The Sandman

The other day my wife and I were rolling by one of my favorite remnants of old time St. Pete, The Sandman, when she pointed and said: "Huh. Looks like they're finally shutting that place down or something." The windows were boarded up and the place looked gone. Even the usual bums, junkies, prostitutes, wayward families and transients weren't hanging around. Kind of a drag.

The Sandman is an old motor court, one of probably a hundred in the Tampa Bay area. And to be honest, a few of these joints still look pretty damn good, enough so as to give you a glimpse of a bygone era, a blip in time when Florida had a kind of a romantic style. Only now, due to the dernier cri of cookie cutter chain motels, many of these places are nothing more than run down shit holes. Flop houses. Squalid efficiency apartments- where you go when you've been driving your life in a south bound lane heading north, gas pedal nailed to the floorboard. Lost it all to booze or drugs? Hey, refuge is right down the street- a bed and a head for only $25-$35 a night. Probably less if you're slick and know how to work a deal.

And brotha, every town with a pulse has a Sandman. Most have dozens.

I stone dig 'em. Especially the neon signs which are retro cool, even if most of them haven't pushed a watt for the last fifteen years. Those signs are a reminder of more innocent times, even though such a time never existed.

But for me, as a burgeoning writer, the money shot is that my imagination is able to glimpse a frame of the freaky deaky shit that goes on behind the closed doors of these sagging landmarks. These mental images are just so goddamn real to me. I even used The Sandman as a sub-character in my story, Five Kilos, because of the in-the-gutter feeling I get when only driving by the place. Hell, just look at that sign. A picture is worth a thousand words and the individual stories developing behind the scenes are worth millions more.

The lonely side of paradise. Here's hoping we never lose it.

Stay chill.

Five Kilos at Thuglit

Bittersweet success: THUGLIT ISSUE 38 is out. In it, you'll find my very own Five Kilos. A lot of work went into this bad boy. Having Big Daddy Thug say he dug it was like a cold beer on a hot day. Yeah, it was that good.

Why bittersweet? This may be Thuglit's last issue. They're on hiatus per a message from the big man himself (pictured above). Hey, it happens. All I can do is wish them luck and hope they'll be back.

So check out Five Kilos, mi amigos, and let me know what you think. If you like it, tell a friend. If you don't like it, tell a friend anyhow; they might have better taste than you.

Stay chill.

Shine to Five Kilos

Let's go back a few weeks. I mentioned a short story I was working on called SHINE. I finished up said story a couple of weeks later and changed the name to FIVE KILOS- a more fitting title. I'm happy to say that it was picked up by one fierce online publication. I'll let you know when it hits.

Then there's the book. The motherfuckin' book. I say this will all the love in the world. Honest. And anybody who's ever taken on the task of writing a novel completely understands where I'm coming from. It's frustrating when it doesn't come along as fast as it should. It's euphoric when everything gels into a perfect flow of words. Comedy and tragedy. Sanity and insanity. Love and hate.

What I'm understanding, ultimately, is the fundamental importance of PATIENCE. I learned it with my short stories and the payoffs have been, for me, huge. I'm learning this all over again with the book and I dig the results.

On a side note, my wife and I just spent our ten year anniversary in Savannah, Georgia. We've been there a few times and it's always a trip for us. We dig on the old architecture. We eat too much. I drink too much. We had a blast. Fourteen years together and ten years of marriage to an angel. My flesh and blood savior. My everything. My Tasha Rae.

And with that, I'm done.

Stay chill, my friends.