Stupefying Stories (January 2012 Issue)

            YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK OUT THE JANUARY ISSUE OF STUPEFYING STORIES. A few of the stories are so-so; they suffer mainly from a tendency to cram in way too much exposition right at the beginning, though they generally have interesting premises and/or situations. A couple of the other stories are gems, though.  “Morality for Alchemists and Thieves” by L. Joseph Shosty is a nifty little fantasy, well written and whimsical, its setting the town of Al-Hekban, seemingly somewhere in the ancient East, its protagonist one Elihu The Poisoner. It’s a clever tale with well drawn characters and setting and a sly denouement. But a still more enjoyable story, in my opinion, and one itself worth the very reasonable price of the issue ($1.99, if I remember correctly, and I do), is “Seeking Kailash.”

      Stupefying Stories prints predominately fantasy and science-fiction, but they are open to mystery, humor, and mainstream fiction as well. “Seeking Kailash” is historical fiction; I think that’d it’d be stretching things a little to even try to view it as slipstream. Its set in the Himlayas during the British colonial period in India and involves a quest of sorts, shared by a duo that at first seem unlikely: a British physician named Balfour and one of his retainers, Ghandruk a, native of the Himalayas, who left them years earlier as a boy to enter the monastery of Lama Prakash, under whom he studied over a decade. The physician, Balfour, is looking for miraculous native remedies of which he’s heard, and Ghandruk is looking for answers, for illumination. Balfour has heard of a Himalayan woman named Radha whose healing ability is legendary. Since traditional Indians view physical, emotional, phychological, and spiritual issues as inseparable, Ghandruk believes that perhaps Radha can help him as well.

       Ghandruk is very much the viewpoint character, and the story the story ultimately concerns his inner struggles, but there’s plenty more going on. His and Balfour’s struggle against the harsh environment, their search for the mysterious Radha, and a rich depiction of Indian culture and that period of India’s history. Ah, and love rears her alluring head as well. Cockburn tells all this in flowing, textured prose that carried me right along. And yes, there were revelations, but not exactly of the kind either man thought he was looking for. I think it’s an excellent story, and I’m not sure just what other magazine would have found a place for it.

      For science-fiction and fantasy fans, this issue contains a further bonus, “An Appreciation of Brad W. Foster” by Avery L. Maxwell. I think most people who’re active in SF fandom know Brad Foster, or at least know of him, but the biographical data in Maxwell’s piece filled me in with some more details. I knew that Brad was a popular fan artist, but I didn’t know that he’d won the fan artist Hugo eight freakin’ times. I was also unaware that Brad’s illustrations have appeared in professional science-fiction magazines and countless comics over the years. So the new info was nice, but even better was the four and a half pages of Brad’s artwork that followed it. Fans of Brad’s stuff will enjoy it for sure, and I’d think just about anybody ought to get a charge out of it.

       So, I’m just gonna go ahead and say, yeah, you ought to go ahead and drop $1.99 for this issue. (Splurge, why don’t you?). Again, “Searching for Kailash” alone is worth the price of the issue, far as I’m concerned. The tribute to Brad Foster alone would also probably be worth the cost of the issue to trufans.  Besides, I think that Stupefying Stories is a zine worth supporting. Edited by Bruce Bethke, the guy responsible for coining the word, “cyberpunk,” Stupefying has gone in a new direction in SF publishing as far as I know. Neither an ezine, nor blog, nor traditional print SF magazine, Stupefying is published exclusively for e-readers and tablet computers. It’s formatted for Kindle, Nook, and iPad , and available at their respective venues. Stupefying calls itself a serial anthology so every issue remains listed on the e-book sellers’ sites, instead of just the most recent one, which I think’s a wise move.  And since Stupefying asks people to pay for an issue, unlike most ezines and blogs, it may have a better chance at eventual financial viability. Perhaps it’s mapping out the future of the SF short story market. In another five years, if magazines of short science-fiction and fantasy are still being published, I believe that it’ll be in a format much like that of Stupefying Stories.

       OK, let me get off this soapbox. Whew…

Playing At Custer Street

Custer Street Fair 2011

For a long time, Custer Street Fair in Evanston has marked a sort of unofficial start of summer for my wife Dorothy and me. We used to go to it every year, and then we got the idea to try and play at it, so we sent them a demo tape. To our delight they gave us a slot on the bill, and we’ve been playing there ever since. This June will mark our fifteenth year playing at the fair. It’s gotten steadily bigger over the years, but its formula for success has stayed pretty much the same: Good Vibes, Good Food, Good Music, Good Arts and Crafts. It’s just a guaranteed laid-back goodtime if you make it to Custer Street Fair.

Last year’s show was a pretty good one for us. We had a good time playing, caught an excellent set by John Temmerman’s Jazz Obsession, had a few beers, and pigged out on ribs. Besides which Channel 2 was there and featured a slice of our set in their report on the fest. (That, says Dorothy, was our fifteen seconds of fame.) Besides which Windy City Rock was there and gave us a pretty good write-up. Channel 2 doesn’t have their report on last year’s fest up anymore, but if you’d like to read what Windy City Rock had to say about us, just click on http://www.windycityrock.net/2011/06/show-review-kent-mcdaniel-band-kraig.html. 

Last year probably wasn’t my favorite show we did a t Custer Street Fair, though. That’d be 2007, when  we recorded our Live at Custer Street  CD. We actually weren’t planning on doing a live CD from that show, just a few vidoes for Youtube. We did record the sound separately, however, so we’d have the option to mix the tracks and tweak the EQ. But when we listened to the songs, we said, “Hey, we were having a pretty good day. We oughta make a CD out of it.” So we got the videos, and we ended up with a live CD we like a lot.

