Chapter Two
She made Manuel wait in the reception area for close to ten minutes. Katherine Wilde was a very busy woman, and he understood the complexities of her schedule, perhaps better than her own staff did. After all, for a while, they were both heroes. And while Gato Loco might have hung up the mask, Wild Kat was still far from retirement.
And when she wasn’t out fighting crime in thigh-high boots and leather bustier, she was still the head of a large arts foundation. Or was it a company? He was never really sure what they did in the three floors of offices beneath her private workspace. It was something to do with promoting or preserving art. Something to do with art, he was sure. They had a snazzy logo and corporate letterhead, and a lot of money was thrown about with their name attached to it.
Manuel never paid a tremendous amount of attention to it. While they had been dating, it had really been Katherine Wilde – Wild Kat – who fascinated him, not her company. And now he sat in a bamboo paneled reception area watching water drip down a slab of granite on the far wall, and he wondered not only what it was that they did here, but if maybe he should have paid attention to it sooner.
He had been through the room plenty of times. But he had never lingered. Katherine’s touch was all over the place, her own style, her attention to detail. This venture of hers was not a front. It was important to her, perhaps as important being Wild Kat, if not more so.
More importantly, it was a part of her life that he suddenly realized he had neglected. It made him a little sad. And he wondered, just a little, if that was part of why they weren’t spending as much time together.
“Mr. de la Vega? Ms. Wilde will see you now.”
Manuel stood and gave the receptionist with the perfect teeth a distracted smile. He checked his jacket reflexively, then swung his legs out and forward, stumping towards the quiet office beyond.
The floor was carpeted in a layer of Indian rugs that stretched from wall to wall, overlapping in places, in others revealing a polished cedar floor. Traditional block print tapestries hung from the walls between ornamental stone pillars. Rattan sofas with brightly colored cushions lay along each wall of the long room, and a pair of matching chairs sat before the desk. Small palm trees held down the far corner of the room, just past the large cedar desk. Her public face. British born, she kept one foot firmly on the throat of her family’s colonial legacy. It was as if she recognized that she may never outgrow the shadows of her ancestor’s deeds, might never repay the fortune they made from the sweat of British colonialism.
Katherine was waiting for him behind the desk, glasses she didn’t actually need held between deceptively strong fingers as she chewed on one earpiece. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” She stood and greeted him halfway across the room. “I was out of the country for a few weeks and I had some business to get tidied up.”
“Understandable.” Manuel nodded. They greeted each other with a hug and a quick, efficient kiss. He paused, a far off look in his eyes.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Katherine took a seat on one of the sofas and after a long second Manuel hobbled over and joined her.
“My cousin is in trouble in Mexico, a town called Buena Rosa. I don’t know the specifics, but I have reason to suspect that it’s bad. Very bad.”
“What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know, actually. I’m beginning to wonder that myself. Part of me thinks that I can handle this as Manuel de la Vega. That’s all I am anyway, right? But a good detective can be the difference that gets her out. Maybe that’s enough.”
“But what if it isn’t?”
“And I think that’s why I’m here. Maybe I was thinking you would tell me this was crazy and that someone else could do it. That someone else can play the hero.” Manuel stared at his hands as the tightened and relaxed on the grips of his forearm crutches. He couldn’t meet her eye. Now that he was here, he wished he hadn’t come, that he had listened to his instinct and not even tried. But it was too late for that. The words were out.
They hadn’t ever talked about it. Not really. Katherine was convinced that if she put the Tesla twins to work on the hardware, if Snowflake did some mechanical work, that someday Gato Loco would ride again. He had always put it off. It was always a discussion for later. And after months of trying to get him back on the horse, she stopped mentioning it. But his retirement, as such, was never officially open topic for discussion.
But there it was. “Someone else can play the hero.” It was acknowledgement, perhaps that he had given up. And it felt right saying it, like he had been holding onto it for months.
Manuel wasn’t a hero. He never wanted to be. Circumstances had pushed him in that direction, and he had never pushed back. And then circumstances blew him the hell up, and he found a reason to push back.
“I can go down and deal with it, maybe.” Katherine said quietly. There was sadness, resignation in her voice that tore him up inside. “Or I could send Archon down. He could probably clear it all up in a matter of hours.”
Manuel said nothing, loosing himself in the pattern of the rug just past his hands. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it; someone to take the problem, the responsibility off his hands? But it all came down to if he could sleep at night knowing that he gave up.
“No, I’ll take care of it. I just wanted to hear someone offer to take it off my hands, to tell me that I couldn’t handle this on my own. I needed to hear how that sounded.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, you know that don’t you?” Katherine smiled at him. Her eyes were misty, like she might start crying without warning. He wondered if his own eyes had the same threat of rain.
“I know. It doesn’t make sense to me either.” Manuel laughed and it surprised him how easily the laugh came. “But I might need backup or some tactical support if you can spare it.”
“Consider it done. I’ll have it in place in Buena Rosa this time tomorrow.”
Manuel pushed himself to his feet, testing his grip on his crutches. “So, just got back in town from a few weeks out of the country? Sounds exciting.”
Katherine stood and her smile was unexpectedly chilly. “I was called to inland China on family business.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”
She met his gaze and her eyes said it all. No. She didn’t have to tell him anything. He took the hint.
They shared a long hug. With his face buried in her jasmine scented auburn hair, he began to regret his decision to leave. But it was too late for that. It was too late for a lot of things. “Take care, Kat.”
“You take care too, Gato. Call if you need anything.”
Manuel didn’t take another breath until the elevator doors closed. He didn’t want to be rid of the scent of jasmine.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Monday, November 07, 2005
Greetings From Buena Rosa - Chapter One
Chapter One
The old black woman clutched her purse tightly against her chest and eyed Manuel suspiciously. He offered her a warm smile and tilted his head down, drawing her eyes to his sleek, black forearm crutches. Her attitude shifted quickly through shades of relief to pity then back to relief. From criminal to cripple in seven seconds, he thought, a new personal record. He almost preferred she think she was a mugger.
Wind sliced up from the river, carrying with it the smell of diesel and urban decay. A pair of cargo ships had docked in the night, and a steady stream of rigs had been making their way into the freight yards all morning, choking the air with fumes and noise. Even in the Hollows, blocks from Quayside, it had disrupted traffic enough to make Manuel’s morning commute difficult. And with a low pressure system camped out over the city for the past few days, temperatures had climbed to a very un-New England high nineties, reminding Manuel of the weather back home. It was hot and muggy in Cobalt City, but it was no Mexico City.
The weather was starting to make people crazy, and violent crime rates had been spiking. No wonder the woman was suspicious. She had every reason to be. In fact, a little suspicion in her direction wouldn’t be unhealthy. A mugger had been dropped with pepper spray by an old lady in Lafayette Park two days ago, and when the mugger was down she tasered him in the head, killing him.
Manuel gave the old woman a quick look over, reassuring himself that she still thought he was harmless.
Harmless.
And to think. He used to be a super hero.
How the mighty have fallen.
A well-maintained brown hybrid sedan pulled up to the bus stop, the passenger side window already on its way down. Manuel caught sight of the curly ginger hair and porn star mustache of his partner Donegal in the driver seat and stumped closer to the curb, leaning over to put his head into the air conditioned interior.
“You riding the bus again like the common people, de la Vega?”
“Closer than the monorail stop.” Manuel shrugged.
“No friend of mine rides the damn bus,” Donegal growled. “Get in.”
It had been two months since Manuel had started back to work at the station. Donegal had picked him up at the same spot for a all but a week of that time. It wasn’t a formal arrangement, and Manuel suspected that eventually Donegal would tire of the charity and stop driving twenty minutes out of his way every morning.
“You plan on stopping for coffee?” Manuel asked as he tucked his forearm crutches into the back seat.
“Is it your turn to buy?”
“Si.”
“Then I’m stopping for coffee. Buckle up, I’m going to try to make the light.” Donegal zipped dangerously out into traffic and through the yellow light, eliciting angry horns from other drivers.
Ten minutes later, Donegal flipped a U-turn in the middle of a relatively quiet street, securing a parking space across from Schrodinger’s Cup. It was Manuel’s favorite coffee in town, but Donegal didn’t play favorites, generally going wherever was closest. “What’s the occasion?” Manuel asked, secretly glad that his friend hadn’t stopped at the Cup O’Chino Drive-thru Coffee Experience again.
“I need an occasion? I’ll hop in grab the java. You want the usual?”
Manuel was too good of a detective to believe for a second that there was nothing unusual in the air, but decided to ride with it and see where it was going. He fished into the breast pocket of his leather blazer, finding $10 which he handed to Donegal. “Yeah, thanks.”
Donegal looked at the $10 with a forlorn, almost insulted look.
“What? It’s my turn to buy, right?” Manuel said.
With a shrug, his partner looked up then back at the bill. “So, no muffin?”
“I ate before I left home.”
“No muffin for me?”
Manuel smiled and dug out another dollar to cover the additional costs of one of the caramel apple muffins his friend had developed an addiction to. He leaned the seat back a bit, and contemplated closing his eyes while he waited. Sleep had been coming easier these days, and he no longer had to take pain pills to drift off. That alone was a blessing, as they always made him feel a bit blurry for a few hours after waking up. But lately his sleep hadn’t been restful. He found it strange that less than a year ago, he was lucky to get six hours of sleep in a night. Ever since the accident, he had done little but sleep, and now it seemed that even his waking hours were some kind of dream he couldn’t break out of.
A glint of light caught the corner of his eye, and he craned his head up to see Stardust fly past high above Lafayette Park. The shining blue and gold body armor glinted in the sunlight, and even from this distance, it stirred emotions that Manuel had been trying to fight down. Adrenaline pumped into his veins and he reached for the door briefly before reality set in.
“You aren’t a hero anymore.” His voice sounded hollow in his chest. The adrenaline died down, turning sour in his stomach, sending his hand to shake. He was so focused on calming his shakes that he didn’t even see Donegal return to the car until the door was opened suddenly, sending the shakes into a jumpy repeat performance.
Donegal handed a large cinnamon latte across the driver seat before sliding into the car himself. He took notice of the quiver in Manuel’s hand and grunted. “I spook you or something?”
Manuel shrugged, taking a sip on his perfect and piping hot coffee. “Something.”
They sat in silence for a moment while Donegal buckled himself in and arranged his breakfast on the armrest and drink holder. He started the car and let it run for a second, his eyes looking out the front windshield but unfocused. Finally, he shook his head and turned off the car, turning to face Manuel. “This has been bothering me too long, de la Vega. It’s the frickin’ elephant in the room and since you’re never going to say anything about it, well, I guess I have to.”
