Review: Assassin's Code

It's time I started reviewing the stuff I consume again, be it books, music, movies, or whatever.  I'm not a critic by trade, just someone who likes stuff.  I'm involved in Goodreads' reading challenge.  12 books, 1 year.  I think I'm going to beat that.

I skipped my review of the first book I read this year, Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon.  We'll get to that later this week.  For now though, I give you my review of Jonathan Maberry's Assassin's Code, the fourth book in his series featuring Department of Military Sciences agent Joe Ledger.

I've become a big fan of the Joe Ledger series. I look at it as the popcorn movie in my TBR list. Are we getting deep, life changing events? No. Are we getting radical philosophical shifts? Of course not. But what we are getting is fast-paced, highly entertaining action. And I'll take it.

The fourth novel chronicling the adventures of Joe Ledger and Echo Team is set primarily in the Middle East, where the covert rescue of American political prisoners in Iran put Joe directly in the middle of two longtime warring factions: Arklight, a group of highly trained (and long-lived) female warriors, and the Red Order, The Catholic Church's secret group of vampire assassins. Yes, you read that right. Feeding this powder keg are eight nuclear weapons, stolen and hidden all over the world, set to blow at a moment's notice.

This is, like I said, the fourth in a series. Jonathan Maberry isn't breaking new ground. The series has a very James Bond-esque thrill ride, and I'm okay with that. Yes, it got a little hokey, especially toward the end, but it was hugely entertaining! And considering what I read right before I picked this up, that was enough.

4 stars.

Pros: Fun to read, intense action

Cons: A little hokey, hard to catch up if you haven't read the series.

Movies I Need to See, Part I

A friend of mine, Thom Carnell,  is doing a "366 movies in 366 days" challenge this year.  It's ambitious.  It means watching great cinema and crappy popcorn flicks, it means watching things that aren't quite in your taste spectrum, and it means flat out watching things you just hate.  He's even reviewing them all. To that I say, good for him.

He and I differ in tastes.  He's a lot more into things that are elevate movies to an artwork.  He's into stylistic choices with shots and scenes, he's into obscure films by obscure film makers (and believe me, he knows his shit.  Check out The Bonus Material Podcast, where he and two co-conspirators talk about film and filmmaking.  Eye-opening stuff), whereas I'm admittedly much more simple than that.   Do I love a great story? Absolutely.  Do I enjoy cool cinematography? Sure.  I don't necessarily require them to have a good time at the movies (however, a bad story will almost 100% of the time result in a bad movie and a terrible time at the movies.  I'm looking at you, A Most Violent Year).

Anyway, I throw up this story as a prologue for the movies I'm most excited about this year.  Keep in mind that I'm going to update this list frequently as more stuff comes out.  And yes, trailers.

Kung Fu Panda 3.  I'm into animated movies. So sue me.  DreamWorks has a wonderful thing going here with KFP and How to Train Your Dragon.  I grew up in the 80s in New York, where you could watch kung-Fu flicks every Saturday afternoon.  I loved that.  The Kung-Fu Panda series is a great homage/spoof of all that nonsensical and fun pseudo-mystical stuff from that era.  And who doesn't love that?

Deadpool.  Another attempt at recreating this character onscreen.  (His first time in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was just... no.). It's amazing what a madcap trailer from a guano-psychotic video.game will do these days.  It seems like this time they managed to capture the essence of the character, a dangerously unstable, fourth-wall breaking, regenerating, cancer-stricken mercenary.  It'll either be really good, or really bad.  I've gotta see it.







Zoolander 2.  If I'm being totally honest, there is no burning desire to see this for me. I thought the first one was funny, but it was also 15 years ago.  My girlfriend wants to see it, so if I want to drag her to see something I want to see, this sacrifice must be made.  You feel me, right guys?

Race. A bit on-the-nose with its title, this follows Jesse Owens and his winning 4 gold medals in the 1936 Olympics... in a very Nazi Berlin with Adolf Hitler watching. Maybe they'll touch on the issues he dealt with at home, being a Black Man from Jim Crow's South.  Worth watching, I think.









London Has Fallen.  Olympus Has Fallen was a fun action movie, no reason to think the next one won't be as well.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.  Tina Fey as a female war correspondent in Iraq.  The trailer's decently funny, and this could be pretty good.  Why not?