“The News” is one of the songs that came out pretty nice. Our drummer that day, Vic Varjan, did a solid little drum solo in the middle. And we jammed pretty good on it I thought, although we were pumped up on adrenalin and played it almost double the tempo I recorded it at on my About Time  CD. Here’s a video of it.

Another song that we were having fun on was “Jimmy Stu (What’s With You?)” I wrote this one, and the words mean something to me, but that day we were definitely into the music, jamming on it. Here’s that one:

Both of those songs, and all the rest of the songs on the album, are available for download at Amazon.com, iTunes, Napster, and just about most places that sell downloads. If you wanted to get a physical copy of the CD, the quickest place to get it would be at www.cdbaby.com, although you could get it from Amazon and some of the other distributors, too.

Anyway, I’m glad to say that we’ll be back at Custer Street again this on June 17th. You gotta get there early though. We go on at 11:00 A.M. Do you know how hard is to sing at eleven in the morning? Not that. You just have to get up early and warm up. Long live Custer Street!

Preliminary Cover Sketches for JIMMY STU LIVES!

My novel Jimmy Stu Lives!, a satire set in the framework of a science-fiction adventure, should be coming out sometime next month from Penumbra Publishing (www.penumbrapublishing.com) . Joe Staton, an artist whose work I very much admire, is doing the cover for it. Joe and I were both in Southern Fandom Press Alliance (SFPA ) back in the Sixties (when we were both toddlers), and he actually did the cover for an issue of my fanzine in those days, Outre’.  I no longer have that issue—you know how it goes—but through the miracle of modern technology, I was able to get my hands on a copy of the cover. Ned Brooks, venerable Official Archivist of Southern Fandom Press Alliance, located the issue, Outre’ #3, scanned the cover and emailed it to me, informing me that the issue had appeared in SFPA mailing #14 (circa 1963).  

         So this will actually be the second time that something I wrote enjoyed an excellent cover by Joe. Actually, Joe did more than just provide the cover for  Outre’ #3.  He might not remember this, but he actually stenciled  all of Outre’ 3. In fact, I’d bet that he drew the cover straight on to stencil. For you of tender years, back in prehistoric times we used to print fanzines on a mimeograph. When I say that Joe stenciled the whole issue, I mean he took my handwritten notes and typed them on to mimeograph stencils. I didn’t type back then, and my mom, who usually typed up my issues, was unable to do that one. So Joe stenciled it. He was Official Editor of SFPA at the time, but believe me, that was way beyond the call of duty.

Joe went on from SFPA to gain fame as a comics artist, his many credits including two long runs on Green Lantern. Currently, he’s artist on the syndicated Dick Tracy comic strip. I always admired his work, and I knew that he’s also an accomplished painter, so I suggested to the folks at Penumbra that they try to get him for the cover. I’m really pleased that the parties could all come to an agreement, and Joe is in fact doing the cover for Jimmy Stu Lives!. 

           The preliminary sketches for Joe’s cover painting arrived yesterday. He’s planning on doing it as a wet-on-wet water color, I think, but he sent the publisher and me a couple of black and white preliminary sketches. Now I can’t wait to see the painting. I like the frontal view better, but either of the sketches would be a nice basis from which to start.                              

     Set in Nashville and Western Kentucky a hundred thirty-eight years hence, Jimmy Stu Lives! satirizes the contemporary attacks on church/state separation. But I hope that I never let that get in the way of telling a good story in the novel. I’m pretty happy with how it came out, glad that it found a publisher in Penumbra, and glad that Joe will doing the cover painting.  Oh, yeah.

“Paradise Lost” by Hank Reinhardt

     

"Paradise Lost" appeared in Dumbfounding Stories #5, reprinted from Outre' #6, both titles zines I sent through SFPA--about 4 decades apart.

                                                                                         

                            Or Will Hank Reinhardt

                            Ever find Happiness Living

                            in Birmingham, Alabama?

 

                            By Hank Reinhardt

 

      

                My first encounter with the city of Birmingham, Alabama, was an experience both painful and pleasurable.  Painful: just look at the city.  Pleasurable, it was the first Deep South Con I ever attended.  In fact, the whole experience is worth telling alone, but I’ll shorten it slightly. 

     I had never attended a DSC, but that year Jerry Page had nagged convinced me that I should go.  He had promised that the con committee would have an altar raised for me, that there would be plenty of bheer, and above all, card games.  He had even, he said, imported a special FISH for me, by the name of Lon Atkins.  (Little did I realize that this same Lon Atkins would someday be OE of SFPA).

      We left for Atlanta early in the morning, full of excitement and adventure, for the Deep South Con was only 170 miles away!

      Now Page is an odd sort, and never having attended a convention with him, I was unprepared for his “Convention Attending Preparatory Exercises”.  They rather startled me at first, all the screaming and yelling, but I got used to them quickly.  The funny thing was that Jerry started them just as we reached the highway and I started picking up speed.  The exercises were a little curious, too.  He would scream, stop his feet, and cover his eyes, and then repeat the whole procedure!

       I can honestly say that never have I seen a man as impatient to arrive at a convention as Jerry was.  All during the trip he kept screaming and asking me, “God, will I ever get to Birmingham?”  I kept assuring him that we would arrive and that I was hurrying as fast as I could.  This invariably brought forth low moans and self-condemnation as he bewailed his lack of intelligence and his birth out of wedlock.  He kept muttering, “Stupid Bastard, Stupid Bastard.”  Oh well, Jerry is a lot of fun, but don’t drive him to a convention. 