“Is this about…” Manuel couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t find the words, and instead looked down at his ruined legs.
“Yeah, and no, not entirely.” Donegal shook his head, making faces while he struggled with what was apparently a difficult topic for him. “I need to know. Is that why you quit?”
“Quit? I didn’t quit…”
Donegal looked at Manuel out of the corner of his eye and sighed. “Then why hasn’t anyone seen him since your accident.”
Manuel felt his mouth go dry. “I don’t understand.”
“Damnit, buddy. I’m not an idiot, okay? I admit it took me a while, but come on, what kind of detective would I be if I didn’t figure out that my partner on the force was the vigilante Gato Loco?”
Denial was the first thought that sprang to mind, and Manuel hated himself for it. But what would he really be denying? That he was Gato Loco, which he was, or that he had quit, which he was afraid that he had? “How long have you known?”
“Ah hell, I don’t know.” Donegal sighed and rubbed his eyes. He took a sip of his coffee and gave the matter a moment of sincere thought. “I think maybe I always suspected. I mean, your helmet masked your voice pretty well, electronically, I bet. But how many 6’2” skinny detectives with a penchant for motorcycles live in this town? Three, four at most, right? And he always seemed to overlap the cases we were on, like the thing with Jubal Kane, or the ventriloquist dummy murder. And I never saw the two of you in the same place at the same time…”
“By that logic, he could be Michael Jackson.”
“Too short, wise guy.” Donegal smiled. He started tearing off bits of muffin and tucking them into his mouth. “Anyway, the accident cinched it. You get damn near killed in an accident for which there is some suspicious accident report filed on the same night Condor and Wild Kat get nailed to a wall down near the river, well, a smart detective gets curious. Then Gato Loco just disappears, never to be seen again. Meanwhile they’re replacing shredded muscle tissue in your thighs, trying to patch major arteries, and did I mention that accident should have killed you?”
“Sometimes, Donegal, I almost wish it did.”
Donegal opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. They sat in the car sipping coffee and Donegal continued dismantling his muffin. “So, you want to tell me what happened?”
“There was a shipment down at the docks…major drug delivery fresh out of the Caribbean was the rumor. A few of the Protectorate went down to deal with it, and I had my own interest in the case, looking for a friend who was missing and had ties to those circles. There wasn’t supposed to be any heavy hitters there, just a drug gang, violent maybe, but human.”
“But it was a trap.” Donegal grunted around a mouthful of muffin.
Manuel nodded. “When I got there, Wild Kat and Condor were nailed to the wall of a warehouse as a warning. Wild Kat was alive, but only barely. Condor…he had only been with them for a few weeks. He was still on probation. But they killed him anyway. I was on my cycle trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I didn’t even see who did it.”
“Who did what?”
“Someone blew up my bike. I had my reflexes wired up fast it would make your head spin. I had a multi-stage force field on my suit. And none of it mattered. The bike went sky high, and I went with it.”
“That suit of yours probably saved your life.”
“After five months of painful surgery and physical therapy, I still need sticks to walk. I have one questionably functioning testicle remaining. I might never be able to ride a cycle again. That suit saved my life. But if it wasn’t for the suit, my life wouldn’t have been in danger.”
“So it’s all gone now? The costume, the bike, the super powers; they’re all gone?” Donegal said quietly.
“I never had any super powers.” He hoped that his personal conviction that the questionable psychic gift he possessed didn’t count as a super power would be convincing enough to prevent Donegal from seeing through the lie.
Donegal seemed satisfied with the answer. “Well, you’re still a damn fine detective, and a hell of a partner.”
“Thanks. Now, would you like to get us to the station before someone notices that we’re fifteen minutes late?”
“Shit.” Donegal dropped the picked-clean muffin wrapper on the floorboard and started up the engine. Manuel finished his coffee on the way to work, thankful that his friend hadn’t pried too closely. Super powers, no, he had nothing so grand as super powers. But when he touched things from time to time, he – saw things. A fork at a restaurant could give him a vision of the last person who used it, or the busboy picking it up off the floor and wiping it on his apron. A doll at a murder scene could show him a happy childhood memory or a scene by scene re-enactment of a murder. They were strong, sometimes requiring all of his concentration to not let on that he was seeing things. But they were random, and that was a source of constant frustration.
And ever since the accident, they had been – different. He had five months on world class pain killers, laid up in bed for most of it, and that was a lot of time to focus on more cerebral pursuits. It wasn’t like there was anything on daytime TV. And it wasn’t like he received many visitors. Manuel had learned to interpret the visions a lot better, and he was proud of that. And sometimes he could tell, as his fingers approached an object that a vision was in the offering. But it was never at his bidding.
Considering how tough traffic had been earlier, they made great time. Once upstairs at his desk, Manuel noticed a short stack of paperwork, with a colorful postcard on top of the stack, as if it were pinning the folders to his desk. He reached to pick it up and felt a now familiar electric tingle. His fingers stopped inches from the bright and sunny painted cardstock and he paused to contemplate it a bit longer.
A small tourist town, brightly adorned with wild, red roses stared up at him from the 4x6 card. “Greetings from Buena Rosa” was printed across the top in sweeping white letters. He had never heard of Buena Rosa. The buildings were classic haciendas, but that meant nothing except that the town was probably in or near a desert. He imagined it was somewhere in America, because the writing was in English, but he had known tourist traps in Mexico that catered to Americans and printed their postcards in English.
Manuel glanced casually around to make sure no one was watching. Thankfully, Donegal was pulling files for an ongoing case and was nowhere to be seen. Manuel picked up the folder beneath the postcard, and deftly flipped the card over so he could read the back without touching it.
Mexican stamps and postmark were the first thing he noticed. The second was the chilling message printed carefully on the back.
“Esther Vega is being held by the police in Buena Rosa, Mexico. She is innocent, but the charge is very serious and they say they have a confession. She needs your help.”
It was signed simply, “A friend.”
He looked closely at the postmark. The card was mailed from Mexico, but not from Buena Rosa itself. He fired up the computer at his desk, and after entering in his password, pulled up Buena Rosa on a map. It was near the U.S. border with Mexico, just west of the southern tip of Texas. He knew without looking further why the postcard was printed in English.
Buena Rosa was a maquiladora. Time was, they were only near the borders, but now they were all over Mexico. Towns built up around factories that did final assembly on products while the parts were generally made somewhere else. Building factories, training a staff who would work for far less than American workers, it was all very cost effective, and the factory towns spread like a virus. Manuel had seen one himself, but only the once.
He didn’t doubt for a second that his cousin Esther was there. She was a fiery hearted activist, always had been. She had been traveling around trying to unionize worker last he heard, and it made perfect sense that she would have tried to do so at one of the many maquiladoras. And if she stirred up too much trouble, putting her in jail on some trumped up charge was par for the course.
“Someone on vacation and they didn’t think to take me?” Donegal pointed at the postcard with the thin folder in his hand.
“My cousin, Esther. She’s in some kind of trouble back home.”
Donegal’s tone became somber instantly. “Is it serious trouble?”
“Legal trouble.”
“Then it’s serious. She need you to bail her out or something?”
“Or something.” Manuel set his jaw and touched the postcard.
A vision washed over Manuel, and he could smell factory smoke, tinged ever so slightly by the scent of wild, desert roses. A woman’s body was lying in an arroyo and the birds and coyotes had been at her. Nearby, he could hear a woman crying, but couldn’t see who it was. His gaze drifted out over the arid hills and saw a storm of carrion birds circling overhead like a tornado of feathers.
There was death there – a lot of death. But it wasn’t just death, which had its own scent. No, this was murder. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it on his skin like chemical dust and oil, clinging to him.
Manuel blinked and saw Donegal looking down at the postcard from across the desk. “Jesus. I wonder what they’re holding her for.”
“I don’t know,” Manuel said, his jaw set with grim determination he hadn’t felt in months. “But I intend to find out.”
The old black woman clutched her purse tightly against her chest and eyed Manuel suspiciously. He offered her a warm smile and tilted his head down, drawing her eyes to his sleek, black forearm crutches. Her attitude shifted quickly through shades of relief to pity then back to relief. From criminal to cripple in seven seconds, he thought, a new personal record. He almost preferred she think she was a mugger.
Wind sliced up from the river, carrying with it the smell of diesel and urban decay. A pair of cargo ships had docked in the night, and a steady stream of rigs had been making their way into the freight yards all morning, choking the air with fumes and noise. Even in the Hollows, blocks from Quayside, it had disrupted traffic enough to make Manuel’s morning commute difficult. And with a low pressure system camped out over the city for the past few days, temperatures had climbed to a very un-New England high nineties, reminding Manuel of the weather back home. It was hot and muggy in Cobalt City, but it was no Mexico City.
The weather was starting to make people crazy, and violent crime rates had been spiking. No wonder the woman was suspicious. She had every reason to be. In fact, a little suspicion in her direction wouldn’t be unhealthy. A mugger had been dropped with pepper spray by an old lady in Lafayette Park two days ago, and when the mugger was down she tasered him in the head, killing him.
Manuel gave the old woman a quick look over, reassuring himself that she still thought he was harmless.
Harmless.
And to think. He used to be a super hero.
How the mighty have fallen.
A well-maintained brown hybrid sedan pulled up to the bus stop, the passenger side window already on its way down. Manuel caught sight of the curly ginger hair and porn star mustache of his partner Donegal in the driver seat and stumped closer to the curb, leaning over to put his head into the air conditioned interior.
“You riding the bus again like the common people, de la Vega?”
“Closer than the monorail stop.” Manuel shrugged.
“No friend of mine rides the damn bus,” Donegal growled. “Get in.”
It had been two months since Manuel had started back to work at the station. Donegal had picked him up at the same spot for a all but a week of that time. It wasn’t a formal arrangement, and Manuel suspected that eventually Donegal would tire of the charity and stop driving twenty minutes out of his way every morning.
“You plan on stopping for coffee?” Manuel asked as he tucked his forearm crutches into the back seat.
“Is it your turn to buy?”
“Si.”
“Then I’m stopping for coffee. Buckle up, I’m going to try to make the light.” Donegal zipped dangerously out into traffic and through the yellow light, eliciting angry horns from other drivers.
Ten minutes later, Donegal flipped a U-turn in the middle of a relatively quiet street, securing a parking space across from Schrodinger’s Cup. It was Manuel’s favorite coffee in town, but Donegal didn’t play favorites, generally going wherever was closest. “What’s the occasion?” Manuel asked, secretly glad that his friend hadn’t stopped at the Cup O’Chino Drive-thru Coffee Experience again.
“I need an occasion? I’ll hop in grab the java. You want the usual?”