10 Cloverfield Lane.  Some years back, JJ Abrams put together a trailer for a found-footage monster movie set in New York City that featured the head of the Statue of Liberty being torn off.  That trailer became Cloverfield, and despite all its promise, it was one of the most disappointing movie experiences of my life.  Since then, JJ has done two Star Trek movies and a Star Wars movie, and I can't help to think he's learned something in the experience.  So I'm going to double down and see this one, which will either be really good or reeeeeallly bad





And that takes me to the end of the winter.  Next time I do this, it will be Summer Blockbuster Season.  Which means, comic book movies.  And there will be reviews.

I Know I Said I Wouldn't Talk About It...

I made a promise to myself that when the book came out, when I would start to promote, I would tone down the political stuff that came out of my head and ended up in my blog.  I would tone down my comments on racism,  I would stop spreading my unsolicited liberal opinion.  I made the conscious decision to make no comment on perceived injustice in this country, in the news, in any viewpoint.  I'm a fiction writer, not a political journalist.  I stopped watching the news, interested myself only in the sports pages.

Unsuprisingly, I've had very little to write in this blog for quite some time.

Then came the Jordan Davis trial.

I heard that Michael Dunn was convicted of everything but murder 1, to the outrage of most.  I didn't understand why, so I read up on the trial.  Horror crept into my mind.  We've got another Stand Your Ground case.

Short version:  White dude drunkenly tells SUV full of black kids to turn their rap music down.  Black kids politely (maybe not so politely) tell him where to go.  Drunk white dude goes thinks someone is pointing a shotgun at him, goes back to his own car, grabs a gun and caps off 10 times into the SUV.  Nine shots hit, one kid dies.

It makes me want to puke writing it.

I'm not even going to talk about the verdict.  That is it's own animal.  I'm going to rant for a second on the horrific racial injustice inherent in the murder and the racist nature of the SYG law in and of itself.  It speaks to an era we convinced ourselves ended when Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington.  It speaks of a mindset people declared over with the election of President Obama.  The idea that you can blast someone when you feel threatened is not universal.  Those kids in the car were threatened.  If they produced a weapon and shot Mr. Dunn, would there be any doubt as to the treatment they would receive in the legal system and in the media? There would be referendum on the violence inherent in rap music, a call to arms to stop this scourge to our youth, and oh yeah, those kids would ALL be put away for life.  Trayvon Martin was shot dead in his own neighborhood because a white guy, who we now know is batsh** crazy, saw his hoodie and decided he was a threat, and for half a minute people blamed the hoodie.

I think we can agree that a law is unjust if it is not or cannot be applied evenly, which was the driving force behind eliminating the "Separate, but Equal" thinking behind the Jim Crow laws.  The Stand Your Ground laws are of the same ilk.  It punishes people for being Black, assigns a threat level to being Black, makes it okay for citizens fearing a phantom menace to police you for being Black, and to what end?  So that we'll tip our caps to every white person walking by and greet them with a "Good mornin' suh" to put them at ease?  So that we'll keep to "our own" neighborhoods with people who look like us and therefore stay where we're supposed to be?

If you've never met me or spoken to me, I'm a threatening looking Black guy -- 6'4", 260 pounds give or take.  I like wearing hoodies.  I like rap music.  Have I signed my own death warrant? Like the quote says, "There ain't much I can do about being big and Black at the same time."

MLK Day and Richard Sherman (or, Just Because Chris Rock Said It...)

Warning: Graphic content follows.  Words and video are in this blog that are nowhere near appropriate for most people to see, say or hear in public.

I'm not a Seahawks fan, but people are way overreacting to Richard Sherman's post-game interview.  He made a fantastic, game-winning, send-your-team-to-the-Super-Bowl play, and immediately after was interviewed about a play he made on a player he didn't like.    The response has ranged from finger-wagging to just plain shameful.

Before I get into the meat of this post, let's start with the source, in my opinion, of the problem.

In 1996, Chris Rock's HBO special, Bring The Pain, famously and hilariously makes the distinction between black people and "niggas."  I'm a fan of Chris Rock.  At the time, it was kinda-sorta more acceptable for black people to refer to other black people as "nigga," or "my nigga."  The rationale was that we took something that was meant to demean and turned it into a insider thing of respect.  Looking back, that was stupid.  But that's not the point.