      The trip was rather uneventful.  Only one thing of any interest happened.  Right after we crossed the Alabama line, a car with a light on top started following us and trying to make us stop.  It wasn’t a cop car, as all cop cars in Georgia are white with red lights.  Finally, it dawned on me that these were robbers, trying to steal my collection of PLANET STORIES!  This made me a little angry, and I wanted to get out and fight.  Indeed, I had already buckled on my shield and drawn my sword with gusto when Jerry started screaming again about not getting to Birmingham.  Rather than put up with all the yelling, I decided to just lose them.  It wasn’t hard.  A few four wheel drifts around some tractor trailer rigs, and the bandits were lost to sight.

      We were cruising along right well.  Jerry had passed thru Part I of his exercises and was into Part II, which consisted of deep wracking sobs and breaking into a cold sweat, when we beheld Birmingham!  Birmingham is called the Magic City, and my first glimpse of it told me why.  We were heading toward a huge bank of smog at a speed in the low three-digit figures.  Then suddenly, like an evil phantasm of a tortured brain, the fog lifted, and there, like an evil phantasm of a more tortured brain, sat Birmingham, resplendent in a mantle of dark gray soot!

       Jerry and I located the Downtown Motel without any trouble, and pulled into the lot and started unloading.  Page then went thru Part III of his exercises, falling to the ground and kissing the earth repeatedly.  (Each to his own, but I can think of better ways to get prepared for a con)

       The people there must have never seen a full fledged Atlantian before, as they kept looking at me in open-eyed, open-mouth admiration as I carried in my weapons:  four swords, one pole-axe, one halberd, two helmets, (my mail I had on) and my shield.

       The Deep South Con was delightful.  I met many new fans, and never had I known how odd most fans are till I met this bunch.  The only one there that appeared normal was Ron Bounds, and he only had a bayonet!  The rest, Would You Believe It, were, now get this, UNARMED!  Talk about weird!

       But I didn’t hold it against them.  Live and let live, I always say.  The fan roster was impressive.  There was Two Can Billy Pettit, drunk as usual, the Late, Great lee Jacobs, the California sponge, drunk as usual, a whale of a fellow, our revered OE of SFPA Lon (Bigfish) Atkins, drunk as usual.  (It was at this con that I first played poker with Lon and formed a long and lasting friendship – one that has been quite profitable, too), Ned Brooks, drunk as usual was also there, plus the evil genius of Southern Fandom, Al Andrews.  Oddly enough Al wasn’t drunk, but he was heading that way with all the speed he could muster.

       I was shocked that fandom knew so little about how poker is played.  Not a one of my opponents was armed with anything larger than a penknife.  More than once my pair of kings with battle axe won out over three aces with nothing.

      I am a modest individual, not given to praise of self, but I feel that I should mention that it was here that I won my first Miniature Catapult shooters Association Championship, beating Ron Bounds easily and winning $673.00 from him at the same time.

      There was a panel discussion, which I also won, my mace coming in very handy, some hearts games, which I won, using a knife technique, and a beaureaux, which I lost.   (Teach me to leave my sword in my room)   

      But in all silver clouds there is a little sand.  (Figure that one out.)  As a result of the Deep South Con, I saw the city of Birmingham – dirty, dingy, with thick foggy air, dirty old buildings, Greasy spoon restaurants, and two bookstores, which specialized in Lust in the Desert and Lust in the Attic type stuff.

      The con broke up Sunday afternoon.  Jerry hated for it to end, so much so that it took four of us to get him into the car.  The trip back was uneventful.  Jerry went thru some more exercises, basically the same, even to kissing the ground when he got out at his house.  But, nothing else worth mentioning came off.

      The years wore on.  I continued my profitable relationship with Lon Atkins and the rest of fandom.  In short, life was rather pleasant.  But, always, in the back of my mind loomed a horrible, forbidding specter:  BIRMINGHAM.

      In the fall of ’66 evil struck.  Things had really been looking up in the early part of the year.  Georgia Tech was undefeated, and so was Georgia.  Both ranked in the top ten.  Poker had been going well.  And, I had just purchased some old weapons.  Nice, that’s what it was.

      I cruised into the office one fateful day; got in about ten a.m., read the paper, and prepared to play some cards before going to work.  Then the boss, the BIG one, called me into his office.

      “Reinhardt, we’re transferring you to Birmingham.”

      The scream that ripped out came from my soul.  A red haze swam before my eyes.  Killcrazy with fear and pain, I moved for the boss – a blur that would have shamed a striking snake!

      My boss screamed, “Wait, wait, it means more MONEY.”

      I pulled him back in from the window, sat him on his feet, and we discussed it like two civilized gentlemen.  (A role I have difficulty playing)

      The year ended in disaster!  Georgia beat hell out of Tech.  I lost a hearts game.  And, in December we moved to Birmingham.

      That was nigh on to three years ago!  Now as I sit in my (cell) room I ponder, can I, will I ever return to Atlanta, that fair and gracious city, a city that has kindness, warmth, love and FANS!

      Here I should pinpoint the shortcomings of Birmingham, but I find that I’m reluctant to do so.  Not that I’ve changed my mind about the city, instead I find that my feelings are too strong.  This is, after all, a family type zine (-What-Kent?!-), and there are still laws regarding obscenity.

      Birmingham is a dirty, dreary city, with no fanac at all.  But, I can get by without fanac;  I did in Atlanta for several years.  It’s just that the whole city is different.  Culture is almost unknown.  They do have a fairly good museum, but as to be expected, some of the armor is incorrectly labeled.  There’s one night club in town, the drinking laws are weird, and Birmingham has an inferiority complex that is as tremendous as it is well deserved.  The papers here constantly hit you with vital and highly interesting tidbits designed to make the average person think he is living in a city that is the hub of the universe:  RICHARD NIXON’S FIFTH COUSIN SPENT TWO WEEKS IN BIRMINGHAM 8 YEARS GO!  HAIRDRESSER IN THE SHARON TATE MURDER ONCE LIVED IN BIRMINGHAM FOR SIX MONTHS . . . . BIRMINGHAM  97^th IN NATION FOR AMOUNT OF MONEY SPENT ON BLUE CONTACT LENSES.