Manuel was too good of a detective to believe for a second that there was nothing unusual in the air, but decided to ride with it and see where it was going. He fished into the breast pocket of his leather blazer, finding $10 which he handed to Donegal. “Yeah, thanks.”
Donegal looked at the $10 with a forlorn, almost insulted look.
“What? It’s my turn to buy, right?” Manuel said.
With a shrug, his partner looked up then back at the bill. “So, no muffin?”
“I ate before I left home.”
“No muffin for me?”
Manuel smiled and dug out another dollar to cover the additional costs of one of the caramel apple muffins his friend had developed an addiction to. He leaned the seat back a bit, and contemplated closing his eyes while he waited. Sleep had been coming easier these days, and he no longer had to take pain pills to drift off. That alone was a blessing, as they always made him feel a bit blurry for a few hours after waking up. But lately his sleep hadn’t been restful. He found it strange that less than a year ago, he was lucky to get six hours of sleep in a night. Ever since the accident, he had done little but sleep, and now it seemed that even his waking hours were some kind of dream he couldn’t break out of.
A glint of light caught the corner of his eye, and he craned his head up to see Stardust fly past high above Lafayette Park. The shining blue and gold body armor glinted in the sunlight, and even from this distance, it stirred emotions that Manuel had been trying to fight down. Adrenaline pumped into his veins and he reached for the door briefly before reality set in.
“You aren’t a hero anymore.” His voice sounded hollow in his chest. The adrenaline died down, turning sour in his stomach, sending his hand to shake. He was so focused on calming his shakes that he didn’t even see Donegal return to the car until the door was opened suddenly, sending the shakes into a jumpy repeat performance.
Donegal handed a large cinnamon latte across the driver seat before sliding into the car himself. He took notice of the quiver in Manuel’s hand and grunted. “I spook you or something?”
Manuel shrugged, taking a sip on his perfect and piping hot coffee. “Something.”
They sat in silence for a moment while Donegal buckled himself in and arranged his breakfast on the armrest and drink holder. He started the car and let it run for a second, his eyes looking out the front windshield but unfocused. Finally, he shook his head and turned off the car, turning to face Manuel. “This has been bothering me too long, de la Vega. It’s the frickin’ elephant in the room and since you’re never going to say anything about it, well, I guess I have to.”
“Is this about…” Manuel couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t find the words, and instead looked down at his ruined legs.
“Yeah, and no, not entirely.” Donegal shook his head, making faces while he struggled with what was apparently a difficult topic for him. “I need to know. Is that why you quit?”
“Quit? I didn’t quit…”
Donegal looked at Manuel out of the corner of his eye and sighed. “Then why hasn’t anyone seen him since your accident.”
Manuel felt his mouth go dry. “I don’t understand.”
“Damnit, buddy. I’m not an idiot, okay? I admit it took me a while, but come on, what kind of detective would I be if I didn’t figure out that my partner on the force was the vigilante Gato Loco?”
Denial was the first thought that sprang to mind, and Manuel hated himself for it. But what would he really be denying? That he was Gato Loco, which he was, or that he had quit, which he was afraid that he had? “How long have you known?”
“Ah hell, I don’t know.” Donegal sighed and rubbed his eyes. He took a sip of his coffee and gave the matter a moment of sincere thought. “I think maybe I always suspected. I mean, your helmet masked your voice pretty well, electronically, I bet. But how many 6’2” skinny detectives with a penchant for motorcycles live in this town? Three, four at most, right? And he always seemed to overlap the cases we were on, like the thing with Jubal Kane, or the ventriloquist dummy murder. And I never saw the two of you in the same place at the same time…”
“By that logic, he could be Michael Jackson.”
“Too short, wise guy.” Donegal smiled. He started tearing off bits of muffin and tucking them into his mouth. “Anyway, the accident cinched it. You get damn near killed in an accident for which there is some suspicious accident report filed on the same night Condor and Wild Kat get nailed to a wall down near the river, well, a smart detective gets curious. Then Gato Loco just disappears, never to be seen again. Meanwhile they’re replacing shredded muscle tissue in your thighs, trying to patch major arteries, and did I mention that accident should have killed you?”
“Sometimes, Donegal, I almost wish it did.”
Donegal opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. They sat in the car sipping coffee and Donegal continued dismantling his muffin. “So, you want to tell me what happened?”
“There was a shipment down at the docks…major drug delivery fresh out of the Caribbean was the rumor. A few of the Protectorate went down to deal with it, and I had my own interest in the case, looking for a friend who was missing and had ties to those circles. There wasn’t supposed to be any heavy hitters there, just a drug gang, violent maybe, but human.”
“But it was a trap.” Donegal grunted around a mouthful of muffin.
Manuel nodded. “When I got there, Wild Kat and Condor were nailed to the wall of a warehouse as a warning. Wild Kat was alive, but only barely. Condor…he had only been with them for a few weeks. He was still on probation. But they killed him anyway. I was on my cycle trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I didn’t even see who did it.”
“Who did what?”
“Someone blew up my bike. I had my reflexes wired up fast it would make your head spin. I had a multi-stage force field on my suit. And none of it mattered. The bike went sky high, and I went with it.”
“That suit of yours probably saved your life.”
“After five months of painful surgery and physical therapy, I still need sticks to walk. I have one questionably functioning testicle remaining. I might never be able to ride a cycle again. That suit saved my life. But if it wasn’t for the suit, my life wouldn’t have been in danger.”
“So it’s all gone now? The costume, the bike, the super powers; they’re all gone?” Donegal said quietly.
“I never had any super powers.” He hoped that his personal conviction that the questionable psychic gift he possessed didn’t count as a super power would be convincing enough to prevent Donegal from seeing through the lie.
Donegal seemed satisfied with the answer. “Well, you’re still a damn fine detective, and a hell of a partner.”
“Thanks. Now, would you like to get us to the station before someone notices that we’re fifteen minutes late?”
“Shit.” Donegal dropped the picked-clean muffin wrapper on the floorboard and started up the engine. Manuel finished his coffee on the way to work, thankful that his friend hadn’t pried too closely. Super powers, no, he had nothing so grand as super powers. But when he touched things from time to time, he – saw things. A fork at a restaurant could give him a vision of the last person who used it, or the busboy picking it up off the floor and wiping it on his apron. A doll at a murder scene could show him a happy childhood memory or a scene by scene re-enactment of a murder. They were strong, sometimes requiring all of his concentration to not let on that he was seeing things. But they were random, and that was a source of constant frustration.
And ever since the accident, they had been – different. He had five months on world class pain killers, laid up in bed for most of it, and that was a lot of time to focus on more cerebral pursuits. It wasn’t like there was anything on daytime TV. And it wasn’t like he received many visitors. Manuel had learned to interpret the visions a lot better, and he was proud of that. And sometimes he could tell, as his fingers approached an object that a vision was in the offering. But it was never at his bidding.
Considering how tough traffic had been earlier, they made great time. Once upstairs at his desk, Manuel noticed a short stack of paperwork, with a colorful postcard on top of the stack, as if it were pinning the folders to his desk. He reached to pick it up and felt a now familiar electric tingle. His fingers stopped inches from the bright and sunny painted cardstock and he paused to contemplate it a bit longer.
A small tourist town, brightly adorned with wild, red roses stared up at him from the 4x6 card. “Greetings from Buena Rosa” was printed across the top in sweeping white letters. He had never heard of Buena Rosa. The buildings were classic haciendas, but that meant nothing except that the town was probably in or near a desert. He imagined it was somewhere in America, because the writing was in English, but he had known tourist traps in Mexico that catered to Americans and printed their postcards in English.
Manuel glanced casually around to make sure no one was watching. Thankfully, Donegal was pulling files for an ongoing case and was nowhere to be seen. Manuel picked up the folder beneath the postcard, and deftly flipped the card over so he could read the back without touching it.
Mexican stamps and postmark were the first thing he noticed. The second was the chilling message printed carefully on the back.
“Esther Vega is being held by the police in Buena Rosa, Mexico. She is innocent, but the charge is very serious and they say they have a confession. She needs your help.”
It was signed simply, “A friend.”
He looked closely at the postmark. The card was mailed from Mexico, but not from Buena Rosa itself. He fired up the computer at his desk, and after entering in his password, pulled up Buena Rosa on a map. It was near the U.S. border with Mexico, just west of the southern tip of Texas. He knew without looking further why the postcard was printed in English.
Buena Rosa was a maquiladora. Time was, they were only near the borders, but now they were all over Mexico. Towns built up around factories that did final assembly on products while the parts were generally made somewhere else. Building factories, training a staff who would work for far less than American workers, it was all very cost effective, and the factory towns spread like a virus. Manuel had seen one himself, but only the once.
He didn’t doubt for a second that his cousin Esther was there. She was a fiery hearted activist, always had been. She had been traveling around trying to unionize worker last he heard, and it made perfect sense that she would have tried to do so at one of the many maquiladoras. And if she stirred up too much trouble, putting her in jail on some trumped up charge was par for the course.
“Someone on vacation and they didn’t think to take me?” Donegal pointed at the postcard with the thin folder in his hand.
“My cousin, Esther. She’s in some kind of trouble back home.”
Donegal’s tone became somber instantly. “Is it serious trouble?”
“Legal trouble.”
“Then it’s serious. She need you to bail her out or something?”
“Or something.” Manuel set his jaw and touched the postcard.
A vision washed over Manuel, and he could smell factory smoke, tinged ever so slightly by the scent of wild, desert roses. A woman’s body was lying in an arroyo and the birds and coyotes had been at her. Nearby, he could hear a woman crying, but couldn’t see who it was. His gaze drifted out over the arid hills and saw a storm of carrion birds circling overhead like a tornado of feathers.
There was death there – a lot of death. But it wasn’t just death, which had its own scent. No, this was murder. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it on his skin like chemical dust and oil, clinging to him.
Manuel blinked and saw Donegal looking down at the postcard from across the desk. “Jesus. I wonder what they’re holding her for.”
“I don’t know,” Manuel said, his jaw set with grim determination he hadn’t felt in months. “But I intend to find out.”
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Greetings From Buena Rosa - Prologue
Prologue
The cell was dark, and in that darkness, Esther heard things moving. She gauged they were cockroaches by the sound; the dry, scraping of tiny legs on the cinderblock walls. She had grown up in a middle class neighborhood of Mexico City, but even there the relentless insects could find a home somehow, making them familiar. No, the roaches didn’t bother her too much. She knew they hated the smell of people, and would most likely leave her alone. But here, near the U.S. border, there were worse things in the dark. The idea of a scorpion living in the poorly maintained jail, nesting under the floor, or in the wall, no, that was not entirely unlikely.
