I submit to you that a personal recommendation from a friend with respect to a book, movie, or film is gold. I’ve been fortunate to have had a number of folks who know my eclectic and yes, flat-out bizarre tastes in the various arts and who keep me from becoming staid in my reading, viewing and listening. Chief amongst these good, long-suffering folks is a gent who I have known for well over a half-century. My friend possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of literature and films which runs long and deep. He recently recommended a movie to me that is almost a quarter-century old but is still in some ways ahead of its time.

The movie is Mad Dog Time.  It is worth viewing and studying for a number of reasons, chief among them being the manner in which it adheres to its puzzling yet addicting voice and pace from beginning to end.  You say you’ve never heard of it? Maybe you know it by its other name, Trigger Happy. Still doesn’t ring a bell? I’m not surprised. I had never heard of it either until last week, in spite of it having a stellar cast (Richard Dreyfuss and Jeff Goldblum, among others). It suffered from poor reviews. Actually, that’s not right. The reviews were vicious.  It topped at least one “worst movie of the year” list. Rotten Tomatoes? As I write this Mad Dog Time has a critics’ score of 17 percent based on six reviews against an audience score of 47 percent. It grossed six figures and cost seven to make, proving that you can make a small fortune in the arts if you start with a large one. 

I’m leading with all of the bad stuff about Mad Dog Time because that was the way it was introduced to me before I bit the hook. The sharp end of that is that Mad Dog Time is a gangster/caper film that defies several conventions. 

The opening moments of Mad Dog Time consist of what is kind of a poor man’s Star Wars trailer which informs the viewer that what they are about to see takes place in an alternate reality. Yeah. That’s about right. The plot is right out of the late 1940s. A mob boss named Vic (played by Dreyfuss) who owns a popular nightclub is being released from a mental health facility after several weeks of treatment for what we would now call anger management. A rival mobster who has been plotting to take over Vic’s empire is bringing in hitmen to get the job done, given that Vic has a reputation for engaging in homicidal violence with minimal provocation.  Mickey Holliday (Jeff Goldblum) is Vic’s enforcer and finds himself standing between Vic and the power grab. Mickey, however, has in Vic’s absence been keeping company with Vic’s girlfriend while also seeing her sister, unbeknownst to either of the siblings. Other things are going on, including frequent duels by firearm that take place in the basement offices of Vic’s club. There are other shootouts, as well as fights, double-crosses, and the like, right up to almost the very end of the film.

If all of the above was presented in a straightforward manner then Mad Dog Time might not have gotten the awful critical reception it received. The film has its quirks, however. Mad Dog Time was written and directed by Larry Bishop, the son of comedian Joey Bishop, who was part of what was known as the “Rat Pack” with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr., among others. There are a number of not-so-subtle references to that lineage, including a brief appearance by Joey Bishop. What is more interesting, however, is that the entire film looks like a period piece for which the director never attempted to acquire time-appropriate props. It is accordingly is a 1940s story that looks like it was filmed in the 1990s — which is when it was filmed — and which somehow doesn’t look dated in 2020. That doesn’t make sense, but it is entirely accurate. Bishop also repeatedly uses a plot device that is unsettling and which violates a rule of commercial filmmaking. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but you’ll see it when you watch the film and start saying “What the (heck)” every ten minutes.  I kept thinking, “Wait a minute! He can’t do that!” That isn’t quite accurate, of course. Maybe Bishop shouldn’t have done it, but he could do it, and he did. The result is that the viewer never knows what is going to happen next.

At least one of your favorite old school actors, regardless of who it might be, is more than lkely in Mad Dog Time. What was interesting for me is that it features an actor I can’t stand — Jeff Goldblum — leading the cast. And you know what? Goldblum gives the performance of his life. I never would have pictured Jeff Goldblum as a believably deadly mob enforcer who is also studly enough to be balancing relationships with two women to the extent that neither is the side-piece (or maybe they both are). I almost didn’t watch the movie when I found out that he was in it, but I’m glad I did. He hasn’t looked this good since he played “Freak #1” in the original (Charles Bronson) version of Deathwish. Goldblum is so good in this film that I actually missed him when he wasn’t on screen. 