      No kidding, things like this appear all the time, and not as little fillers in the back, but in large type on the first couple of pages!

       But, don’t get the idea that we get bored here.  We don’t.  Every Saturday Janet and I go down to the A&P and watch them sack groceries, and sometimes we go downtown and count the cars . . .  All sorts of exciting things to do here . . .

      Now for three years I have suffered . . . three years locked away in Birmingham.  Oh I have tried to stimulate fanac around here.  Tried ‘til tears rolled down my cheeks, tried ‘til blood spurted in a blue torrent from my ripped and torn hands . . . but I’m still unsuccessful!  There’s still no thriving fan group, no chance for sparkling wit and clever remarks. . . Oh, there is a fan here besides myself: Al Andrews.  And, during the summer, George Inzer sneaks into town.  But what can two fans offer me?  Hell, I can’t support a thriving weapons collection on just playing cards with two guys!  I need fresh blood, another few fish to make life worthwhile!  True, Decatur Alabama has a small fan group, but they’re all in school, and don’t have much money. . .don’t even play poker!

      Oh, to be back in Atlanta with Joe Celko, Glen Brock, and Jerry Page; I could grow rich.

      But now the cold gray mists of age gather round me; my bones feel old and heavy and brittle.  I look back on my youth, and it is as a dim painting in which certain things stand out sharp and clear. . .dashing to the bank to deposit a check of someone’s, counting my winnings from poker and hearts games. . .having to hire a CPA to keep track of my winnings. . .

      And as I grow old and that Final Edition comes closer, I look forward to that Great Fan Gathering in the Sky.  Oh, I’ll get there; I’ve been as good a fan as any.  I’ve had my times, drank beer by the kegful, read PLANET STORIES .  . . and I’ve suffered for Fandom.  I’ve listened to Jerry Page talk for hours.  I’ve listed to Fred Lerner talk for hours . . .I’ve been a good trufan, and when I go, I know what will be waiting for me:  Mint editions of PLANET STORIES, portfolios of Finley, and autographed editions of CONAN, bound in human skin dyed a blood red . . .

   But, what bothers me is will I ever get the hell out of Birmingham and get back to all of the above in Atlanta.

 

 Note: The  first mailing of  my second stint in SFPA, I commented on a piece Hank had written on armor, asking if it had been a term paper, and saying that I thought running a term  paper through the apa wasn’t quite “cricket.” Oh, Hank had a field day with my  word-choice. He went of on this long surreal spiel about crickets and armor that cracked me up. I got started writing back and forth with him, and he ended up sending me this, which  I was delighted to print in Outre’ 6  for SFPA Mailing 34 in Fall of 1969, I think. Cover by Dany Frolich.

 

 

 

                                          

“Up On The Roof”

"Up On The Roof" appaeared originally in M-Brane SF #6

         Here and there Watchdogs roll on their caterpillar tracks, looking like miniature tanks, except for the steel jaws. At the edge of the grounds a wall of azure light shimmers, and on an acre of lawn, several fruit trees stand here and there. Jackson Kane stands by a ladder under the apple tree. Atop the ladder perches Vern, an android, and Jackson points out the three apples he deems most delectable. Vern picks them and climbs down, a straw basket on one palm. He proffers the basket, which also contains pears and peaches. 

            Jackson scrutinizes it, as though judging a still life, and nods. He looks at Vern, who wears coveralls and work boots. Jackson wears shorts and tank top; otherwise Vern is his mirror image: the exact same young face with full lips and a wide forehead above a tapering jaw line that makes the face almost heart-shaped. Like Jackson, Vern has sideburns and wears his hair in a pompadour.

            “Do you think Ms. Carlisle will like the fruit basket, sir?” Vern asks.

            Jackson’s stomach clenches. He has never had a long-term relationship, due–his virtual therapist says–to issues with trust and intimacy. He and Sandra Carlisle have been out three times and enjoy each other’s company. There is hope, maybe. She is coming for dinner that evening, but as they talked over the phone last night, it came out that they own the same number of androids, six. Jackson quipped, “You should bring your ‘droids. Make a party of it.” On the holographic screen, her face broke into a delighted smile and she insisted on doing just that. Now he dreads the complication.   

            He takes the basket. “These will do nicely, Vern.”

            Along a path of stones, they walk into the shadow of an edifice like some stone fortress. As they approach an oak doorway, it recedes, and an android identical to Jackson and Vern stands there in a doorman’s uniform. “Take those for you, sir?” He reaches for the basket.

            “Not necessary, Sam. I’m taking these up to Parker.” Jackson rides the escalator up two flights, to the kitchen, where a tangy fragrance suffuses the air. Clad in white apron, chef’s hat, and insulated gloves, another replica of Jackson eases an apple pie from the oven onto the counter.

            The scent of baking bread mingles with the pie’s. Beside racks of herbs under lights, Jackson plucks a sprig of basil and sniffs it. “Things appear to be progressing nicely, Parker.”

            “Yes.” Parker looks up from the pie. “Dinner will be fine.”

            Of that, Jackson has no doubt. He leaves the fruit basket, which is to adorn the dinner table, with Parker. Jackson rides the escalator to the roof and steps onto a patio, next to which lies a small lawn. Beyond that, a swimming pool shimmers, and beyond it, red, yellow, and white roses bask in sunlight filtered through a dome’s treated glass. The dome covers the roof except for a landing pad beyond a door past the flowers.