And as much as that thought knotted her stomach every time she contemplated rolling over on the hard cot, wondering what she might “disturb” by her movement, she knew that there was even worse than scorpions roaming this building. That something worse wore a badge.
They had come for her in the dead of night. Arresting someone half asleep was always much easier than risking a confrontation. She woke with a start, woolen-headed with sleep and a belly-full of Dio Diablo beer, and heard shouts and wood splintering. The lights were bright in her face, and it took a full twenty seconds to realize that someone had cuffed her arms tightly behind her back. Two minutes later, and Esther was in the back of the dust covered Pegasus Motors SUV which the local law used for their paddy wagon.
They didn’t tell her what she had been arrested for until they had beaten a confession from her with hoses. She had gotten off lucky, she thought. There was still blood on some of the surgical and less-than-surgical tools displayed in the “interview” room. And a room she had been led past on the way there had the reek of ozone and singed flesh.
Before then, she had never really seen any proof that the local law used torture. She suspected, of course. They all did. And the residents of Buena Rosa generally knew that their police had the toys to carry out torture if it was their desire to do so. The police in Buena Rosa had a chilling record for closed cases, something of which they took significant pride.
It wasn’t until after Esther had signed the confession that she realized that she was being held for the murder of Muriel Cruz, a local woman she knew only superficially through her attempts to unionize the workers of Pegasus Motor Corporation in Buena Rosa. There was no way it would hold up, she told herself. A confession under torture…no court in the world would accept it. But still she tossed and turned on the hard cot, careful not to disturb any unknown cellmates. And her bruises began to heal. And she began to lose track of days in the dark.
And gradually, she began to lose hope.
Skritch, skritch, skritch-
That wasn’t a cockroach. She knew that. No scorpion either. She pulled her long, matted dark hair free from around her ear and listened intently.
Skritch, skritch, skritch-
No…too large…too...regular. A thought occurred to her and she desperately tried to put it out of her mind. But in the darkness, all it took was the slightest suggestion to let the imagination run wild. The jail shared an alley with a greasy taco stand, and she had seen the rats running in herds there on occasion. A rat, given the inclination, could chew through concrete. And if they were hungry enough, there was little that a rat wouldn’t eat.
Skritch, skritch, skritch – tap, tap-
Esther froze. The sound, wasn’t coming from near the ground, she realized, but higher up, near chest level. And had she really heard that? Had she really heard the tap, or was she finally going out of her mind in isolation and darkness?
Tap, tap-
Reaching towards the untreated cinderblock wall, she ran her fingers
across the rough surface, trying to ignore how much they shook. She curled her hand into a fist and it felt good. It felt strong. She pounded against the wall twice, feeling the rough concrete abrade her hand. Esther didn’t care. She had been hurt far worse recently.
Her pound was met with two more taps. No, she thought. Definitely not a rat. That was metal she heard. “Hello?” she heard her own voice, dry and cracked. She summoned up reserves of strength, willing herself to raise her voice past the painful whisper. “Hello?” Louder this time, she thought. Good.
A dusting of mortar fell across her knuckles, startling her. And a pinprick of light filtered through a crack between cinderblocks. “Who is this? Who did I find?” The voice was terse, and Esther couldn’t tell if it were male or female.
But she didn’t care anymore. She had been forgotten there, left to die in the dark, without being given the chance to let anyone know where she was, to let them know she was innocent. “Esther Vega. My name is Esther Vega. Please you have to help me.”
“Why should I help you, Esther? You killed Muriel, left her body in a wash outside of town for the coyotes.”
“I didn’t do it,” Esther pleaded, surprised that she still had tears left as they cut rivulets through the grime on her face. “Please. They made me sign a confession. I didn’t even know what I was signing until it was too late. I didn’t hurt anyone…didn’t kill anyone. You have to believe me.”
There was silence on the other side of the wall. It seemed to Esther that it stretched on forever. She wept, trying to do so silently to not drown out any possible answer.
“I can’t help you. I’m sorry. I believe you, but I can’t help you,” the voice on the other side of the wall finally answered. “I wanted to know. I didn’t think it could have been you who killed her. Muriel’s friends thought you were a trouble maker, but not trouble, comprende? So I believe you, but what I believe won’t help you. I don’t think there is anyone in Buena Rosa who can help you. I’m sorry.”
Esther felt her heart sink. Of course this stranger couldn’t help her. And who was she to be contemplating a jail break, anyway? She was just a labor organizer, in her thirties with a lifetime of drifting and high ideals. She wouldn’t last a day on the run from the law. “Can you at least let my family know I’m here? Can you tell someone where to find me?”
The silence which greeted Esther’s request was absolute. She stilled her breath until she could hear nothing but her own heart beat pounding in her ears. No response from the other side came for a long moment, and she began to think the voice was gone never to return. The stomach-churning possibility that she had imagined everything clawed at the edge of her thoughts, and she fought that idea down.
“The police almost saw me,” the voice whispered harshly through the space between cinderblocks. “I can let someone know you are here, but you had better hurry. I don’t want to risk getting singled out by the police. Not in this town.”
“Manuel de la Vega,” Esther said immediately, her voice stronger now. “He’s with the police in Cobalt City, in America. A detective, I think. I don’t know his address or phone number…”
“I can find that part out. It was Manuel de la Vega in Cobalt City, right?”
Esther leaned against the wall and sobbed. Her cousin Manny would be able to fix this. If anyone could help her now, it was him. “Yes. Cobalt City.”
“Keep your chin up, Esther. Help is on the way.”
In the dark of the Buena Rosa jail, Esther repeated her visitor’s words again and again, holding them as a feeble flame against the blackness. “Help is on the way. Help is on the way.”
And in the alley between the jail and the back of a busy taqueria, a mysterious figure slipped from shadow to shadow with another mantra repeated over and over again in a terse whisper. “Manuel de la Vega, Cobalt City Police.”
Shortly the night swallowed both the words and the person who spoke them as if they had never been there at all.
The cell was dark, and in that darkness, Esther heard things moving. She gauged they were cockroaches by the sound; the dry, scraping of tiny legs on the cinderblock walls. She had grown up in a middle class neighborhood of Mexico City, but even there the relentless insects could find a home somehow, making them familiar. No, the roaches didn’t bother her too much. She knew they hated the smell of people, and would most likely leave her alone. But here, near the U.S. border, there were worse things in the dark. The idea of a scorpion living in the poorly maintained jail, nesting under the floor, or in the wall, no, that was not entirely unlikely.
And as much as that thought knotted her stomach every time she contemplated rolling over on the hard cot, wondering what she might “disturb” by her movement, she knew that there was even worse than scorpions roaming this building. That something worse wore a badge.
They had come for her in the dead of night. Arresting someone half asleep was always much easier than risking a confrontation. She woke with a start, woolen-headed with sleep and a belly-full of Dio Diablo beer, and heard shouts and wood splintering. The lights were bright in her face, and it took a full twenty seconds to realize that someone had cuffed her arms tightly behind her back. Two minutes later, and Esther was in the back of the dust covered Pegasus Motors SUV which the local law used for their paddy wagon.
They didn’t tell her what she had been arrested for until they had beaten a confession from her with hoses. She had gotten off lucky, she thought. There was still blood on some of the surgical and less-than-surgical tools displayed in the “interview” room. And a room she had been led past on the way there had the reek of ozone and singed flesh.
Before then, she had never really seen any proof that the local law used torture. She suspected, of course. They all did. And the residents of Buena Rosa generally knew that their police had the toys to carry out torture if it was their desire to do so. The police in Buena Rosa had a chilling record for closed cases, something of which they took significant pride.
It wasn’t until after Esther had signed the confession that she realized that she was being held for the murder of Muriel Cruz, a local woman she knew only superficially through her attempts to unionize the workers of Pegasus Motor Corporation in Buena Rosa. There was no way it would hold up, she told herself. A confession under torture…no court in the world would accept it. But still she tossed and turned on the hard cot, careful not to disturb any unknown cellmates. And her bruises began to heal. And she began to lose track of days in the dark.
And gradually, she began to lose hope.
Skritch, skritch, skritch-
That wasn’t a cockroach. She knew that. No scorpion either. She pulled her long, matted dark hair free from around her ear and listened intently.
Skritch, skritch, skritch-
No…too large…too...regular. A thought occurred to her and she desperately tried to put it out of her mind. But in the darkness, all it took was the slightest suggestion to let the imagination run wild. The jail shared an alley with a greasy taco stand, and she had seen the rats running in herds there on occasion. A rat, given the inclination, could chew through concrete. And if they were hungry enough, there was little that a rat wouldn’t eat.
Skritch, skritch, skritch – tap, tap-
Esther froze. The sound, wasn’t coming from near the ground, she realized, but higher up, near chest level. And had she really heard that? Had she really heard the tap, or was she finally going out of her mind in isolation and darkness?
Tap, tap-
Reaching towards the untreated cinderblock wall, she ran her fingers
across the rough surface, trying to ignore how much they shook. She curled her hand into a fist and it felt good. It felt strong. She pounded against the wall twice, feeling the rough concrete abrade her hand. Esther didn’t care. She had been hurt far worse recently.
Her pound was met with two more taps. No, she thought. Definitely not a rat. That was metal she heard. “Hello?” she heard her own voice, dry and cracked. She summoned up reserves of strength, willing herself to raise her voice past the painful whisper. “Hello?” Louder this time, she thought. Good.
A dusting of mortar fell across her knuckles, startling her. And a pinprick of light filtered through a crack between cinderblocks. “Who is this? Who did I find?” The voice was terse, and Esther couldn’t tell if it were male or female.
But she didn’t care anymore. She had been forgotten there, left to die in the dark, without being given the chance to let anyone know where she was, to let them know she was innocent. “Esther Vega. My name is Esther Vega. Please you have to help me.”
“Why should I help you, Esther? You killed Muriel, left her body in a wash outside of town for the coyotes.”
“I didn’t do it,” Esther pleaded, surprised that she still had tears left as they cut rivulets through the grime on her face. “Please. They made me sign a confession. I didn’t even know what I was signing until it was too late. I didn’t hurt anyone…didn’t kill anyone. You have to believe me.”
There was silence on the other side of the wall. It seemed to Esther that it stretched on forever. She wept, trying to do so silently to not drown out any possible answer.
“I can’t help you. I’m sorry. I believe you, but I can’t help you,” the voice on the other side of the wall finally answered. “I wanted to know. I didn’t think it could have been you who killed her. Muriel’s friends thought you were a trouble maker, but not trouble, comprende? So I believe you, but what I believe won’t help you. I don’t think there is anyone in Buena Rosa who can help you. I’m sorry.”
