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Monthly Archives: March 2011

March 2011 Book Round-Up

31 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 4 Comments

39: TH: Gideon’s Sword – Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

40: CR: You Can’t Stop Me – Max Allan Collins & Matthew Clemens

41: WE: The Night Riders(e-book) – Ridgwell Cullum

42: WE: Redemption, Kansas – James Reasoner

43: WE: The Last Gunfighter: Dead Before Sundown – William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

44: AC: Diamondback(e-book) – James Reasoner

45: CR: No One Will Hear You – Max Allan Collins & Matthew Clemens

46: FA: The Nymph And The Satyr(e-book) – Larry Maddock

47: CR: Lake Charles(e-book) – Ed Lynskey

48: HR: Midnight In Rosary – Charles Allen Gramlich

49: CR: Nolan: Scratch Fever – Max (Allan) Collins

50: CR: The G-String Murders – Gypsy Rose Lee

51: CR: The Baby Blue Rip-Off – Max Allan Collins

52: CR: Top Suspense: 13 Classic Stories by Twelve Masters of Suspense

53: CR: No Cure For Death – Max Allan Collins

54: CR: Kill Your Darlings – Max Allan Collins

55: WE: Cossack Three Ponies – J.L. Reasoner(James & Livia)

56: SF: Cap Kennedy: A World Aflame – Gregory Kern(E. C. Tubb)

57: CR: Hyenas – Joe R. Lansdale

58: CR: Punctured – Rex Kusler

59: SF: The Land That Time Forgot – Edgar Rice Burroughs

60: SF: The People That Time Forgot – Edgar Rice Burroughs

March 2011 Movie Round-Up

31 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

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Fort Defiance(1951)

The Tall T(1957)

The Land That Time Forgot(1975)

Buffalo Bill And The Indians(1976)

Forgotten Music: Living Colour

31 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Forgotten Music, Living Colour

LIVING COLOUR played a mix of funk, metal, hard rock, and a bit of jazz. English born guitarist Vernon Reid was the mainstay with the band going through a number of lineup changes over the years. They’ve broken up, reformed, had success, both commercial and critical, though not always at the same time. For me the classic lineup consisted of:

Vernon Reid- guitars

Corey Glover – vocals

Muzz Skillings – bass

Will Calhoun – drums

That’s for the album, VIVID, where I first encountered them. Cult of Personality was the first song I ever heard from them and it caused me to run out and pick the CD up. That was in 1988.Excuse me, audio cassette first. CDs were just hitting in the late eighties/early nineties, starting to gain a foothold on the music business. I liked everything I heard on it and tried to interest a number of friends in it. Most though couldn’t get past the funk. The metal and rock were fine, the heavier the better.

Here’s a few favorites:

CULT OF PERSONALITY

OPEN LETTER(TO A LANDLORD)

I remember seeing Vernon Reid somewhere on TV talking about an incident years back. He was walking home, coming from several hours of practice with the band, intent on getting something to eat and relaxing. He noticed a white woman walking ahead of him, and keep glancing over her shoulder. He had the practice on his mind and wondered, “Do I know this woman?” He finally realized she was afraid of him. This next clip illustrates the “funny vibe.”

FUNNY VIBE

GLAMOUR BOYS

For my money, this was their best effort, my being less than impressed by later efforts. That may just be me though.

Overlooked Movies: The Land That Time Forgot(1975)

28 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in movies

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Overlooked Movies

This movie was definitely overlooked by myself for a number of years. I either saw the trailer or maybe a piece of the film on televison. Whichever, I think I decided the dinosaurs looked so cheesy that the rest of the movie had to be just as cheesy. I just skipped it for a long time. Recently, Turner Classics ran it and I gave it a look. I knew it was based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs and soon as I saw the script authors included Michael Moorcock, I sat up. This might not be as bad as I’d imagined.

And it wasn’t.

Make no mistake, not a great film. It still had problems, but a literate script was there. The dinosaurs were puppets and in a scene or two wires were actually visible. The pterodactyls were little more than gliders, stiff winged and looking not at all real. This was before Star Wars which changed everything in special effects. Still, stop motion might have been a better way to go.

I decided to reread the novel to compare changes as it had been a good many years since I had last been through it. A couple of incidents combined to make one scene, the love triangle, not exactly though, with the U-boat commander is gone. In fact, in the film, Von Schoenvorts is not nearly the despotic, German autocrat portrayed in the novel. Those characteristics were shifted to the first officer. The only woman character was named Clayton in the film, likely a nod to Burroughs.

The secret of the island of Caprona, Caspak to the natives, is never fully realized, though they begin to suspect, and the ending is quite different with a volcano erupting as a background for the betrayal that follows.