There’s also an intangible element existing in Mad Dog Time. The entire movie is just a bit off-kilter, which is possibly where the alternate universe thing comes in.  My friend likened it to the manner in which Billie Holliday often sang just a beat or two behind the music. It’s a perfect comparison, so much so that I wonder if Larry Bishop was giving his audience a hint of it with the name of Goldblum’s character. 

You won’t find Mad Dog Time/Trigger Happy on any of the streaming services. There is a print that is accessible on YouTube but the video is totally out of sync with the audio and it is thus unwatchable. You should, however, be able to find it in DVD format (which is excellent, by the way) at your local library though you might have to hunt for it. You should do so. 

Let me give you two more quick suggestions before I leave you to your day: 

In books, Andy Davidson’s newly published The Boatman’s Daughter is the perfect Southern Gothic horror novel and may be the perfect novel, period. If you read it and you like it you will want to read his first book, In the Valley of the Sun, which concerns a pair of vampires on the loose in Texas during the fall of 1980. Fun stuff.

As far as music is concerned, I have recently been listening to a band named 16 Horsepower. They are no longer together. The creative force behind their music, however, is a gentleman named David Eugene Edwards who currently helms a band called Wovenhand. Edwards is considered to be the father (almost, after Johnny Cash) of a music subgenre known as “gothic Americana.” The songs in both bands are darkly religious with a heavy emphasis on the failings of human beings, who will be judged by the angry and vengeful God of the Old Testament. Not surprisingly, Edwards’ music has been rejected by secularists for its religious overtones and by the Christian rock community for hewing too close to fundamentalist beliefs. What’s left? Well, Edwards has a huge following among atheists, believe it or not, especially in Europe. If nothing else, please have a listen to 16 Horsepower’s “Black Soul Choir.”

I hope that you enjoy all of the above and have a terrific and entertaining weekend. And please, feel free to offer some obscure recommendations of your own.

You’ve just been transported to the time and place of the last book you read.

Where are you?

Hubble Sees the Force Awakening in a Newborn Star-NASA Goddard photo

Fair warning: today’s post is the unabashed crowing of a proud surrogate mom whose “kid” is one of only 20 people on the planet chosen this year to give a TED talk. If you’d rather not listen to me sniffle, skip this.

Here’s how our story started:

My writing group, Authors of the Flathead, sponsors an annual student writing contest. The judging is blind—we don’t know the identities, grade level, or which school.

About 20 years ago, a short fiction entry about the underground railroad blew us judges away with its beautiful writing, realistic characters, compelling tension, and important theme. It was the hands-down winner out of 100+ entries.

The author was a 16-year-old high school junior named Sarah Rugheimer. We invited her to a meeting to read her story and receive her cash prize. Afterward, she and I chatted. She was bright, capable, energetic, determined, and enthusiastic. When she asked if I would mentor her, I couldn’t say Yes! fast enough.

We worked on her writing through high school and her first year of college. Sarah pushed herself hard and excelled in science, Irish dancing, and writing. We spent hours hiking in the Montana mountains or sitting at my dining room table to brainstorm story concepts, characters, and plot lines full of twists and surprises.

Her discipline and drive pushed her up the ranks in Irish dance competitions. My kitchen became a studio where she practiced difficult steps. She also entered and won more writing contests.

Our face-to-face meetings unfortunately dwindled when she moved to the University of Calgary to study physics and Irish dance.

Thank goodness for email. She would send me essays and papers. The subject matter was way over my head. Exoplanets? Biosignatures? Brown dwarf habitability? Chirality? The only words I recognized were one syllable: the, and, is. At that point, the little help I could offer was to insert missing commas.