Chris Rock's famous rant about "niggas" made a specific distinction between "undesirable elements" and normal black people, and through that distinction made it okay for people to use the word who had no business using the words, and using it for its original purpose to boot.  I got into several conversations with my more melanin-deprived friends on the East Coast in the months and years immediately following that HBO special that went something like this: "I fucking hate niggers, they're lazy and unmotivated and steal my stuff and my girl.  Not you though, you're cool."

No.

Just because Chris Rock said it doesn't make it okay for you to say it.

So, flash forward 18 years.  Richard Sherman makes his play.  He has his interview.  Then, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, comes the internet response.


"

Whoa, white dude.  WTF?

For the record, Richard Sherman went to Stanford.  As in, Ivy League.  And he was a 3.9 student.  Which means, even by the Chris Rock definition, he's not.

Wow.  Speechless.  Stay classy, dude.

You can see the rest here.

By no means is this okay.  The N-word isn't cool.  You don't legitimize your "down" ness by spouting it off at every turn.  And there is no distinction.  We're black people, African-American, not niggers.  You don't distinguish, you demean.  Especially when you call someone who's done things, and is doing things, that you can't.  Such as go from a 3.9 at Stanford to the best cornerback in the NFL.

Chris Rock was wrong.

"Urban Legend" Research Blog, Part 2:

In my last post about my progress for my "Urban Legend" project, I delved into what it took to look like a hero, the protective gear a real-world hero would need to tame the streets of a mid-major American city.  Now we leave defense and go straight to the offense.  How do we beat the snot out of evildoers?  The way my masked hero deals out violent retribution says a lot about his personality, his state of mind.

I spoke at length with Renshi Desmond L. Diaz about the subject for two reasons -- one, he's my go-to martial arts expert (5th dan Goju-Ryu), and two, he's my nephew.  To fight crime on the streets of my unnamed city, he suggested Krav Maga.

Krav Maga is unique in that it's designed to be taught and learned quickly.  It's blunt strikes and counter-heavy nature was intended to make ordinary citizens into effective fighters for the conscripted war effort.  The Israelis train their soldiers in Krav Maga, and when you consider that 2 years military service is required of every citizen, you don't want to meet too many Israelis in dark alleys.



In the recent "Batman" movies, Krav Maga is the style Bruce Wayne uses to dole out brutal justice on the streets of Gotham.  These days, Krav Maga is more widely used, taught to military and law enforcement alike, which is perfect for my "could-be-anybody" vigilante.

I also asked my nephew what weapons my hero would need to carry and he broke it down in three words: blades, staves, and guns.  Personally, I don't want to have my hero carrying guns as it doesn't fit the personality I want for this guy, but as for blades, I like the karambit.

The karambit is a Filipino weapon that was originally used for raking roots and threshing plants.  In proper hands it is possibly the deadliest knife available.  The curved blade was inspired by the claws of big cats (tigers, panthers, lions and such).  It's lightweight, easy to conceal, and as shown by the video possesses a certain degree of up close and personal bad-assery.  Batman would be proud.

As staves go, I like escrima sticks.  A friend of mine trains with them and his giddy approval is contagious.  Again, they go with the easy to conceal, easy to carry, and in the proper hands, can be a gleeful tool of attitude adjustment.

So the personality I'm seeking to craft for my hero is one of an up-close killer of killers, one who deals with these people in a manner suggests that they have done something to him personally.  And who knows, maybe they have...

The Debate Worth Having

Earlier this week, George Zimmerman was acquitted for murdering Trayvon Martin in Florida.  In the time between then and now I've run the gamut of emotional responses, starting with anger and outrage, and coming to a point of depression and disappointment.  I realized that I could not be a reporter in this case, as the very personal nature of it would color my writing.  So a week's gone by and now I'm in a clearer head space.  While it may not be as newsworthy as it was a week ago, it's time to weigh in on this subject.

The question, however, is which take is the right way to go?

I could rant on (and on and on) about the fact every argument in the American judicial system is based on precedent, and the fact that Mr. Zimmerman decided to profile an unarmed Black kid, initiate a confrontation, pick a fight, lose the fight and shoot the kid makes that sequence of events okay legally.  When this happens again (and make no mistake, as Americans we are nothing if not repetitive of our mistakes), defense can now point to this as legal precedent.  There has been somewhat paranoid talk of it being open season on young Black males, but with this legal precedent the argument seems a bit less irrational.  This is concerning to me because, well, I'm told I'm huge and there seems to be an overabundance of dark alleyways in this country.