I did enjoy this one after all(I’m still a kid at heart and can enjoy suspending logic now and again). I know there was a sequel and mow want to see it. That logic tells me it will, as sequels generally do, fall short of the original.

an aside: in researching this post, I learned that Mr. Moorcock is, or was, facing surgery, an amputation. Some reports said a leg, others a foot. Maybe not as serious as some thought as Mr. Moorcock was making jokes about. J seems to have come through fine. I’m glad. I can empathize having been through a foot amputation myself. I hope he continues to do well.

Here’s the trailer:

New In The House

27 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

New In The House


1: The Scorpion Trail – Larry D. Sweazy: second book in the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series. Won this one in a drawing on the author’s blog. Thanks, Larry! Reading it now.

2: Hyenas – Joe R. Lansdale: from Subterranean Press, a Hap and Leonard hardcover novella. Also includes a Hap Collins short story recounting an incident from his childhood. Liked this one.

3: Valley of Lights(ebook) – Stephen Gallagher: one of the Top Suspense Group authors. offered at a bargain rate. I ecpect to enjoy this one soon.

Hyenas – Joe R. Lansdale

26 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Hap and Leonard, Joe R. Lonsdale

Hap and Leonard are back in HYENAS, a hardcover novella from the small publisher Subterranean Press. Just out, this also includes a Hap Collins short story, THE BOY WHO BECAME INVISIBLE, which recounts an incident from Hap’s childhood.

Hap is called down to a bar called the BIG FROG CLUB with the simple admonition that “Leonard is in trouble.” He arrives to find cop cars around, lights flashing, Leonard sitting on a curb holding a bloody rag to his head, and a man laid out near him, his face a jumbled mess with some of his teeth lying on his chest. It seems three men had called him a queer and when he stood up, hit him with a chair. They started the fight, but Leonard finished it. There was a lot of giggling going on amongst the cops and Hap was told to check the inside of the bar out. One man’s head had been rammed through the sheet rock wall of the bathroom, provoking the mirth, leaving him stuck there with his head over the toilet. Hap contributed to his discomfort by taking a piss and not flushing.

The next morning the police chief tried to put on a stern face with Hap and Leonard, but told them one of the three started it and it was a case of self defense on Leonard’s part.

An even bigger surprise came when that third man was waiting on them and offered to buy coffee. Kelly Smith explained that he hadn’t really been with the other two, but had come to the bar looking for help. The other two had decided to impress him by jumping Leonard and he’d got caught up in the mess. He now wanted to hire Leonard, and Hap, to do a rough job for them. get his kid brother, Donnie, out of trouble. The young man was involved with a bunch that Kelly, from listening in on conversations, was to be the getaway driver on an armored car job. He offers them $10,000 apiece to get his brother free of these men.

They finally agree to look into it and the story takes off in a tightly compact little story involving lots of action, a kidnapping, and a final showdown as only Lansdale does so well. We have that sparkling humor, violence, and that love between two friends so different.

A nice little bridge for me in anticipation of the new novel just out and soon to be winging it’s way to the house.

If You Ever Feel A Little Bit Stupid…

26 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Humor

≈ 2 Comments

If You ever feel a little bit stupid, just dig this up and read it again.

(On September 17, 1994, Alabama’s Heather Whitestone was selected Miss America 1995.)
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.”
–Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest

“Whenever I watch TV and see those starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”
–Mariah Carey

“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”
–Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti=smoking campaign.

“I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.”
–Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.”
–Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C.

“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it!”
–a congressional candidate in Texas.

“Half this game is ninety percent mental.”
–Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark.

“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment, it’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
–Al Gore, Vice President.

“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.”
–Dan Quayle.

“We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”
–Lee Iacocca.

“The word genius isn’t applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
–Joe Theisman, NFL quarterback & sports analyst.

“We don’t necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.”
–Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC instructor.

“Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notification that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.”
–Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina.

“Traditionally, most of Australia’s imports come from overseas.”
–Keppel Enderberry.

“If someone has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there’ll be a record.”
–Mark S. Fowler, FCC chairman.

FEEL SMARTER YET?

FFB: No Cure For Death – Max Allan Collins

24 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Books

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Forgotten Books, Max Allan Collins

It’s November 26, 1974 and Mallory is at the bus station to pick up his best friend, John, stepson of Sheriff Brennan, due in shortly, fresh from Viet Nam. He’s working up the courage to talk to the young blond woman sitting on the bench beside him. A writer with a few short stories sold to Ellery Queen and Mike Shayne magazines, he’s suddenly at a loss for words.