Esther felt her heart sink. Of course this stranger couldn’t help her. And who was she to be contemplating a jail break, anyway? She was just a labor organizer, in her thirties with a lifetime of drifting and high ideals. She wouldn’t last a day on the run from the law. “Can you at least let my family know I’m here? Can you tell someone where to find me?”
The silence which greeted Esther’s request was absolute. She stilled her breath until she could hear nothing but her own heart beat pounding in her ears. No response from the other side came for a long moment, and she began to think the voice was gone never to return. The stomach-churning possibility that she had imagined everything clawed at the edge of her thoughts, and she fought that idea down.
“The police almost saw me,” the voice whispered harshly through the space between cinderblocks. “I can let someone know you are here, but you had better hurry. I don’t want to risk getting singled out by the police. Not in this town.”
“Manuel de la Vega,” Esther said immediately, her voice stronger now. “He’s with the police in Cobalt City, in America. A detective, I think. I don’t know his address or phone number…”
“I can find that part out. It was Manuel de la Vega in Cobalt City, right?”
Esther leaned against the wall and sobbed. Her cousin Manny would be able to fix this. If anyone could help her now, it was him. “Yes. Cobalt City.”
“Keep your chin up, Esther. Help is on the way.”
In the dark of the Buena Rosa jail, Esther repeated her visitor’s words again and again, holding them as a feeble flame against the blackness. “Help is on the way. Help is on the way.”
And in the alley between the jail and the back of a busy taqueria, a mysterious figure slipped from shadow to shadow with another mantra repeated over and over again in a terse whisper. “Manuel de la Vega, Cobalt City Police.”
Shortly the night swallowed both the words and the person who spoke them as if they had never been there at all.
NaNoWriMo Progress
So this is the official meter. Not much time to write anything that isn't associated with Greetings From Buena Rosa now, but I'm sure there will be ample posts in December when I return to sanity. My novel? It is a noir south of the border mystery with a little masked vigilante influence. Think of it as a contemporary Touch of Evil, the Orson Wells movie released in 1958 which is widely considered the last true example of film noir. Only mine has a wise-cracking panda in it.
If you want to see a sample, seek me out on NaNoWriMo and do an author search for me. I can only post 10,000 words at a time there, so earlier chapters will be deleted as newer ones are finished.
-T
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
A religious experience
Perhaps I should preface this by stating that with the exception of a few visits to a friends Unitarian church to hear her sing in the choir (an excellent experience every time, by the way, thanks!), I am not the type to go to church. The last time I went other than those mentioned above was probably close to 15 years ago. This is not to say that I'm not spiritual. I am. And I know...saying so is the last refuge of a scoundrel, something to say to reassure others and perhaps even yourself that you are not completely morally bankrupt. Not so with me. I consider myself a Bhuddist and will happily identify myself as such. However I am about as orthodox as a Jew who celebrates Christmas and wouldn't say no to bacon on a sandwich.
But this is about a religious experience of another kind, gentle readers.
New Model Army has been kicking around for 21 years now. Their first album, released on vinyl (remember vinyl?) came out in 1984. Shortly thereafter, they were signed by EMI and put out a string of hit albums and became bigger than U2. Only they didn't. They should have. They were certainly talented enough. They had the same political edge that U2 embodied early on before they got rich. But despite cranking out several albums, many of which did well, they didn't ever really do great. And with lyrics that didn't hold back its venom towards Thatcher's England, they alienated the US audiences. They came to my attention around about 1986 when Ghost of Cain was released with the hit "51st State". They were at the forefront of the late 80's alt rock scene. But their criticisim for US - England relations led to their being banned from touring the states. So they continued to plug away, turning out amazing albums that took a critical look not only at politics, but global economic policy and mankind's inherent barbaric nature. And they did so with more musical chops and painful sincerity than a lot of bands at the time. New Model Army has been one of my three favorite bands since Thunder and Consolation in 1989, the album which was the inspiration for my only tattoo. When I moved to Seattle, I found tracking down imports of any of their albums a priority.
But I had resigned myself to the fact that, although the still toured in the UK and Germany where they were still popular, I would never get to see them live.
They played the Tractor Tavern on September 20th of this year. Having found out about the show only six hours earlier, I was in attendance. Despite having to be up early for work the next day, despite my already full schedule which included commuting down to Kent, shipping a pet to Chicago, then driving into a somewhat out of the way neighborhood, despite money being tight, despite all of that, I was there.
And it was a religious experience.
About halfway into the song "Believe It" from Love of Hopeless Causes, my favorite album of theirs, I felt the most amazing connection; to the song, to the room, to Svengali-like lead singer Justin Sullivan, to the world, but most importantly, to the cause. And that cause is, in a nutshell, the eternal struggle of mankind to live up to our potential and truly become the loving, responsible, humans that we are capable of being but so often are too lazy or corrupt to actualize. I felt this. I felt both embraced and confronted by the challenge of our potential, and I realized that we are losing. And I couldn't stop crying. I'm crying now thinking about it, over two weeks later.
I believe the lyrics that triggered this catharsis were "Oh how they only talk about us when we're far away. Behind their frigid eyes they know more than they ever say. They only tell the you truth when they get drunk enough. Its a town of cornered animals, teeth bared - out of control. Is this what we've come to - I don't believe it. After everything we've been through - I don't believe it."
But I do believe it. And you do too. The world is going to hell. The people in positions to fix things are more interested in lining their pockets and pointing fingers. The people who try to change things are silenced, or ignored, or simply have their findings "spun" to reflect something far from the truth. And we are, for all intents and purposes, our of reasonable alternatives, reasonable means for recourse, for justice. The bastards are winning, ladies and gentlemen. And that bastard is us. "Every night I clench my teeth and fail to get to sleep. I can not bear the stillness drawn across the surface of the world." From the same song, actually.
But that night, for one glorious concert a little less than two hours long I was with kindred souls, shouting and singing and pumping our fists and dancing and yes, occasionally, crying. I was not alone. I was not the only voice crying out into the wind. I was not the only person who listened to these songs and heard anthems, who heard calls to action. Not to arms, necessarily, not like a previous administration who shall remained un-named might have thought when the single "Here Comes the War" was released with instructions to build an atomic bomb on the sleeve...I mean, they got that from the fricking library...that was the whole point. But more a call to be better people, to live up to the promise of humanity, and, perhaps bear witness because its entirely possible things are going to get a whole hell of a lot worse.
As I said. A religious experience. I felt reborn. And I know how strange it sounds, so don't be shaking your finger. I'm not about to put on a robe and hand out flyers at the bus stop. But it was reafirming.
So let us end today's parable with a final lyric from Justin Sullivan, recorded by him and the mates, from "Ballad" off their first big album --
"When they look back at us and they write down their history, what will they say about our generation? We're the ones who knew everything still we did nothing, harvested everything, planted nothing. Well we live pretty well in the wake of the goldrush, floating in comfort on waves of our apathy. Quietly gnawing away at Her body until we mortage the future, bury our children. Storehouses full with the fruits we've been given, we send off the scrag-ends to suckle the starving. But still we can not fill this strange hunger inside - greedy, restless, and unsatisfied."
-T
But this is about a religious experience of another kind, gentle readers.
New Model Army has been kicking around for 21 years now. Their first album, released on vinyl (remember vinyl?) came out in 1984. Shortly thereafter, they were signed by EMI and put out a string of hit albums and became bigger than U2. Only they didn't. They should have. They were certainly talented enough. They had the same political edge that U2 embodied early on before they got rich. But despite cranking out several albums, many of which did well, they didn't ever really do great. And with lyrics that didn't hold back its venom towards Thatcher's England, they alienated the US audiences. They came to my attention around about 1986 when Ghost of Cain was released with the hit "51st State". They were at the forefront of the late 80's alt rock scene. But their criticisim for US - England relations led to their being banned from touring the states. So they continued to plug away, turning out amazing albums that took a critical look not only at politics, but global economic policy and mankind's inherent barbaric nature. And they did so with more musical chops and painful sincerity than a lot of bands at the time. New Model Army has been one of my three favorite bands since Thunder and Consolation in 1989, the album which was the inspiration for my only tattoo. When I moved to Seattle, I found tracking down imports of any of their albums a priority.
But I had resigned myself to the fact that, although the still toured in the UK and Germany where they were still popular, I would never get to see them live.
They played the Tractor Tavern on September 20th of this year. Having found out about the show only six hours earlier, I was in attendance. Despite having to be up early for work the next day, despite my already full schedule which included commuting down to Kent, shipping a pet to Chicago, then driving into a somewhat out of the way neighborhood, despite money being tight, despite all of that, I was there.
And it was a religious experience.
About halfway into the song "Believe It" from Love of Hopeless Causes, my favorite album of theirs, I felt the most amazing connection; to the song, to the room, to Svengali-like lead singer Justin Sullivan, to the world, but most importantly, to the cause. And that cause is, in a nutshell, the eternal struggle of mankind to live up to our potential and truly become the loving, responsible, humans that we are capable of being but so often are too lazy or corrupt to actualize. I felt this. I felt both embraced and confronted by the challenge of our potential, and I realized that we are losing. And I couldn't stop crying. I'm crying now thinking about it, over two weeks later.
I believe the lyrics that triggered this catharsis were "Oh how they only talk about us when we're far away. Behind their frigid eyes they know more than they ever say. They only tell the you truth when they get drunk enough. Its a town of cornered animals, teeth bared - out of control. Is this what we've come to - I don't believe it. After everything we've been through - I don't believe it."
But I do believe it. And you do too. The world is going to hell. The people in positions to fix things are more interested in lining their pockets and pointing fingers. The people who try to change things are silenced, or ignored, or simply have their findings "spun" to reflect something far from the truth. And we are, for all intents and purposes, our of reasonable alternatives, reasonable means for recourse, for justice. The bastards are winning, ladies and gentlemen. And that bastard is us. "Every night I clench my teeth and fail to get to sleep. I can not bear the stillness drawn across the surface of the world." From the same song, actually.
But that night, for one glorious concert a little less than two hours long I was with kindred souls, shouting and singing and pumping our fists and dancing and yes, occasionally, crying. I was not alone. I was not the only voice crying out into the wind. I was not the only person who listened to these songs and heard anthems, who heard calls to action. Not to arms, necessarily, not like a previous administration who shall remained un-named might have thought when the single "Here Comes the War" was released with instructions to build an atomic bomb on the sleeve...I mean, they got that from the fricking library...that was the whole point. But more a call to be better people, to live up to the promise of humanity, and, perhaps bear witness because its entirely possible things are going to get a whole hell of a lot worse.
As I said. A religious experience. I felt reborn. And I know how strange it sounds, so don't be shaking your finger. I'm not about to put on a robe and hand out flyers at the bus stop. But it was reafirming.