“When you win the Nobel Prize, I’ll be sitting in the audience,” I often told her, only half joking. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize this young woman was going places.

Then came time for grad school. Her goal: a PhD in astronomy or astrophysics.

On a lark, she decided to apply to Harvard. Despite her brilliant academic record, she suffered from a bad case of imposter syndrome and was positive she would never be accepted.

She even tried to talk herself out of applying, protesting, “The fee is $90. I could buy three nice dinners for that.”

“You’re going to be accepted,” I predicted.

“No way,” she insisted.

“Yes, you will.”

We worked over her essay answers and polished them to a high gloss.

I knew that the judges and scholars who reviewed her application would recognize the drive, focus, discipline, and imagination I saw in her.

Was she accepted?

Of course.

She was amazed.

I wasn’t.

For the next 6 ½ years, she worked her butt off. Despite a full scholarship, her road was not easy. Her father, a retired physics professor at Montana State University, was in declining health. He lived with her in Cambridge while she juggling study with caring for him.

His death, although expected, was still a body blow to Sarah. Other major personal crises piled on top of her and she had to take more than a year off from classes.

But she persevered and was named one of only eight Harvard Horizons Scholars in 2014.

She also took up mountain climbing. We’re talking serious mountains—Kilimanjaro, Aconcagua, Chimborazo. At elevations of more than 20,000 feet, she was climbing closer to the planets and stars she wanted to explore.

In January 2015, she defended her thesis.

I flew to Boston for that momentous event. Sitting in a hallowed hall at Harvard with 60 of her colleagues and professors, I listened to her talk about searching for life on distant planets and her aspirations to explore the universe.

As she was pronounced Doctor Sarah Rugheimer, I used up a package of Kleenex.

Dr. Sarah Rugheimer – photo credit: Ben Gebo

Her post-doctoral proposals and applications for various fellowships contained ever-more-obscure vocabulary. How was I supposed to critique a paper entitled “Quantifying Activity Induced Variability in Spectra of Exoplanets”? At that point, when I edited her articles, I wasn’t even sure where to put the commas!

She also developed a love of teaching and has the rare gift of translating complicated concepts into terms even regular people—like me—can understand. Her students love her.

A couple of years ago, one student she had mentored achieved publication in a prestigious journal. Sarah was button-busting proud.

I told her, “Now you know how I feel.”

In her spare time, she continues to write creatively. We spend hours on the phone, brainstorming plots and building relatable characters for her ambitious sci-fi novels. Writing remains her great love. My crystal ball predicts a Nebula award in her future. 

Two summers ago, she returned to our hometown to give the commencement address at the local college graduation. “Don’t limit yourselves,” she counseled. “Don’t let fear keep you from applying to Harvard or wherever your dreams lead you.”

Where is she now? Teaching and pursuing research at Oxford, another pinnacle of academic achievement. Here’s her website.

A few weeks ago, she called me from England. “Don’t tell anyone yet but I was chosen as a TED scholar for 2020. I’m going to give a TED talk.” That puts her among only 20 people so honored each year.

I was thrilled but, again, not surprised.

Our friendship started with a high school writing contest.