But that's not the tack I'm taking.

I can comment on how unevenly the "Stand Your Ground" law has been applied in Florida as a Black woman fending off her abusive husband and didn't hurt or kill anyone in the act has been sentenced to 20 years in prison while Mr. Zimmerman goes free.  The best case scenario in any personal defense legislation is that the conflict is defused with minimal injury and no loss of life, and yet Marissa Thompson is going to spend the next 20 years in prison.  George Zimmerman will not see another day behind bars.

But I'm not going there either.

In the week since the Trayvon Martin verdict, protests and rallies have sparked bot pro and anti George Zimmerman.  The thing I'm going to say is that George Zimmerman is not a cause.  Neither is Trayvon Martin.  They are people.  One a terribly misguided individual who felt empowered by a stupid law, another a terribly unfortunate young man who died for what amounted to a questionable wardrobe choice in a strange neighborhood.  They are not causes.  They are not to be supported or decried.  They are the obvious representation of a very broken system in which we categorize and classify based solely on preconceived notions on what a criminal looks like.  The real debate worth having is about the concept of a fair and impartial jury, especially when jury for a big case has been inundated with media information by the time they are called that they have opinions already formed.  The debate worth having is  in how we grant the 15 minutes of fame on someone who has to remain anonymous for talking about why she made a decision on the value of one man's life over another.

But like you, I'm tired.  This whole thing has been exhausting.  And all I want to do is turn the page, change the channel and get some rest.

"Urban Legend" Research Blog, Part I: So You Want To Be A Hero...

So I've decided to write about a vigilante hero.

An idea popped into my head borne of my lifelong love of comic books.  You see, when I was sixteen, me and a group of like-minded friends formed Fallout Studios and Magic Pencil Comics.  If you've never heard of either of those, you're excused.  It was a year-long creative project that frequently devolved into marathon video game sessions (Damn you, Virtua Fighter!).  But there were good ideas in that collaboration, several good ideas in fact, and if our sixteen year-old selves lived in the digital age of now, I firmly believe our ideas and digital distribution would make us wealthy teenagers.  Oh well.

Back to the point.  I decided to research how you could practically be a superhero.  This is part one of those results, which is looking the part and being protected.  Seattle has Phoenix Jones, and if you look at his getup, well, Bruce Wayne he's not.  Shockingly, you can play dress-up as a hero for cheaper than you would expect, and the protective gear you would need is pretty common.  Several sports -- major ones at that -- have protective equipment that has evolved from the need to protect the wearer from the impact of abnormally large men moving nearly at freeway speeds, while still being able to maintain mobility and range of motion.  The drawback?  Play hero in the winter or you'll likely die of heat stroke.

First thing's first... the underlayer.

This Nike Padded shirt is obviously football gear.  Dense foam around the rib area helps cushion the compound impact of a 260+ pound man wearing pads and a steel helmet launching himself into your own pads.  The padding makes it less likely to break your ribs in that event.  It's probably a little less useful for stabbing and small arms fire, but there's a solution for that I'll be getting to.  Anyway, this shirt goes for about $80

The Combat Hyper String Girdle, also by Nike ($80), seamlessly adds padding to the all-important kidney area, and when combined with the shirt, extends protective padding through most of your important soft bits.  It also protects the thighs, home of wonderful things like your femoral artery.  While it may not be so good against knives and small arms fire, (a) it's better than nothing and (b) most people trying to kill you will be aiming for your exposed and unprotected chest.

Which brings us to the next logical thing: how to stop bullets.  The Executive Travel Vest ($899) is a Kevlar suit vest, designed for bodyguards and VIPs, designed to stop small arms fire.  Lightweight, breathable, flexible, it allows the wearer to walk around as if he's not wearing a bullet-resistant vest.  It doesn't offer much against knives or assault weapons, but how many criminals have access to AR-15's anyway.  Yes, that was sarcasm.