So let us end today's parable with a final lyric from Justin Sullivan, recorded by him and the mates, from "Ballad" off their first big album --
"When they look back at us and they write down their history, what will they say about our generation? We're the ones who knew everything still we did nothing, harvested everything, planted nothing. Well we live pretty well in the wake of the goldrush, floating in comfort on waves of our apathy. Quietly gnawing away at Her body until we mortage the future, bury our children. Storehouses full with the fruits we've been given, we send off the scrag-ends to suckle the starving. But still we can not fill this strange hunger inside - greedy, restless, and unsatisfied."
-T
Friday, September 30, 2005
Under pressure
Yes. Long time no post. Between a regular job for a change (which I LOVE, just for the record), the sometimes crappy commute (70 minutes minimum on the bus), getting the house ready to sell, and the new fall season (yes, I am a media whore), I just haven't had the time to update anything.
That said, I'm not about to head to a clock tower with a rifle anytime soon. With the exception of my lovely wife living in Illinois where she is setting up for the next stage of our planned world conquest, things have been great. I'm getting paid to do what I love, at least in a general sense. Never pictured myself writing product copy for an e-commerce team, but it IS writing. And as my better half pointed out today, its the biggest paycheck I've ever brought home. Finally cracked into 4 digits! Whoo-hoo!
Got a new scarf which I am in love with. No. Really. In love with. So much so that it may be against the law in some of our more "rustic" states. Alabama, I'm looking in your direction. You can get one too, and I heartily suggest you do. If this one doesn't excite you, there are plenty others that should.
As media whore and, to a lesser degree, trend pimp, I heartily endorse CBS's "Threshold" and WB's "Supernatural" as best new dramas and NBC's "My Name is Earl" as the clear winner in best new situation comedy, or sit-com as it is known in the biz. Musically, go out and buy Ben Folds "Songs for Silverman". No, really. Stop what you are doing now and trust me. Why this guy doesn't get significant airplay is truly beyond me. Also been listening to a lot of Calexico and am excited that they are coming to Seattle in October. Fate willing, I shall be there. I should tell you about my most recent concert experience, seeing long time favorite band New Model Army live at the Tractor a last week, but that is a post unto itself. It was a religious experience, and thats all you need to know for now.
Haven't had much time to write, so no updates from my continued efforts to take the publishing world by storm. When it happens, it will be noted here. Right now I'm just coasting on previously written pieces and trying to make time to work on my upcoming vampire-noir novel. Also have two new short story ideas incubating, both kind of disturbing in a good kind of way. As Halloween grows closer, I'm sure I'll pound out at least one of them in a coffee and vicadin haze late one night. (ok, aspirin, really, but it helps build the myth) .
Other than that, excited about Serenity. Giddy, even. I need to buy a winter coat soon, and I'm thinking I need to make it a brown one. If you don't understand why, "I swear by my pretty blue bonnet, I will end you."
Enough rambling for now. Work must be done. I will be making updates more frequently from now on. Yeah. I mean it this time.
-T
That said, I'm not about to head to a clock tower with a rifle anytime soon. With the exception of my lovely wife living in Illinois where she is setting up for the next stage of our planned world conquest, things have been great. I'm getting paid to do what I love, at least in a general sense. Never pictured myself writing product copy for an e-commerce team, but it IS writing. And as my better half pointed out today, its the biggest paycheck I've ever brought home. Finally cracked into 4 digits! Whoo-hoo!
Got a new scarf which I am in love with. No. Really. In love with. So much so that it may be against the law in some of our more "rustic" states. Alabama, I'm looking in your direction. You can get one too, and I heartily suggest you do. If this one doesn't excite you, there are plenty others that should.
As media whore and, to a lesser degree, trend pimp, I heartily endorse CBS's "Threshold" and WB's "Supernatural" as best new dramas and NBC's "My Name is Earl" as the clear winner in best new situation comedy, or sit-com as it is known in the biz. Musically, go out and buy Ben Folds "Songs for Silverman". No, really. Stop what you are doing now and trust me. Why this guy doesn't get significant airplay is truly beyond me. Also been listening to a lot of Calexico and am excited that they are coming to Seattle in October. Fate willing, I shall be there. I should tell you about my most recent concert experience, seeing long time favorite band New Model Army live at the Tractor a last week, but that is a post unto itself. It was a religious experience, and thats all you need to know for now.
Haven't had much time to write, so no updates from my continued efforts to take the publishing world by storm. When it happens, it will be noted here. Right now I'm just coasting on previously written pieces and trying to make time to work on my upcoming vampire-noir novel. Also have two new short story ideas incubating, both kind of disturbing in a good kind of way. As Halloween grows closer, I'm sure I'll pound out at least one of them in a coffee and vicadin haze late one night. (ok, aspirin, really, but it helps build the myth) .
Other than that, excited about Serenity. Giddy, even. I need to buy a winter coat soon, and I'm thinking I need to make it a brown one. If you don't understand why, "I swear by my pretty blue bonnet, I will end you."
Enough rambling for now. Work must be done. I will be making updates more frequently from now on. Yeah. I mean it this time.
-T
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Making the most from tragedy
It should come as no surprise that G.W. Bush has managed to make some good come out of the destruction of New Orleans. Not good for the people who live in the region, that is. No, I'm speaking of good for Haliburton. Think what you will of Cheney's former company. Choose to see no favoritism or lingering loyalties to this powerful corporate entitity. Forget, for instance that they recieved many lucrative no-bid contracts in Iraq for which they have proffited handsomely. But consider that they have already been signed to rebuild the US Naval Base in New Orleans. Man, but that was a fast brokered deal.
To make matters even more lucrative for Haliburton, he has indefinately suspended the Bacon-Davis Pay Act, adopted in 1931 to require fedreral contractors to pay the prevailing or average wage for the region. Considering that wage is only $9 an hour and the people most effected by the storm are the regions poorest, it feels like Bush is kicking them when they are down. While the Bacon-Davis Act has been suspended before, it has been rare and only for a very limited, pre-defined period of time. To make matters more suspicious, Bush has applied this suspension not only to New Orleans, but also to other regions along the Gulf Coast which have much less severe damage to rebuild from.
Check out this link to the Washington Post for more complete coment on the situation and the brewing fight. And make sure we vote this fucktard and his cronies out of office at the first available opportunity.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802037.html
-T
To make matters even more lucrative for Haliburton, he has indefinately suspended the Bacon-Davis Pay Act, adopted in 1931 to require fedreral contractors to pay the prevailing or average wage for the region. Considering that wage is only $9 an hour and the people most effected by the storm are the regions poorest, it feels like Bush is kicking them when they are down. While the Bacon-Davis Act has been suspended before, it has been rare and only for a very limited, pre-defined period of time. To make matters more suspicious, Bush has applied this suspension not only to New Orleans, but also to other regions along the Gulf Coast which have much less severe damage to rebuild from.
Check out this link to the Washington Post for more complete coment on the situation and the brewing fight. And make sure we vote this fucktard and his cronies out of office at the first available opportunity.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802037.html
-T
Friday, September 02, 2005
She's Leaving Home...
After a nailbiting loss at Key Arena last night (don't worry Storm, you'll get them on Saturday!), we went to Melting Pot to do do that fondue that we do so well. And this morning, we loaded the last of the things in the car, Kat said good-by to the kitties, and that was that. She is driving to Chicago even as I write this, planning to arrive on Sunday, calling frequently to update me on her progress. I get to stay and pack up the house, dump a lot of stuff we don't need, arange for the rest to be shipped out to Chicago, and then sell our much beloved home of 3 years. It hit Kat this morning, probably not for the first time, that this was the last time she would see it. And it hit her particularly hard that last trip out the door. And being the empatic person I am, it hit me hard as well.
I still get to live here in Seattle for 4 more months, but only in the house for a few more weeks. And even then, won't be the same without her here, making it sparkle. Metaphorically, that is. Anyone who has been here knows I have my work cut out for me getting the place clean...neither of us is particularly good housecleaning. In January, I get to join her at our new place in Oak Park, pictures of which I have posted previously. But I am too depressed to do much cleaning right now.
As the Beatles put it, "She's leaving home. Bye-bye."
-T
I still get to live here in Seattle for 4 more months, but only in the house for a few more weeks. And even then, won't be the same without her here, making it sparkle. Metaphorically, that is. Anyone who has been here knows I have my work cut out for me getting the place clean...neither of us is particularly good housecleaning. In January, I get to join her at our new place in Oak Park, pictures of which I have posted previously. But I am too depressed to do much cleaning right now.
As the Beatles put it, "She's leaving home. Bye-bye."
-T
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Out with a bang
With our move fast approaching, I had to take one last opportunity to scar my gaming friends for life. Surely, a night of Call of Cthulhu was called for. We gathered at our house around 6 and sacrificed chicken and burgers to Vera, the goddess of meat, otherwise known as our big-ass Weber grill. Once the flesh of the innocent (i.e. cows and chickens) was consumed, we headed in for some role-playing action.
Picture if you will, nine strangers (actually, there was a couple and a pair of old friends, but among the 5 cars, there were many strangers) stranded on a mountain road in southern California, having to take refuge from the storm in the abandoned community of Bethlehem Glen. But not all is right in this sleepy town, and the church seems to honor no god that the players recognise. Two players guard a deadly secret, and maybe, just maybe, the town is not as abandoned as they had thought...
Award for first death goes to Sean's surfer soldier who found himself damn near cut in half by Ed's shotgun in a moment of insanity fueled chaos. His surf buddy Ian almost made it out, and if anyone could have outrun the antler-crowned children of the forest god, it would have been him. Alas, it was not to be, and he found himself gored to unconsiousness on the road out of town.
Catherine's mural painter was next to go. Having snapped, she tried to open the barricaded church doors to the hoved and horned terrors. Claiming another victim, Ed crushed the base of her skull before she could let the bad in. Kat's runaway teen broke and ran for the basement, already filled with propane fumes. John's ex-con mechanic went after her, as did Andrew's youth-advisor and Jen's nature photographer.
As the antlered horde broke through, Ed the ex-cop bank robber and Lupa, his cocktail waitress partner, took to the safety of the vestry. A quick bullet into the propane tank by the door bought them some time, but the numbers were too vast. Lupa dressed up in clerical vestments and took hold of any religious symbols she could find, while Ed tried in vain to hold their position. As the fight looked lost, John fired up the jury-rigged riding mower in the shed, lit the fuse to the propane filled basement, and powered the other three out and to safety, sending the profane church up in a fireball against the night sky.