            He turns away, climbs three steps to a glassed-in dining room, crosses, and passes into a large rec room. At its edge the dome slopes down to form the wall. He walks over, and hands against the glass, again admires his fruit trees, lawn, Watchdogs, and security wall below. He pushes away, goes to a couch.                                                              He clicks on the holovision that fills the opposite wall, and tunes to “Cruel Streets.”  The segment ending is pedestrian: In an abandoned tenement, a homeless family has been found murdered. The next report is more colorful. A group of squatters has planted corn, potatoes, green beans, and squash. A gang of bikers with “Hell Hounds” lettered on their soiled denim jackets, demands half of the crop at harvest. Perhaps thirty confront the squatters, who are armed with clubs and rocks. The bikers snarl, threatening to destroy the crop. They fire up their battered mopeds, which whine like metallic hornets, and as they wheel off, smash several rows of corn.  

            Jackson turns off the holovision. Sandra has decreed that there will be dancing, and he checks the sound system. Then he rides the escalator down to the third floor and enters a large chamber. Just inside, a smiling mannequin in a gold jump suit stands, hand raised in welcome. On its base, gold letters read: ELVIS, CIRCA 1955. Jackson pauses in front of it.  He provided the mannequin’s creator holograms of Elvis taken from television and movies. The same holograms guided the manufacturer of Jackson’s androids and the surgeon who altered Jackson’s face, artists in their own right.     

            “Blue Moon of Kentucky” murmurs over hidden speakers. Along the walls pale light glow behind round covers with colored geometric designs. Between these, hang images of Elvis: photos, movie posters, and the more surreal–Elvis in Superman costume, flying above the Memphis skyline, Elvis at the Last Supper. In the middle of the room a trophy case holds 45’s, jumpsuits, capes, locks of hair, a trove of memorabilia. Jackson stops to admire a collection of police badges that belonged to Elvis.

            A young Elvis in black tuxedo emerges from a tiny office at the end of the room and sidles up. “Will you be needing anything, sir?”

            “Yes, Phil. I’d like that Elvis scrapbook the girl from Memphis kept.” Jackson enters the room’s walk-in closet.

            When Jackson emerges clad in a gold rhinestone jumpsuit, Phil brings him the scrapbook, and Jackson sits in an easy chair, where he alternates between leafing through the scrapbook and wondering how Sandra would look. Exactly as he is obsessed with Elvis, she is obsessed with Madonna. But as which of Madonna’s incarnations will she appear? He sits with eyes closed, when Phil taps his shoulder. “Sir, Ms. Carlisle is to arrive momentarily.”

            He springs from the chair, takes the escalator to the roof, skirts the pool, and trots down a short flagstone walk through the roses to the doorway. Sandra Carlisle’s armored air-van approaches, and lands on the roof, beside his. Its side door slides open, and seven blond women with scarlet lips emerge, all wearing black leather corsets, black shorts, fishnet hose, and heels.

            His gaze darts from one to the next. Which is Sandra? As they come up to him, the blond in the lead throws her arms open and jumps into his arms. “We’re here! Ready?”

            Hiding disorientation behind a grin, he swings her around and laughs. “Definitely.”  He cocks his head. “Ready.”

            They go in, and her androids go to join his below. Sandra and he sit in lounge chairs by the pool. She throws her arms wide and cries, “What a place, so comfy. Why don’t we skinny dip?”

            His heart races, but something bothers him, a hangover from his disorientation as she and her androids disembarked. What if he isn’t with Sandra but one of her androids? Wouldn’t that be like her? His frolicking naked with one of her droids, while she laughs. He studies her. The Roman nose, heart-shaped face, blue eyes: it looks like Sandra. She, however, has undergone surgery to appear identical to Madonna; they share an obsession with Twentieth Century pop icons. But her androids also look like Madonna. How is he to know?            

            As she leans toward him, squeezing his thigh, an idea comes.

            “Skinny dip?” she asks again.

            Jackson smiles. “OK, sure. I wanted to show you the grounds, though.”

            He leads her to the couch in the rec room and tunes the television to the channel that monitors his grounds. A view fades in of the apple tree against the background of the shimmering blue security wall.

            The remote control also accesses his main computer, and furtively he taps in directions. Then he uses the controls to show her the grounds: fruit trees, security wall, Watchdogs, who spread their serrated jaws as the camera zooms in. Just as Sandra begins to fidget and glance back toward the pool, the security wall flickers off, and the Watchdogs coast to a stop.

            He curses. “Security system.”

            He stalks to the house phone and pretends to notify Vern of the problem. As he returns, she leans forward, frowning. He sits down beside her, breathes deep and swallows. “Not to worry. The house is secure. It’s just the Watchdogs and security wall. They should be back up soon.”

            She scrunches up her face. “This happens often?”

            “Ever since that virus the People’s Liberation Force loosed, my security system has had problems.” He smiles reassuringly.

            He looks back to the television, where views of various portions of the grounds alternate. Minutes drag by. And then what he expects appears. It could hardly be better: three grimy urchins in tattered clothes, a girl and boy, both around twelve, and a smaller boy of eight or nine.

            “Intruders,” he hisses.

            Sandra looks at them and shakes her head.

            The smaller boy clambers up the apple tree and flings down apples, as the older boy shouts encouragement. The girl stretches out the bottom of her shirt to hold the apples and peers first over one shoulder, then the other. The smaller boy springs from the tree and scampers over to the next, a peach.

            “Ricky! No!” the girl cries. “Let’s go. Before we get in trouble.”