Football also provides us with Stainless Steel Shoulder Pads ($300), which in this combination, theoretically should take care of the stabbing, shooting problem.  On top of that, it adds an imposing, bad ass figure to said vigilante hero. They don't need to be spiked -- this isn't a Raiders game after all -- but if they can stop prevent a linebacker who runs a 4.6-40 from crushing you with an impact equivalent to being hit by an SUV, they can stop a bullet or a knife.  They naturally have a chest protection element, and allow athletes to move around, so this is of course a natural fit.

You're going to want to protect your joints and Reebok makes elbow and knee pads for hockey that fit the bill.  Lightweight and sturdy plastic protect your elbows and knees from bone jarring impact with the ground... or some punk's face.





Now the one element in a crime fighter's protective gear that is absolutely indispensable is that it has to look cool and menacing at the same time.  To round out the gear and add the cool, menacing factor, we turn to motorcycle equipment.  The Icon Chapter 1000 jacket ($699) is heavy duty leather designed to protect the upper body from road rash in the event of a crash.  Motorcycle jackets also have protective padding in the elbows for the same reason.   And that brings us to the final element in this experiment...

Now what better way to conceal your identity and protect your head than a motorcycle helmet?


There are drawbacks to this get up, of course.  I'll get into that next time, as well as how I'd modify the gear to help mitigate the drawbacks.

Review: Practical Demonkeeping

Christopher Moore is far and away my favorite author.  I own every novel he's written,
read most of them multiple times, and no longer require any information other than the
fact a new one is coming out to pre-order.  Admittedly, I read his often hilarious
works out of order, and it's a good thing.  Had I started with his first published
novel, Practical Demonkeeping, I'd either be incredibly impressed by his evolution over
the last 20 years or I would have been shocked his career lasted this long.  That's not
to say it's a bad book, just not one to hinge the two decades of success he's had.

Set in the fictional small town of Pine Cove, California, Practical Demonkeeping
introduces us to an entire town of slightly-off, small-town characters, all of whom
have slightly-off, small town issues.  From the owner of the local bait shop/general
store, to the workers in the local diner, to the local bar where everyone knows your
name, Pine Cove is an "everyone-knows-everyone" setting.  So when Travis O'Hearn shows
up with his sometimes-invisible demon, Catch, all hell breaks loose.  You see, Catch
eats people, and has been eating people for a very long time, and the sudden
disappearance and death of people in tiny Pine Cove sets the town on its ear.  A djinn
tasked with defeating Catch has also traveled to Pine Cove and aligns itself with the
local bait shop owner, Augustus Brine, and they search for a way to stem Catch's
appetite for destruction.

Moore does a really good job of taking stock characters and making them into a
believable small town. These are characters he re-uses in several of his later works,
which extends the payoff in investing in these characters.  Having read his entire
bibliography, it is difficult to separate this from the larger universe he's created in
Pine Cove, but when you do you find that this story is the weakest of them all.  Again,
not to say it's bad, just to say I'm spoiled by his later work.  I wouldn't recommend
someone new to this author read this novel first.  It is however, worth reading.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Review: No Flesh Shall Be Spared

I wasn't sure about writing this review for two reasons: I don't usually dig zombie books, and the author, Thom Carnell, is a friend of mine.  I read this book a little more than a year ago, however, and loved it despite those very same reasons.  There's no reason, then, to not defy convention.

Carnell's debut novel, "No Flesh Shall Be Spared," places the reader in an interesting situation.  The Zombie Apocalypse happened. It's over and done with.  What happens next?  In this world, there's only one answer: Zombie Pit Fighting!  Contestants are placed in an arena with hordes of the dead, using the weapons at hand, their fighting skills, and their wits to survive.  Winning grants you money and fame.  Losing makes you hungry for flesh.

The story follows the rise of Cleese, the new face of zombie pit fighting, as he is recruited into this lucrative sport and trained in the fine arts of Zombie-killin' for sport.  Cleese is trained by Monk, who essentially plays Mickey to Cleese's Rocky, and sticks to his side as he kills his way to the top.  Along the way Cleese runs afoul of the league's corporate sponsorship and falls in love with a sexy she-slayer.  As the story progresses, we find out background on almost every character with a speaking part through the liberal use of well-placed and well-paced "Before..." chapters, which serve as a look into what it was like at the beginning of the Zombie uprising, a profile on certain characters, and a peek at the origins of America's newest pastime.

