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.

For The Hell Of It

Busy, stressful day at work last Friday. Yet, all I could think about as I worked up in the warehouse or spoke to people on the phone, is how funny it would be to stick a couple of tennis balls down my shorts and take a stroll through the Tyrone Square mall. You know, just for the hell of it.

Stay chill.

Update: I did end up at the mall. No tennis balls, though. Ended up with Daniel Woodrell's Bayou Trilogy instead. Balls? Woodrell's got 'em. Guess I came out on the square.

Words to Live By

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.- Sterling Hayden

Why? Because money in the bank is safe. You learn to play life safe. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. You can no longer play it safe and so you take your chances.

Is there an equilibrium? Having it all, yet still being able to break free?

I believe there is.

Stay chill.

THE VIEW FROM OUT THERE

As we reach into summer, I often go back to days spent living in rural America. And, while I live in St. Pete now, whenever my wife and I refer to home, we always refer to Kansas.

It's a hard thing explaining what makes a man. For many, especially people like my dad, life is simple. You get up, go to work, watch a little television at night and go to bed. There's very little sitting around. Very little feeling sorry for one's self. You start working when you were young and you quit working when your body gives up on you.

Entertainment was trivial as a boy growing up in, and then south of, Zurich. We didn't go to movies- the closest theater was almost 40 miles away- and dinner out meant the Pizza Hut in Plainville, some seven miles away. We rode our bicycles on the sand streets of Zurich, played in the mud and made tunnels in the milo field across the street from our house. When we moved out into the country, we traded riding bicycles for running in the pastures and following creeks choked with sandplum bushes as far as they would take us.

As we grew older, sports came into our lives. I went to school in Damar and Palco, the two towns which made up school district 269, one of the rural school districts for Rooks County. Our choices for sports boiled down to three: Football, basketball and track. In Junior High I competed in all three. I was very good in football, ok in track and terrible at basketball. We had very few kids attending school and football was 6-man...great fun, because as a running back, when I hit the hole I was gone.

High school brought me only football and we were able to field a team big enough to play 8-man with two more on the bench. We had 60 people in our entire high school and either 12 or 15 in my graduating class. I don't rightly remember which number is correct. During this time I also began working after school for a rancher who raised pure-blood Herefords. Best job ever and at times, leaves me wondering if I missed my calling. During the summers I worked for my dad on a pulling unit in the oilfield. Hell. To me, at least. During this period of my life I learned a good night out could be had while drinking a 12-pack of beer with a buddy while driving the country roads made of shale. The little things.

Throughout these years, from my pre-teens and well into my teens, I felt changes coming on, changes which will affect me for the rest of my life. There can be an immense amount of sadness growing up out there. Still, through it all, I could always go run in the pastures, drive the country roads like a maniac or go outside without hearing sirens and cars and my next door neighbor. You could listen to the constant wind and just BE.

My wife and I go back every year. Often, we consider moving back for good. I don't know. You get used to good restaurants, ease of anything you want within a short driving distance. But you can't build up a coyote wagon here and run it in the neighbor's pasture without a worry. Can't drink water from the tap and still have it taste spring-fresh. And nothing's lonelier than a city full of people. Two sides to every coin, as they say.

Yet for all it wasn't back then, and all it still isn't now, Kansas will always be my point of retreat, my home.

A FIRST PARAGRAPH...OR TWO

Christ, I'm actually posting something on my blog. Hell, I even caught Rose up there off guard. Mmmm, Rose.

I've been working hard. Short pieces completed and short pieces at 95% or better. I'm also pedal to the metal on a longer piece, book length, which is heading toward being the best thing I've written to date. The latter is being built with everything I've learned over the past two years shoved into it. We'll see what happens.

Now to double-back on that learning thing. I've been putting a shit ton of effort into opening paragraphs, and I thought why not give a little taste and see what people think? We've all learned, at this point, how deadly important those first lines are. So read on and let me know.

First off is the opening paragraph from a short story currently making the rounds. As it's a little murky on genre, I've decided the best place would be a good literary mag. You know, those folks who take eight weeks to a year, or a fucking eternity to say yay or nay. I don't mind, because this piece will find a home although maybe with a little tweaking.

Shoveling dirt was damn good training. His old man said it. Validation came through hard earned muscle and the wind of a quarter horse. Miles of ditches labored over right in his own back yard. He’d dig them deep, fighting through roots and rocks, fill them in again and continue the cycle. Damn good training.

And here's the one at 95%. It's dark and long, 6800 words. Also got a love element ticking in there as well, so the literary mag route again. And sure, I've tried chopping some length off, but this was meant to have some guts and when something is meant to be, then man, you just let it be.

I was with ol’ John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. Ain’t got much bearin’ on what I’m a fixin’ to tell ya, but I was there just the same. Lost the use of three fingers on my left hand in that damn skirmish. Tore out the joints on ‘em. Don’t matter much. Still got good use of my thumb and the finger next to it and they’re stronger than the average man’s entire hand. Overcompensation, the doc calls it. ‘Sides, right hand’s fine and it’s the one I use most the time. I get along all right.

The first sentences in each are exactly what gushed into my head and everything else followed. I like writing this way and is how most of my short stuff gets off the ground. But still, like most of my work, the meat of the story is usually vibrating on a completely different wavelength. Such is the same with these two. And the book...I already know the ending, so now I'm in the process of putting the jelly in the doughnut, so to speak.

That's all I got, for probably another three months or however fricken long it's been. Comments welcome.

See ya on the flip.

Sunshine City Terror. A Bad Day Today in St. Pete

South St. Pete- area of 37th street and 28th Ave S. Right now. What is being reported that we hope to God is not true: Federal Marshal in surgery. Two St. Pete cops and K9 dog down. Senseless. Terrible beyond words.

One take on the story so far: St. Pete Shooting

Nobody is proud to report this.

Took part in a citizens police course this past year and met some of these outstanding people and right now I am stunned. My prayers will never be enough for these hero's and their families.

And the filthy animal at the root of all this, Hydra Lacy Jr...let's just hope they bring him down without any other good people getting hurt.

If you got prayers to spare, then please send them up.

A Good Post Over At BIB

I read a damn good blog article this morning. This one sort of puts into words where I was at not so long ago and illustrates a few issues I still struggle with from time to time. Yeah, you've been in that boat too. Check it out over at Black Irish Blarney and read between the lines a little. A couple of solid, interesting thoughts in the comments section as well.

Speaking of chumps, who's that brotha to the right? A few buds have been bustin' my hump for awhile now, wanting a photo so they know who they're talking to. I even wore my best smile for the occasion.

See ya on the flip, amigos.