            “C’mon, Jen,” the older boy scoffs, “let’s get some more.” He runs over and stands catching the peaches Ricky tosses down. As if pulled against her will, Jen goes to them.

            “Thieving little beggars,” Jackson sniffs. “I should have Vern run them off, on general principles.”

            Sandra lays a hand on his forearm. “Do you have to?” She leans toward him with a smile. “They look starving.”

            He smiles back and shuts his eyes, shaking his head. “I guess they can have a few more minutes.”

            The children dash to a pear tree that stands by the mansion. Once little Ricky is up the tree, Jackson surreptitiously taps the controls at his side. On two Watchdogs near the children, red sensor lights wink on. In small, sluggish circles, the Watchdogs begin to roll. Steel jaws yawn, clang shut. Jen’s eyes widen.

            “Ricky!” she screams. “The things! Get down!” She jabs a finger at the Watchdogs. “They’re on!”

            Ricky leaps down. Jen looses her shirt, spilling the fruit. The three flee like deer.  The Watchdogs begin to pursue, steel jaws spread.

            Sandra shakes Jackson’s arm. “Do something! Before they get hurt!”

            Out of her line of sight, he again adjusts the controls. In the middle of the grounds two more Watchdogs come to life. “It’s going to be all right,” he says. “The security wall’s still down. The Watchdogs are programmed to stop at the edge of the grounds.”

            “Are you kidding?” she screams, shoving his shoulder. “Look!” 

             Wide-eyed, sobbing, the fleeing children fill the screen. Two more Watchdogs are rolling in from the sides, while the two behind draw closer. Shrieking, the children put on a burst of speed that carries them just past gaping jaws.

            “Do something!” Sandra screams. Jackson watches as though transfixed. As four Watchdogs pursue, Ricky stumbles and falls. The older boy flees on, but Jen spins on her heel. She shoots back and yanks Ricky up, steel jaws crashing shut where he was.

            All over the yard, Watchdogs are activating.

            “They’ll kill them!” Sandra cries. “Do something, can’t you?”

            The older boy has run beyond the grounds, and Jen and Ricky race toward the edge. At that instant, the azure wall shimmers back on. Jackson slips his fingers away from the controls and stares at the screen. Ricky and Jen skid to a halt, and turn to face the Watchdogs closing in.

            Sandra moans.

            The children gape in all directions. Before they can make a fatal attempt to jump through the security wall, Jackson taps a button, and the shimmering blue vanishes. The children wheel, leap beyond the grounds, and flee.

            Splendid. Very exciting, and Sandra’s reaction leaves no doubt she is indeed Sandra. An android would lack the depth of emotion she showed, and no android would have struck him, shoved him, or shouted orders at him.

            He leans back and laughs till he cries. “Oh, Sandra,” he chortles, “that was too much, really! If only you could’ve seen your face. Oh God!” He wipes a tear away.

            “Do you mean,” she snarls, “that you engineered that whole little drama? Your security system was never down?”

            Still smiling, nodding, he leans back up. 

            Sandra slaps his face. “You idiot! Those children might’ve died!”

            Given the probable length of the brats’ lives, he fails to see how this matters, but keeps that to himself. “Sandra, they were never in any real danger.” He touches his stinging cheek. “I wasn’t going to let anything happen.”

            She rises. “I’m leaving.”

            Jackson rises too and clutches her arm. “No, please, Sandra, don’t go. I’m sorry.  Very, very sorry.”

            She’s almost sneering at him, lips quivering.

            “I have issues with trust.” He puts his hands on her shoulders and looks into her eyes. “When we were by the pool, I wondered if you’d tricked me, if you were really one of your ‘droids. I wanted to see if it was really you.”

            More softly she asks, “You are an idiot, aren’t you?”

            “Yes. I am. But I’ll never do anything like that again. Never. I promise. Please stay for dinner, at least.”

            She sighs. “I’ll stay for dinner.” She holds up her hand. “That’s all I’m agreeing to.”

            Dinner proves as sumptuous as he anticipated. After dessert, they sit some time in silence, gazing out at the sparkling pool and the roses, the lights low.

*****

            Later, Jackson, Sandra, and the androids dance to “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” in the rec room, under the dome. Here and there in the distance, some towering edifice like Jackson’s glows. Otherwise the city lays dark. Overhead, stars twinkle, and a crescent moon hangs just below its zenith. Wearing a motorcycle cap that he fetched from his memorabilia, Sandra seems to hold herself tense in his arms. After tonight, will he see her again? They dance away from the room’s edge, into the center of the dancers, and the memory of his earlier paranoia comes back to him. In spite of himself, he turns his head, to peek from the corner of his eye, wondering if perhaps one of the other Madonnas grins slyly at him. But in the dim light, each couple seems to float in its own private universe.

     ”Up on the Roof” copyright 2009 by M-Brane SF

Remembering Gage Park (a review)

Remembering Gage Park by William P. Shunas; self-published through Xlibris; copyright 2010. Available at Barnes & Noble (www.bn.com), Amazon.com, and at www.Xlibris.com/Bookstore. 

Paperback $15.00-20.00. Kindle edition $7.69

             A fictional memoir, Remembering Gage Park  begins: “I was eight years old when I met   Connor. That was they day he nearly put out my eye. You would’ve thought I’d have learned something that day, but not me.” That hook imbedded, Shunas pauses to describe Chicago’s then-unpaved alleys, Gage Park’s turf protocols for eight-year-olds, and the workings of the Chicago Democratic Machine, before returning to his narrator’s fateful meeting with Connor. Intriguing stuff, and for the rest of the book Shunas continues to intersperse tense scenes with sharply-etched description of Gage Park: the streets, homes, gardens, stores, vacant lots, the people and their culture, the politics and economics. He tells all this through Mike Staron, a semi-tough Gage Park kid who grew up, got through college and did okay. Looking back now, Mike wastes few words and evinces an eye for detail and a hard-edged poetry to his voice. For some of us, our childhood neighborhood has a homely kind of magic, and Mike Staron’s description of his grade-school years beautifully nails that feeling. It’s similar to what Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine did for Waukegan, minus the sugar coating. 