No Flesh Shall Be Spared is brash and ballsy, and a fresh take on the Walking Dead scenario we've seen time and time again since the remake of Dawn of the Dead in the last decade.  Take one part Gladiator, one part Night of the Living Dead, and one part Escape from New York, and you have this fun zombie action tale. The only complaints I have are a very slow start and an overuse of f-bombs, but these do nothing to detract from the overall enjoyment of the story.  I started out reading it because the author is a friend.  By the third chapter I was reading because my friend wrote a damn good book.

Noteworthy: Two words:  Zombie Mass.  That is all.

Rating: 9 of 10

The Band-Aid

There has been new legislation put to the House floor regarding violence in video games.

*sigh*

Weeks ago, after the Sandy Hook tragedy, there was a call to at least have a conversation about some of the things involved that led to Adam Lanza taking a gun to an elementary school.  The NRA said they would add something meaningful to the debate.

They didn't.

Instead of blaming the proliferation of assault weapons in this country, the NRA heaped blame on our violent tastes in entertainment, video games and movies to be specific.  In the same breath, he suggested arming our teachers, but let's stick with one thing at a time.

Fact: Violence is pervasive in our entertainment culture.  We see too many movies -- and, yes, video games -- that make gunplay cool.  The neighborhood movie theater in Flatbush, where I grew up, closed in 1999, a week after the premiere of The Matrix prompted some knuckleheads to shoot up the movie theater.  No one to my knowledge was hurt, but it wasn't exactly common knowledge either.  There could be reasons behind that, but I'll save that for another rant.  The makers of Call Of Duty pump out a new version of the game every year, and that is met with fanfare, and long lines of people camping out to be first to buy.  There are very few statements I agree with from the NRA regarding the debate; the nod to our culture of violence is it.

The issue at hand, though, is whether restricting violence in video games is the answer.  As of 1994, in the wake of the Mortal Kombat hullabaloo, game developers were submitting games to the ESRB, a self-regulating board who would determine the level of maturity or objectiveness in the content of the game, and assign a corresponding rating.  Games with violent or other adult content are emblazoned with a giant "M" for mature.  It is then the responsibility of the consumer to either buy the game or not buy the game.  If the consumer is a parent, then they make the decision to buy or not buy the game based on the appropriate rating for their child.  The new legislation mentioned at the top of the blog makes submission to the ESRB mandatory, and game ratings enforced by monetary penalty:  sell a game to someone of inappropriate age, get a $5,000 fine.  I agree with this as well.

What I don't agree with is the notion that real-world violence stems from video game violence.  Since the majority of gamers are under 18, and most likely have games bought for them as gifts by their loving parents, shouldn't it be the responsibility of the parent to (a) screen the game for content inappropriate (by reading the label) and/or (b) educate their children to the difference between fantasy (on screen) and reality (off screen). If we fear our children are being brainwashed into being killers by these damn video games, then undo the brainwashing by stating that the game is just that... a game.  It's not real.  It's not how people should act in a civilized society.  Failing that, the prudent thing to do is DON'T BUY THESE GAMES FOR KIDS!!!  Make them wait until they can buy it for themselves, by either getting a job and learning about the real world, or saving up for it and learning about the real world.

Restricting violence in a video game is a band-aid.  It is at best a stopgap measure to address a byproduct of the problem.  The bigger problem is that it's still easier to get a gun than it is to get a drivers license.  The issue is still that you can get an automatic weapon at Walmart.  The biggest issue in my mind stems from the changing dynamic of the American family.  But that's the subject of another rant.

The Caller (short story)

Hey all...

This is the first short story I've written in a number of years.  I had considered selling it on Kindle or something, but the process is simply too complicated right this second.  There are so many hoops to jump through.  Sigh.  So instead, I will share this story with you, free of charge, right here.  I present to you, "The Caller."

The Caller

Franklyn C. Thomas

    “This is Midnight Hour on WVYR radio, New York, and I’m your host John Benson.”  The deejay’s voice was smooth and laid back, like a weed or cognac buzz, and blended well with the rainy summer night.  “Guess what, y’all?  It’s Friday night, and time for another ‘Fess Up Friday’ on the Midnight Hour, and you know what that means.  For all of you out there who decided to stay in on this nasty Friday night, I’m your conscience.  I’m your priest, I’m your pusher, and I’m your reflection.  So anyone who has something to get off their chest, give us a call at 718-917-WVYR.”  John took a sip of his black coffee, no sugar, and saw a couple of lines light up on the telephone.  “And who do we have tonight, Rosie?”