Now I’m standing on the ground, watching a brilliant star rise into the heavens. [Sniffles.]

~~~

Others mentored me. I mentored Sarah. Now she’s mentoring a new generation.

TKZers, whose shoulders did you stand on? Who’s standing on your shoulders?

In honor of Valentine’s Day, let’s talk fictional partners, whether that be man and woman, two women, two men, or (wo)man and animal, like Turner and Hooch.

What’s your favorite dynamic duo, and why?

By Elaine Viets

Have I got a first-page critique for you, TKZers – a biker, a strip club, serious money and the age-old struggle between mother and daughter. A winning combination in my book. Here, take a look. Then I’ll make my comments.
***

“Juliana, it’s time to grow up and stop being foolish.”

My mother and I had been locked in this loop for the last four days. Every morning, she descended from her five-hundred-a-day vacation perch on the lake and made her way to the trailer park to harangue me about my life choices. Of course, I had an open invitation to stay with her and partake in the luxury. After one night, I decided the natural stone hot tub wasn’t worth it. Being in her lair gave her more time to go on about all my failures.

“I’m going to be thirty-seven in a few weeks. I think I’m as grown as I’m going to get. I do not want to move to Houston,” I said with the flat monotone of a phrase well-rehearsed and often-repeated.

Rachel María del Carmen Delgado Martin could easily pass for ten years younger than sixty. She wore her vintage designer suit and cat-eye makeup like a queen. In contrast, my black jeans and tank top, still stained from work behind the bar at the Biloxi strip club, marked me as a refugee from a biker rally.

Evidently, my mother agreed. She pulled one of my wild curls straight and let it spring back. I hadn’t cut it since the FBI shut down the family law firm, and the jumbled mass was almost to my waist.

I grabbed her hand before she could start finger-combing my hair. “Stop it. I’m not five. I don’t need you to spit on a hankie and wash my face.”

“Well, you need something. A half-million dollar education and you’re living out here in that box with wheels. You’re better than this. Come to Houston. The co-op board needs a new lawyer. One word from me and it’s yours. You don’t even have to live with me, although you didn’t seem to mind after your surgery. There’s a nice two-bedroom unit on the tenth floor of the south tower, and,” she paused as if her next words hurt, “It’s yours.”

I choked back the sarcasm bubbling to my lips. For my mother to even think about giving away a couple of million in real estate; she was speaking from her heart. I wasn’t going to gain anything by being a bitch.

“Mom.”

My contrition was cut short by the rumble of a motorcycle pulling into my driveway.

***

I thought our Brave Author did a fine job of setting the scene: We know Juliana is 37 and her mother is 60. Mom has plenty of bucks and is staying at a $500 a night vacation place. She wants her daughter, who is 37, to leave the trailer park and her life as a bartender in a strip joint, and tries to bribe her with a job and a high-end condo in Houston.
As an editor, I would make some tweaks:

(1) The first sentence – “Juliana, it’s time to grow up and stop being foolish” – doesn’t have a tag. It’s obvious who is talking, Juliana’s mother, Rachel Martin. But just so readers don’t get lost, I’d recast it this way:

“Juliana, it’s time to grow up and stop being foolish,” my mother said. Again.
My mother and I had been locked in this loop for the last four days. Every morning, she . . .
That tag, or something similar, ties the first paragraph into the second.

(2) The next tweak is punctuation:
There’s a nice two-bedroom unit on the tenth floor of the south tower, and,” she paused as if her next words hurt, “It’s yours.”

It should read:
There’s a nice two-bedroom unit on the tenth floor of the south tower, and,” she paused as if her next words hurt, “it’s yours.” (It’s is lower case.)

(3) The parts of this sentence do not belong together:
For my mother to even think about giving away a couple of million in real estate; she was speaking from her heart.

Consider recasting it this way:
My mother must be speaking from her heart to even think about giving away a couple of million in real estate.

Finally, I’m not sure what kind of book this is. There are plenty of elements – the daughter’s wild life, Mom’s money, and the “FBI shutting down the family law firm” – that could make for a good mystery. On the other hand, it could be modern women’s fiction, examining the relationship between two headstrong women.
However, I believe the author throws too much at us too soon: What we really have here is the opening to a short story or other form of short fiction. For this to work as a novel, and avoid having the women become stereotypes (defiant rebel daughter vs. controlling mother), the author needs to introduce the characters a little more slowly, and build sympathy for both of them. We need to meet them a little at a time.

Congratulations, Brave Author. I’m intrigued.
How about you, TKZers? What do you think?