Ed was turned into a screaming comet of blistered flesh and pain, coming to rest in the tall grass, clinging to the last thread of life. As the horde circled him, Lupa stepped through the throng, antlers growing majestically from her head, fully one of THEM now. Ian, too, had become one of the herd, and the four survivors passed him on their way out of town and to safety.
Days later and miles apart, Jen develops her film and sees, for the first time, the shadow of horns on the heads of John and Kat's characters. Maddness envelops her. The terror is just beginning.
All and all, a very satisfactory night of gaming. Those that lived are most likely scarred for life, and over half the party never made it out at all. I think most people had fun, and I got to share my nightmares with them.
Enough for now. More to come.
-T
Picture if you will, nine strangers (actually, there was a couple and a pair of old friends, but among the 5 cars, there were many strangers) stranded on a mountain road in southern California, having to take refuge from the storm in the abandoned community of Bethlehem Glen. But not all is right in this sleepy town, and the church seems to honor no god that the players recognise. Two players guard a deadly secret, and maybe, just maybe, the town is not as abandoned as they had thought...
Award for first death goes to Sean's surfer soldier who found himself damn near cut in half by Ed's shotgun in a moment of insanity fueled chaos. His surf buddy Ian almost made it out, and if anyone could have outrun the antler-crowned children of the forest god, it would have been him. Alas, it was not to be, and he found himself gored to unconsiousness on the road out of town.
Catherine's mural painter was next to go. Having snapped, she tried to open the barricaded church doors to the hoved and horned terrors. Claiming another victim, Ed crushed the base of her skull before she could let the bad in. Kat's runaway teen broke and ran for the basement, already filled with propane fumes. John's ex-con mechanic went after her, as did Andrew's youth-advisor and Jen's nature photographer.
As the antlered horde broke through, Ed the ex-cop bank robber and Lupa, his cocktail waitress partner, took to the safety of the vestry. A quick bullet into the propane tank by the door bought them some time, but the numbers were too vast. Lupa dressed up in clerical vestments and took hold of any religious symbols she could find, while Ed tried in vain to hold their position. As the fight looked lost, John fired up the jury-rigged riding mower in the shed, lit the fuse to the propane filled basement, and powered the other three out and to safety, sending the profane church up in a fireball against the night sky.
Ed was turned into a screaming comet of blistered flesh and pain, coming to rest in the tall grass, clinging to the last thread of life. As the horde circled him, Lupa stepped through the throng, antlers growing majestically from her head, fully one of THEM now. Ian, too, had become one of the herd, and the four survivors passed him on their way out of town and to safety.
Days later and miles apart, Jen develops her film and sees, for the first time, the shadow of horns on the heads of John and Kat's characters. Maddness envelops her. The terror is just beginning.
All and all, a very satisfactory night of gaming. Those that lived are most likely scarred for life, and over half the party never made it out at all. I think most people had fun, and I got to share my nightmares with them.
Enough for now. More to come.
-T
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Move is on
My lovely wife starts her new job in September, so we are having to leave this bastion of rain, coffee, and intellectual freedom that is the greater Seattle area for the harsh winters and deep-dish double-crust goodness of Chicago. It was a rough decision, but ultimately, it was for the best. Individually and together, we have made some amazing friends here, and leaving them behind was not done lightly. But we exhausted job prospects in the area and simply couldn't turn down her 60% increase in income.
So we just recieved word today. Our application to the apartment we were looking at in Oak Park has been accepted, so we are officially a "Go!" The move, as they say, is on. All that remains is weeding out all the stuff we don't want to take cross country and packing up the rest before we sell the house.
-T
So we just recieved word today. Our application to the apartment we were looking at in Oak Park has been accepted, so we are officially a "Go!" The move, as they say, is on. All that remains is weeding out all the stuff we don't want to take cross country and packing up the rest before we sell the house.
-T
Friday, August 05, 2005
Yee Haw!
Where to begin...
I guess there is no way to say this than to just drag the painfull truth out into the open and be done with it.
I went and saw the Dukes of Hazzard at theatres today.
I know what you're thinking, and I'm disgusted with myself too. Sitting in the car in the parking lot, I carefully reviewed my options. Must Love Dogs? No...no date movies in the middle of the day when I'm by myself. Wedding Crashers? Possible...I've heard good things about it, but it didn't start for a while and the car was getting hot. No, there was no time like the present. Eventually I was going to watch the Duke boys tear up half of Hazzard County, and I had to accept it. This movie was going to be watched. Might as well do it in the comfort of the air conditioned stadium seating of the Supermall megaplex. I considered strong words about how I would review it, should I ever be forced under torture to admit that I saw it in the first place. I wondered if the word "purile" was too strong or not strong enough of an adjactive.
So it pretty much goes without saying that my expectations were pretty damn low. I figured 2 or 3 on a 10 point scale low.
Imagine my surprise when I found myself laughing and rocking with the hillbilly (or as Luke calls them, Appalacian Americans) antics and hijinks. I wasn't a huge fan of the show. I watched a season or two but then grew bored with it as a child. It was fun, but it just didn't have the man-monkey love of my dear BJ and the Bear. I think that I might have had a Dukes lunch box, but maybe that was one of my brothers. So I had no LOVE for the source material. But I was familiar with it. Damned if the movie wasn't a love story to the show. They were well aware that they weren't remaking Shakespeare, and they played to the strengths...car chases, hijinks, and, sing along if you know it..."just some good ol' boys, never meaning no harm."
Seann William Scott has some weird, quirky charm that elevates anything he's in. And Johnny Knoxville, while no Anthony Hopkins, plays well of his character, hitting every note and having a blast doing it. I wasn't expecting Jessica Simpson to really act, just show up look good, and that she did, so I can't complain. And she wasn't nearly as wooden and vapid as I have seen other screen bimbos be, with more acting chops than, oh, I don't know, Carmen Electra, for instance.
That said, not a great movie. The story is, ultimately, pretty stupid. But then again, it was no more stupid than the show which inspired it. The car chase through Atlanta, while contrived, boiled down to a tasty essence everything that made the series last 6 years.
I didn't want to like it. I swear to you, I never wanted to like it. But I did. My wife may leave me in disgust and change her name, hiding in outer Mongolia for my admitting it, but yeah, I actually enjoyed The Dukes of Hazzard. I'll never make my lovely wife see it, nor will I likely buy it on DVD. (Hear that babe? Put down the suitcase. Thanks.)
In the end, worth a matinee if you are willing to shut off your brain and not take yourself too seriously. Possibly even a 7 on a 10 point scale. Certaily a solid 6.5 for just flat out fun.
-T
I guess there is no way to say this than to just drag the painfull truth out into the open and be done with it.
I went and saw the Dukes of Hazzard at theatres today.
I know what you're thinking, and I'm disgusted with myself too. Sitting in the car in the parking lot, I carefully reviewed my options. Must Love Dogs? No...no date movies in the middle of the day when I'm by myself. Wedding Crashers? Possible...I've heard good things about it, but it didn't start for a while and the car was getting hot. No, there was no time like the present. Eventually I was going to watch the Duke boys tear up half of Hazzard County, and I had to accept it. This movie was going to be watched. Might as well do it in the comfort of the air conditioned stadium seating of the Supermall megaplex. I considered strong words about how I would review it, should I ever be forced under torture to admit that I saw it in the first place. I wondered if the word "purile" was too strong or not strong enough of an adjactive.
So it pretty much goes without saying that my expectations were pretty damn low. I figured 2 or 3 on a 10 point scale low.
Imagine my surprise when I found myself laughing and rocking with the hillbilly (or as Luke calls them, Appalacian Americans) antics and hijinks. I wasn't a huge fan of the show. I watched a season or two but then grew bored with it as a child. It was fun, but it just didn't have the man-monkey love of my dear BJ and the Bear. I think that I might have had a Dukes lunch box, but maybe that was one of my brothers. So I had no LOVE for the source material. But I was familiar with it. Damned if the movie wasn't a love story to the show. They were well aware that they weren't remaking Shakespeare, and they played to the strengths...car chases, hijinks, and, sing along if you know it..."just some good ol' boys, never meaning no harm."
Seann William Scott has some weird, quirky charm that elevates anything he's in. And Johnny Knoxville, while no Anthony Hopkins, plays well of his character, hitting every note and having a blast doing it. I wasn't expecting Jessica Simpson to really act, just show up look good, and that she did, so I can't complain. And she wasn't nearly as wooden and vapid as I have seen other screen bimbos be, with more acting chops than, oh, I don't know, Carmen Electra, for instance.
That said, not a great movie. The story is, ultimately, pretty stupid. But then again, it was no more stupid than the show which inspired it. The car chase through Atlanta, while contrived, boiled down to a tasty essence everything that made the series last 6 years.
I didn't want to like it. I swear to you, I never wanted to like it. But I did. My wife may leave me in disgust and change her name, hiding in outer Mongolia for my admitting it, but yeah, I actually enjoyed The Dukes of Hazzard. I'll never make my lovely wife see it, nor will I likely buy it on DVD. (Hear that babe? Put down the suitcase. Thanks.)
In the end, worth a matinee if you are willing to shut off your brain and not take yourself too seriously. Possibly even a 7 on a 10 point scale. Certaily a solid 6.5 for just flat out fun.
-T
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Green Chile goodness
One of the things I miss most about living in the southwest is the fresh roasted green chilies. Every year, the big iron roasters will pop up in parking logs of grocery stores or wherever they can find a space, like giant heated bingo cages full of peppers. After living in the greater Seattle area for eight years, I have realized that there is no subsititue for the real thing. For that reason, I have requested periodic care packages from my mom who taught me more about cooking than Food TV. (That said, Alton Brown, you are my God, so keep on cranking out Good Eats and I'll keep watching!)
These packages consist of one big freezer bag of green chile seperated into several smaller portions of ziplocked green chile goodness. I'm on my last 2 portions now, so hopefully more arrives soon. I don't want to go into withdrawl. So below is one of my favorite family recipies for the use of these little fire-blackened peppers from heaven. It is a closely guarded family secret, so don't tell anyone where you got the recipie, but do enjoy.
-T
These packages consist of one big freezer bag of green chile seperated into several smaller portions of ziplocked green chile goodness. I'm on my last 2 portions now, so hopefully more arrives soon. I don't want to go into withdrawl. So below is one of my favorite family recipies for the use of these little fire-blackened peppers from heaven. It is a closely guarded family secret, so don't tell anyone where you got the recipie, but do enjoy.
-T
Cornbread
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 can creamed corn
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
½ cup sugar
½ shortening, softened (or butter)
4 eggs
1 ½ cups shredded cheese (cheddar or jack or both)
* while the recipe originally calls for only 1 cup, I never find it to be enough, and don’t actually measure the cheese. 1 ½ up to 2 cups is about what I end up using when I make this myself.
