possessions, reincarnation, that sort of thing.

I don’t blame Serling for any of that.

 

 

LOVE MUSIC

WITH CRICKETS

 

 

HAhahahahaha Ferrante & Teicher. Wait a minute, Boots Randolph, too? So this is just a mishmash of mood music and pop songs, plus thunder. And crickets? Sold in a rock mag?

Ecumenical times.

By the way, it was an 8-track, so your mood can be interrupted by the big Ker-Kunk as it goes from one track to the other.

Probably cost them all of fifty cents to make. If that.

 

 

Wonder how long they’d hound you for the money. They had the resources, after all: These were the Chap Stick people, and you didn’t mess with them.

Bonus: you’re the seller! It’s like the greeting card racket. Or seeds.

A reminder that the mainstreaming of tiresome public vulgarity had its roots right here, in the commercialization of the banal counterculture.

 

 

Everyone knew someone who had shirts like these.

“Ancient Wisdom of China.”

Like what?

“Gold or silver finish.” Doesn’t even say they’re metal.

 

 

You have to love the name of the town: West Babylon.

There are a few Babylons in the area, I think. Wikipedia:

When a coherent community grew up in the area by 1803, prominent local citizens sought to adopt a new name. An influential local lady, Mrs. Conklin, was used to living inland in what is now considered Dix Hills and was at unease with the home site that her grandchildren would be raised in. The bible-reading Mrs. Conklin compared the new hamlet to the biblical city of Babylon and proposed that name in apparent defiance of the area's rather bawdy reputation as a stop-over place for travelers on Long Island's south shore. Her son Nat was appalled by the use of an "unholy" name. The family legend states she replied: "But it will be a new Babylon." The name stuck, despite some effort to change it.

No citation given.

Oh God this guy

 

 

Bio:

Under the name Wayne County (inspired by Wayne County, Michigan), she was the vocalist of influential proto-punk band Wayne County & the Electric Chairs who became known for their campy and foul-mouthed ballads, glam punk inspired songs, and image which was heavily influenced by Jackie Curtis and the Theatre of the Ridiculous. County in particular was known for her outrageous and unpredictable stage antics as well as possessing a distinctive singing voice. She went on to become rock's first openly transgender singer, and adopted the stage name Jayne County.

In 1973, half the guys you listened to on the radio wore mascara. That’s just how it was.

 

That will do for today, except of course for the updates (free as ever like all this stuff . . . for now, he says again, portentiously) and the latest chapter in the Joe Ohio story, over at the paid section of the Substack. Thank you for your patronage, as always.