            I have a few quibbles with the book. Transitions for instance: Shunas indicates changes of scene within a chapter by skipping an extra line between paragraphs. Sometimes this works well, but other times a transitional phrase or sentence would’ve avoided a few seconds of reader disorientation. Mentioning the year in which a chapter or scene is happening more often would’ve also been helpful, especially in a book spanning over three decades.  Finally, a relationship ends in the book with significant consequences, and we’re never told why the relationship, which seemed to be going well, ended. Such issues notwithstanding, my interest in the book never flagged. I found Remembering Gage Park hard to put down, in fact.

            The book centers on the friendship between its narrator, Mike Staron, and Jim Conner—simply “Conner” to Mike. Though both were Catholic, Mike went to public schools and Jim to Catholic, and their contact before High School had been limited to sidewalk confrontations and occasional fights. They meet on the Gage Park freshman-sophomore basketball team, and their love of the game brings them together. Mike is a regular guy–no wimp, no bully, a little awkward socially sometimes, but able to hold his own. Conner, on the other hand, is a blithe spirit who seems to swagger through childhood and adolescence unscathed.

            They become best friends, and the fictional memoir follows them from the late Fifties through the Eighties. They discover girls, beer, and nearby neighborhoods. They encounter in one form or another, racial tension, block-busting, The Cold War, Chicago politics, the civil rights movement, The Viet Nam War, and three political assassinations. The focus, however, is always on the people of Gage Park. Whenever the larger issues come into play, it’s within a context of everyday people trying to get through daily life in the neighborhood. For instance, sixteen-year-old Mike’s trip to the beach with a hot neighborhood girl gets juxtaposed with the image of the Nike missile guarded by soldiers in the park next to the 57^th Street Beach. A discussion of the Cold War from the perspective of a Fifties teenager ensues—and I laughed out loud.  

             I suppose some could question whether the world needs another coming-of-age-in-The-Sixties book, but the world can always use another excellent work. And this is one. Shunas’s description of Martin Luther King’s march on Marquette Park is itself worth the price of the book. For that matter, so is the evocation of Gage Park in the Fifties through the eyes of an eight-year-old, and so is the account of Mike and Connor’s relationship after Conner returns damaged from Vietnam. There is so much to admire here: Remembering Gage Park views the big picture, but from the streets of a struggling working class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Shunas has a clear-eyed sympathy for his flawed characters. Further, he depicts painful scenes—many–and even at their most wrenching, refrains from sentimentality. His tone is neither saccharine nor unremittingly bleak. Threads of family loyalty and of friendship run through the book. Shunas follows his characters as they continue to develop into their forties. I like all that—a lot.  Remembering Gage Park views three turbulent decades in the U.S. from an urban, blue-collar neighborhood. I’m not sure that anyone has told the story of those years in a way that pleases me more.

This review originally appeared in www.windycityreviews.org.

Waitin’ For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago

By the 1980′s Z Z Top’s new songs were almost novelty numbers. They still put down some pretty nice grooves and some hot licks, but most of their tunes were cutesy little ditties designed to work well with the goofy vidoes they were grinding out for MTV. If anybody looked down their nose at that, the band cried all the way to the bank, I guess. Back in the seventies, though, Z Z Top was playing playing some strange, serious electric blues. They wore cowboy hats and rhinestone getups and marketed their stuff as southern rock, but it was electric blues. And it was good. For my money, their best album from that time was Tres Hombres, and the best thing on the album was an original medley called “Waitin’ For the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago”, both songs funky and bluesy.

My brother, Doug, and I played that medley many a night ourselves back in the seventies, in many a roadhouse in Kentucky, Missouri, and southern Illinois. We must’ve played it four or five hundred times. Usually in the night’s last set.  Usually the bar was smoky, the dance floor was packed, and everyone was seriously loaded. Playing that medley now always takes me back, even if I’m playing in a comfy little club on Chicago’s Northside. The songs are both good for dancing, but they’re worth just listening to sometimes. The words bear scrutiny, too. I’m posting a video here of us playing it recently at Chicago’s Heartland Cafe. Rudy Negrete is the other guitarist, Dorothy’s on bass, and Alpha Stewart is drumming. We’d never actually all played the song together before. Rudy and I had played around with it, and so had Dorothy and I, but the three of us had never done it together. Alpha had never played it. I just started doing the lick after we finished a song, and everybody fell in with it. It came off pretty good, though, I thought.