That’s when the huge black man walks into the waiting room and looks around. Dressed in a very expensive looking suit, only one thing mars the bald, bullet head: a jagged scar running down through one empty eye socket. He spots the two of them and stalks over. Mallory doesn’t know him and, judging by the expression on her face, she has no idea either. But the man stops in front of her, uttering one word, “Bitch!” He repeats it as one meaty hand grabs her coat and lifts her from the bench.

That’s when Mallory hit him in the throat.

The huge man then does three things: he releases the girl, lightly touches his Adam’s apple, and knocks Mallory across the room against a Pepsi machine with one ham-like arm!

As the man comes at him, Mallory ducks another swat, feels behind, and latches onto a glass pop bottle, bringing it in a hard loop against the big head. The man goes down long enough for Mallory to scramble over to a pay phone and dial the Sheriff. The big man hustles out, scowling, and the call is ended.

Mallory gets into a conversation with the young woman after that. Janet Tabor is her name and she tells him a horrific story. She’s headed to a hospital in the next city where her mother is dying, victim in a house fire and badly burned. The doctors had told her on the phone there was evidence she’d been badly beaten before the fire. And it all seems to be related to Janet’s son. She, a solo mother, had been estranged from mother for several years until health problems for the boy, needing an operation that she couldn’t afford, had reunited them. Mother had somehow arranged funding, from an unknown person, and Janet had moved here with the boy, sending him for the surgery. Now she had no idea where the boy was and her mother was dying.

And she had no idea who the hulk-like black was and why he’d assaulted her.

Mallory puts her on her bus and, shortly, John’s bus pulls in and the two friends head for Mallory’s trailer to catch up and drink a few beers. A couple of hours later, the Sheriff calls and says they might as well make a night of it. He has to investigate a fatal car accident out on Colorado Hill. Mallory and John, on the spur, ecide to go out and see if they can give a hand.

The car had gone over a cliff, rolled a few times, and ended nose down at the bottom. Mallory, John, and the Sheriff make their way down. As they get close, John smells the strong odor of liquor and gets the shock of his life when he spies the crushed remains of the driver: Janet Tabor! A woman he’d put on a bus two hours before now dead at the bottom of a hill. Despite Mallory telling him about the bus station incident, the Sheriff is ready to call it an accident.

Which doesn’t sit well with our erstwhile hero. He starts poking around and is not long coming up with another accident. A budding politician, his wife, and daughter, were killed in a car accident at the exact same spot three years before. When John’s sister reveals that she knew Janet and the two of them had worked on an earlier campaign for the dead politician, Mallory definitely knows he’s onto something.

NO CURE FOR DEATH, from 1983, was the second of five novels to feature writer/amateur detective Mallory. Liked it.

I Still Don’t Get It

24 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in Personal

≈ 7 Comments

I still can’t figure this one out. I know Newman was, and still is, a popular actor. But I continue to get hits on a DVR alert for Paul Newman Day on Saturday last August 21st on Turner Classic. That’s all it was. For a good while, I was getting large amounts every day, usually in the several hundred range, which went on for months before starting to slowly taper off. There would be periodic spurts, though nothing like the high water marks, but largely it was confined to 15-40 a day.

I get up this morning and logged into the blog, only to find yesterday was my new “most hits” day with a total of 1329. Here’s where I don’t get it. 1200 of them were on my Paul Newman DVR alert post and the bulk of them came late as the last time I logged in before going to bed, it was in the usual range of about forty.

To date, I’ve had 9.410 hits on a post that had no importance two days after it was logged.

As I said, I just don’t get it. It has been suggested it’s a female thing. Who knows?

UPDATE: Still doing it. Just checked the blog again and in just a couple of hours the hits have gone from 66 to 208.

NEW UPDATE: in another hour, the count has jumped to 266.

LATEST UPDATE: as of 10:40 a.m., Hits are up to 479. That’s today alone.

NEW LATEST UPDATE: As o 3:40 p.m. the count has reached 717. I just don’t get it.

Disturbed: For Metalheads Only

23 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by Randy Johnson in music

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Disturbed, For Metalheads Only, heavy metal

DISTURBED is a band my nephew turned me on to recently. Formed in 1995, they’ve released five albums, selling eleven million copies worldwide, making them one of the best grossing metal bands in recent years. I have two albums in my music file, 2002’s THE SICKNESS and 2005’s TEN THOUSAND FISTS. This is an effort to restore my metal street cred after admitting recently I liked a song by Simply Red.

One recent development on Youtube I’m not fond of is there inserting commercials at the beginning of videos. I understand the necessity, as on commercial televison, but I still don’t like it. Some of the following have them, some don’t, some play directly from the blog, others you click the watch on Youtube underscored phrase.

Here’s some favorites off Youtube. Some are from the two albums I have and some are from other releases. Enjoy.

This last clip deals with a serious subject. The singer Dave Draiman explains:

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