3 green chilies, cleaned and chopped (or 2 small cans)
*fresh, authentic chilies make this dish what it is, but they can be hard to find in
Pre-heat oven to 350, and grease a 9x11 Pyrex dish.
Mix all ingredients until moistened. Pour into baking dish and level with spoon.
Set timer for 30 min. You should see the edges slightly browned, and a toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean. Since not all ovens are created equal, and the consistency of chilies and amount of cheese can make the cook time vary, 30 minutes is just a guide line and will most likely need to be baked just a bit longer. The cornbread can cook for as long as 45 minutes, but personally, I have never needed to bake it that long. Just check it every few minutes with a toothpick. When it comes out clean, remove the pan and let it cool for 10 minutes before serving.
It goes particularly well with butter whipped with honey as a topper.
Friday, June 24, 2005
The downside of science
I have always felt that scientific progress and was a good things. But your name doesn't have to be Iccarus to dissagree with me on that one. I saw evidence of that this very evening.
We have three cats, two who have no front claws and have lived their whole lives indoors, never really understanding what dogs are or how they are not "friends to all things feline". The other cat has her claws, and when confronted with a dog turns into a Halloween kitty, all arched back and hissing. And that's the way it should be. Cats should fear dogs. It's nature, and don't give me any tree hugging, granola-crunching love and peace bull arguments to the contrary. That's just the way it is. My wife and I had two of our friends down for a basketball game this evening, and since one of them has a recently injured dog which needs supervision, we let him bring his dogs down. Not a big deal. They are well behaved, perfect ladies. But they are dogs. So we locked the cats up with food, water, and a litter box.
Actually, one was inadvertantly locked in a bedroom for two hours with none of the above because she was hiding when the dogs got there. Yes, this is the one who fears dogs. The other two, big fluffy brothers who frequently act like dogs, got locked in the laundry room with every comfort except human companionship and catnip. (Hey, it was a moderatly confined space. Locking them in with drugs somehow seemed wrong.)
After two hours, we observed the door knob for the laundry room twist. The brothers, not unlike the Greek legends who fashioned wings of feathers and wax, were trying to make a break for it, unaware of the dangers of their potential escape. But we figured, hell, they have to hold the handle down, and then pull the door open. No way that is going to happen, and if it does, well, they deserve freedom. We imagined them plotting their escape just the other side of the door. "Ok, Misty. Let me stand on your back so I can get the handle, and this time, really try to get your paw under the door and pull. Don't let me down here, bro."
Lo and behold, after fifteen minutes of experimentation, the handle twisted down and stayed there for a good ten seconds. It was long enough for one of them to pull the door open with his little grey paw from beneath the door. And like that, they were free, looking every bit as confident and in comand as the crew from Resevoir Dogs as they walk down the street in their suits. Heaven help me, I don't think I've ever been prouder of them.
If the dogs hadn't been on the other side of a screen door and on a leash, this story might have had a different ending. As it was, my wife and daughter coralled the escaped criminal masterminds, and locked them upstairs with their half-sister who knew well enough not to try to get out in the first place.
Science. It's a good adventure. Just make sure you know what's on the other side of the door. Otherwise you could end up like Iccarus.
-T
We have three cats, two who have no front claws and have lived their whole lives indoors, never really understanding what dogs are or how they are not "friends to all things feline". The other cat has her claws, and when confronted with a dog turns into a Halloween kitty, all arched back and hissing. And that's the way it should be. Cats should fear dogs. It's nature, and don't give me any tree hugging, granola-crunching love and peace bull arguments to the contrary. That's just the way it is. My wife and I had two of our friends down for a basketball game this evening, and since one of them has a recently injured dog which needs supervision, we let him bring his dogs down. Not a big deal. They are well behaved, perfect ladies. But they are dogs. So we locked the cats up with food, water, and a litter box.
Actually, one was inadvertantly locked in a bedroom for two hours with none of the above because she was hiding when the dogs got there. Yes, this is the one who fears dogs. The other two, big fluffy brothers who frequently act like dogs, got locked in the laundry room with every comfort except human companionship and catnip. (Hey, it was a moderatly confined space. Locking them in with drugs somehow seemed wrong.)
After two hours, we observed the door knob for the laundry room twist. The brothers, not unlike the Greek legends who fashioned wings of feathers and wax, were trying to make a break for it, unaware of the dangers of their potential escape. But we figured, hell, they have to hold the handle down, and then pull the door open. No way that is going to happen, and if it does, well, they deserve freedom. We imagined them plotting their escape just the other side of the door. "Ok, Misty. Let me stand on your back so I can get the handle, and this time, really try to get your paw under the door and pull. Don't let me down here, bro."
Lo and behold, after fifteen minutes of experimentation, the handle twisted down and stayed there for a good ten seconds. It was long enough for one of them to pull the door open with his little grey paw from beneath the door. And like that, they were free, looking every bit as confident and in comand as the crew from Resevoir Dogs as they walk down the street in their suits. Heaven help me, I don't think I've ever been prouder of them.
If the dogs hadn't been on the other side of a screen door and on a leash, this story might have had a different ending. As it was, my wife and daughter coralled the escaped criminal masterminds, and locked them upstairs with their half-sister who knew well enough not to try to get out in the first place.
Science. It's a good adventure. Just make sure you know what's on the other side of the door. Otherwise you could end up like Iccarus.
-T
Friday, June 17, 2005
Sell Out
So, it's official. I'm a sell out. After years of bitching about the state of Hollywood horror movies, favoring independent and foreign pieces, I have finally seen the light.
When The Grudge came out with Sarah Michelle Gellar, I read the reviews which said it was okay, but not nearly as good as the original Japanese Ju-on. Even thought it was made by the same director and had key actors reprising their roles, most importantly the creepy kid who played Toshio, I believed, without a second thought, that the original had to be better. But being the impatient media whore that I am, I went to see the remake in theatres rather than wait for the release of the original on DVD.
Well, I after letting it sit on my shelf for months, I finally watched Ju-on. And heaven help me, it wasn't as good as the remake. Sam Rami did a brilliant thing as a producer on The Grudge: he gave the original film maker more of a budget to make the movie he had wanted the other attempts to be. It was, in a very real sense, not so much of a remake as a cinematic Mulligan, a celluloid do-over. And as such it worked. Some of the characters were changed slightly, and the timing and pacing was shuffled a bit. The end result made for a far more coherent movie, where the reason for the original haunting was better explained without being dumbed down. The reveal of the original murders was moody and creepy, and the addition of the object of jealousy (Bill Pullman as a university teacher) was inspired. The remake kept many of the elements that worked brilliantly from the first, but scrapped what didn't make sense and didn't fit. And while the ending of Ju-on had a creepy apocolyptic ending that I think worked amazingly well, it was the only way in which it topped its successor.
So now I'm a sell out. Hollywood can make good horror. Let's face it...The Ring was one of the creepiest movies to come out of a major studio in years. And while it was also a remake of the Japanese film Ringu, it had an American director who had never done a horror film before unless you count The Mexican with Brad Pitt. And it was a better, more stylish, and downright creepier movie than the one which inspired it.
Now to the reason this is all relevant. The Hollywood remake of the Japanese thriller Dark Water is coming out soon. I haven't seen the original, but it's by the same person who wrote Ringu, so it has to be scarry. If history is any indicator, this could be another case of more money and bigger studio equals better movie. I guess only time will tell, but remember that I said it here first.
When The Grudge came out with Sarah Michelle Gellar, I read the reviews which said it was okay, but not nearly as good as the original Japanese Ju-on. Even thought it was made by the same director and had key actors reprising their roles, most importantly the creepy kid who played Toshio, I believed, without a second thought, that the original had to be better. But being the impatient media whore that I am, I went to see the remake in theatres rather than wait for the release of the original on DVD.
Well, I after letting it sit on my shelf for months, I finally watched Ju-on. And heaven help me, it wasn't as good as the remake. Sam Rami did a brilliant thing as a producer on The Grudge: he gave the original film maker more of a budget to make the movie he had wanted the other attempts to be. It was, in a very real sense, not so much of a remake as a cinematic Mulligan, a celluloid do-over. And as such it worked. Some of the characters were changed slightly, and the timing and pacing was shuffled a bit. The end result made for a far more coherent movie, where the reason for the original haunting was better explained without being dumbed down. The reveal of the original murders was moody and creepy, and the addition of the object of jealousy (Bill Pullman as a university teacher) was inspired. The remake kept many of the elements that worked brilliantly from the first, but scrapped what didn't make sense and didn't fit. And while the ending of Ju-on had a creepy apocolyptic ending that I think worked amazingly well, it was the only way in which it topped its successor.
So now I'm a sell out. Hollywood can make good horror. Let's face it...The Ring was one of the creepiest movies to come out of a major studio in years. And while it was also a remake of the Japanese film Ringu, it had an American director who had never done a horror film before unless you count The Mexican with Brad Pitt. And it was a better, more stylish, and downright creepier movie than the one which inspired it.
Now to the reason this is all relevant. The Hollywood remake of the Japanese thriller Dark Water is coming out soon. I haven't seen the original, but it's by the same person who wrote Ringu, so it has to be scarry. If history is any indicator, this could be another case of more money and bigger studio equals better movie. I guess only time will tell, but remember that I said it here first.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Just the beginning
It dissapoints me, really. The best album of the year last year, and no one has heard it. Correction. I have subjected several people to the sublime sound of the Honeydogs masterpiece 10,000 Years, but mainstream success has eluded them. And now I fear that the new Ben Folds album will also fly beneath the radar.
His first single, "Landed" is just flat out stunning. Powerful, sweeping, poignant, and just a great pop rock tune. Why is it that a certain aspect of music gets labeled alternative and thus becomes the norm while truly alternative music gets sidelined?
Do yourself a favor. Find "Landed". Yes, it is Ben Folds doing what he does best, rocking out on a piano with some of the most genuine lyrics around. You will not be dissapointed.
Unless your idea of music is Mudvane or Clay Aiken. I make no promises under those conditions. And while I can appreciate the above artists contributions to pop culture, well, it's really apples and oranges.
-T
His first single, "Landed" is just flat out stunning. Powerful, sweeping, poignant, and just a great pop rock tune. Why is it that a certain aspect of music gets labeled alternative and thus becomes the norm while truly alternative music gets sidelined?
Do yourself a favor. Find "Landed". Yes, it is Ben Folds doing what he does best, rocking out on a piano with some of the most genuine lyrics around. You will not be dissapointed.
Unless your idea of music is Mudvane or Clay Aiken. I make no promises under those conditions. And while I can appreciate the above artists contributions to pop culture, well, it's really apples and oranges.
-T
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