Here are the words:

“WAITING FOR THE BUS”

 

HAVE MERCY, BEEN WAITIN’ FOR THE BUS ALL DAY

 HAVE MERCY, BEEN WAITIN’ FOR THE BUS ALL DAY

I GOT MY BROWN PAPER BAG AND MY TAKE HOME PAY

HAVE MERCY, THAT BUS BE PACKED UP TIGHT

HAVE MERCY THAT BUS BE PACKED UP TIGHT

WELL, I’M GLAD JUST TO GET ON AND HOME TONIGHT

RIGHT ON. THAT BUS DONE GOT ME BACK

RIGHT ON, THAT BUS DONE GOT ME BACK

I’LL BE RIDIN’ ON THE BUS ‘TIL I CADILLAC

“JESUS JUST LEFT CHICAGO”

JESUS JUST LEFT CHICAGO,

 AND HE’S BOUND FOR NEW ORLEANS

JESUS JUST LEFT CHICAGO,

AND HE’S BOUND FOR NEW ORLEANS

WORKIN’ FROM ONE TO THE OTHER

 AND ALL POINTS IN BETWEEN

HE TOOK A JUMP THROUGH MISSISSIPPI,

WHERE MUDDY WATER TURNED TO WINE

TOOK A JUMP THROUGH MISSISSIPPI,

WHERE MUDDY WATER TURNED TO WINE

AND THEN ON OUT TO CALIFORNIA

TO THE FOREST AND THE PINES

YOU MIGHT NOT SEE HIM IN PERSON,

BUT HE’LL SEE YOU JUST THE SAME

I SAID YOU, MIGHT NOT SEE HIM IN PERSON,

BUT HE’LL SEE YOU JUST THE SAME

YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY

‘CAUSE TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS IS HIS NAME

 

“Waitin for the Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago” written by Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hills.

“Jimmy Stu (What’s With You?)

I Wrote “Jimmy Stu” for all the cosmic cowboys who never thought they’d end up on the daily grind–but did. I’m posting a video of the song, from our last show, a performance of it I especially like. For one thing, that  night everybody seemed to find the groove pretty well. For another, though I’ve always thought of the tune as a southern rock/rockabilly thing, Rudy Negrete soloed on it like a Chicago bluesman, and it worked just fine to my ears. If your computer speakers are as lame as mine, I hope you use headphones when you watch this:  

Here are the lyrics.

Jimmy Stu (What’s with You?)

You used to live in the country

up in the ozone, one with the wind and sun

Now you live in the city, and man, it’s a pity

how you run

Jimmy Stu, what’s with you?

Yeah, you used to walk slow

You used to talk slow, taking life by the days 

Now you get up early, you push you shove,

mind on the future always

Jimmy Stu, what’s with you?

Well, it only goes to show

that you don’t know

what somebody might do

Who thought that you’d get caught?

How’d that happen to you? 

 

“Jimmy Stu” is on the CDs Live at Custer Street by The Kent McDaniel Band and About Time by Kent McDaniel, both of which are available at www.cdbaby.com. Downloads of the song are available at www.amazon.com and just about everywhere else downloads are sold. 

“I Saw Her Standing There”

Remember the first Beatles song you ever heard? I do. I was riding around on a Friday night in the early Sixties, and the record hop that came live from the Jaycee Civic Center in Paducah, Kentucky, across the river, was on the car radio. A couple reports had been in the news about this group called The Beatles, who were creating a sensation over in England, but I’d never heard their music. The radio DJ was crowing that he’d got his hands on one of their records and was gonna play it right then and there. A guttural voice ripped into a count-off: “One, two three, four!” This driving bass line exploded over the car speakers, bright chords jangling on top of it, and then that same voice, an urgent growl, started singing about teenage love at first sight. Wow–sure beat the hell out of Bobby Vinton.

That song changed my life, for real,and a lot of my friends had the same thing happen to them with one Beatles song or another. Like a million others, I started playing guitar because of The Beatles, and I still play. Weirdly enough. though,  I never learned ”I saw Her Standing There” until last year. Rudy Negrete, a fantastic performer from Chicago’s Southside was going to sit in with us at a gig. Having heard him tear the song up with his own band, I suggested he do it with us. He taught it to me, and after all those decades I finally got to play it.

I’m pasting a recording of us doing it with Rudy in right here.

“The Time Awaited”

I’m posting a video of this song of ours from our last show at The Heartland. I wrote this one (back in the mists of prehistory), and I’ve always sung it when we play out. It occured to me, though, that Dorothy could probably sing it better, and I suggested it to her. That was a couple weeks before the gig, this was the first time she ever sang it, and she sang it great. (I knew she would.)

I wrote this around midnight one summer night in the early 1970′s, sitting on the hood of my car in front of my folks house on Metropolis Street. It just flowed right out–the way I wish all writing of all kinds would for me. I was writing about experiencing  spiritual renewal after a time of emotional dryness. But some people have told me it makes them think of some Zen searcher finally attaining his goal–enlightenment. Others say it seems to be about a New Age. My mom thinks it’s about the Second Coming. I guess maybe I didn’t make myself clear. On the other hand, I like to think that writers are sometimes channeling the collective unconscious and may be saying more than they understand or know.

The night we recorded it at the Heartland, we weren’t thinking much about all that, though. We were jamming.

Here are the lyrics:

THE TIME AWAITED

 

  LAY DOWN YOUR STRUGGLE, FORGET YOUR STRUGGLE

OOH, SWEET DELIGHT

FLOWS ALL ROUND YOU; IT’S FINALLY FOUND YOU 

OOH, SWEET DELIGHT

 

CHORUS:

IT HAS COME, THE TIME AWAITED, IT HAS COME

 

YOU WALK INTO SUMMER; IT FILLS YOU; YOU WONDER

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN SO LONG?

NIGHT SKY IS SINGING; THE MOON IS SHINING

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN SO LONG?

(CHORUS)

YOUE EYES CATCH FIRE, YOU FEEL YOUR DESIRE

FLOW LIKE LOVE TO THE SEA

ACROSS BRIGHT BLUE SKY, GOLD STALLIONS THAT FLY

FLOW LIKE LOVE TO THE SEA

(CHORUS)

“The Time Awaited” copyright 1973 by Kent McDaniel (me).

“The Time Awaited” is on the CD  About Time by Kent McDaniel, which is available at www.cdbaby.com. Downloads of the song are available at www.amazon.com and just about everywhere else downloads are sold.