*****************************************
A STAR IS DEAD, Elaine’s new Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery, debuts in April. Publishers Weekly says it has “witty dialogue and well-defined characters.” Pre-order it here: https://tinyurl.com/uwj27lv

By John Gilstrap

In the mid-1990s, about the time when Nathan’s Run was first being published, AOL was pretty much synonymous with the internet for me.  Those were the days of squealing telephone modems and pay-by-the-hour access.  I remember jumping out of my skin the first time that AOL voice said, “Welcome” through the speakers that I didn’t even know my computer had.

There seemed to be no end to the rabbit holes of information diving. As a trivia junkie and a procrastinator, I’d stumbled upon the ultimate time suck.  It was fabulous!  But it wasn’t until I discovered the wonders of the chat room that I truly understood the addiction of internet rabbit holes.  AOL chat rooms provided opportunities to “speak” real-time with real people all over the world.

My favorite of those chat rooms was the AOL Writers Club.  Run by a husband-and-wife team out of their apartment in Arlington, Virginia, the Writers Club provided my first opportunity to interact with writers of all stripes.  Since the chats were real-time, the topics we discussed were the kinds of things you’d discuss in a coffee shop with friends.  We got to know each other as we talked not just about craft, but about our families and whatever came to mind.  Tom Clancy was probably the most famous person to pop in from time to time, but other regulars included Harlan Coben, Tess Gerritsen, Dennis Lehane and others who were just starting their careers.  More than a few of those Writers Club denizens became face-to-face friends and remain so to this day.

Then the trolls arrived.

I don’t know that we knew them as trolls at the time, but they charged into the otherwise friendly group and started swinging bats and throwing hand grenades.  They were uncooperative, and just plain mean to people.  One in particular went on to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, but he was one of the most sour individuals I have ever run across.  The Writers Club did not survive.  (I don’t know if the trolls were the cause of the collapse, but they are certainly the reason why I capped off that particular rabbit hole in my life.)

At conferences, I run into some the old members, and when the topic comes up, everyone agrees that no group has ever come close to the sense of community we shared in the early days of the AOL Writers Club.  TKZ comes close on some levels, but the interaction here happens in slow motion, while the Writers Club was real time.

Fast forward to 2020.  I have joined–but rarely participate in–several writer-oriented Facebook groups, and I’m dismayed by how many of them are pre-loaded with trolls, and how the trolls are the dominant presence.  Even more frustrating is the fact that these moderated, members-only group leaders tolerate the internal festering that will ultimately kill the thing they’re trying to build.

Some of these groups have tens of thousands of members.  If only 1% carry the troll gene, that’s still a lot of negativity.  So, why do people who are obviously early in their writer-journey post their work into these ant hills and ask for comments?  Do they not read other entries first?  Are they masochists and merely want to reinforce the negative narrative that plagues so many artists?  I cannot imagine doing such a thing.

Let’s add into this mix some egregiously awful advice, mostly doled out by people who clearly are parroting what they’ve heard from somebody who knows someone who attended a conference somewhere.  A recent goodie was the echo chamber conclusion that prologues are essential in order to give the backstory necessary to understand why the main character does what he does in Chapter One.

Let’s pause for a moment to give Brother Bell a chance to settle his blood pressure.

I join these groups with the intent of helping but then I realize that by pushing against the group-think, I run the risk of playing the role of the perceived troll.  So I sit silently, lurking through the bad advice about structure and the industry, waiting for that occasional opportunity to help out.  And after I do, I weather the push-back from the people who heard differently from their cousin’s girlfriend’s brother.

Here’s what I want to scream in those groups: If you’re serious about selling your writing–whether by traditional or indie routes–move away from the easy echo-chamber research.  Attend conferences.  Read books by people who know what they’re talking about.  Quit complaining about how stupid the world is to reject your 180,000-word dystopian romantic vampire political thriller and accept the reality that as a rookie, there are wise moves and unwise moves, and that your actions have consequences.

Understand that your zeal to self-publish that book that you know is under-cooked, merely for the bragging rights, can fundamentally damage your ability to sell future books as your skills improve.

Ah, the heck with it.  I’ll write a blog post instead.