     Rosie, the pretty, light-skinned woman in the booth with John looked at the computer display that had the name of all the pre-screened callers – or for the cowards, the name they wanted to be called on air – and what they had to say.  “We have Juliette,” she said in a smooth, jazz singer’s voice, registering a perfect C with every word, “and she’s confessing about Spring Break to her parents.”

John flipped on the speakerphone.  “Go ahead, Juliette,” he said in his best soothing voice, calmly sipping his coffee, “What have you got to confess?”

     “Well,” the caller began with a slight Southern twang to her high pitched voice, “this year for Spring Break, I told my parents and my boyfriend I was going to Miami with the girls.”

      “Did you?”

      “No,” she sighed.  “I went to Jamaica, with a couple of dudes I know from school.”  She took another sigh and hesitated for a second.  “We partied a lot, and you know, one thing led to another, and…”

     “Juliette?” John asked.  “Did you cheat on your boyfriend?”

     Juliette was silent on the other line for a moment.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I want him to know that.  I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

     “Is he listening?”

     “I don’t know.  I hope so.”  She took a deep breath.  “I made a mistake,” she said, sounding more relieved.  “I just wanted him to know and hopefully forgive me. Thanks a lot.”  And with that, she hung up the phone.

     “Well, there we go.  Juliette wants to apologize to her Romeo for her indiscretions, and hopes he will forgive her.”  John paused to take another sip of coffee.  “For those of you tuning in, this is John Benson on WVYR radio, 940 on your AM dial in New York, 12:08 AM on the Midnight Hour.  Who’s up next, Rosie?”

     John looked up to Rosie in the production booth.  Her normally cool demeanor was gone as she seemed agitated and distraught.  That’s odd, John thought.  Rosie doesn’t usually clam up like that.

     “We… we have Paul,” she finally said, after a too-long-for-radio silence.  “And he’s confessing to…”  Rosie looked like she was about to break down.

     Without missing a beat, John pressed the button for line 2.  “Go ahead, Paul,” John said.  “We’re listening.”

     “Uh, hello, John.”  Paul’s voice came across shaky and nervous, and was unusually high for a man’s voice.  He can’t be any more than 25, judging from the voice, John thought. 

     Paul took a deep sigh.  “First time caller, long-time listener.”  There was a slight slur in his voice, barely noticeable but definitely there.  “I’m gonna confess something to you, John.”  He sighed again, exhaled deeply.  Wind swirled in the background, and the sound of rain came over the radio like static.

     “Paul,” John said, “where are you?  There’s a lot of static there.”

     “I’m on the roof of my apartment building.  I’m going to jump, but first, I want to confess.  I’ve killed.”

John’s heart jumped into his throat, and threatened to crawl out of his mouth, before he managed to swallow it as well as the urge to say “oh shit.”  He glanced up at Rosie, who still had the terrified and dumbfounded look on her face.  He covered the mic and mouthed call the cops to her.

     “What happened, Paul?” John said after two or three seconds.  “Who did you kill?”

     “I’ve killed, John,” Paul repeated.  “I’ve killed a lot.  I’ve killed dozens of men, women, and children.  Especially children.”

     A chill crept up John’s spine as he heard this.  “By killed, do you mean…”  He hesitated, trying to find a better word than murder.  “Did you commit a crime, Paul?”

     Paul was silent for a moment.

     “Paul?  Are you there?”

     “They shouldn’t have been there,” Paul whimpered, “and I killed them.  I had a good reason, but every time I think about, it don’t seem like that good a reason.”  Paul sniffled a bit.  “I don’t know what to do.”

     “Paul, calm down.  Take me through it slowly.  When did all this happen?”

     “Two years ago,” he said, and choked up.  His breathing was heavy on the line.  

     “It’s okay, Paul,” John said.  “No judgments here.”

     “Two years ago, I was on deployment in Afghanistan.”

     John exhaled low and deep.  “You’re a soldier,” he said.

     “Yes.  A Marine.  Well, I used to be.”  He took another deep breath.  “It was my last day, John, my last day.  I had done three tours, and after they got bin Laden, they started sending us home.  My unit had been embedded for eighteen months, scouring caves for that son of a bitch. Oh!”  Paul cleared his throat.  “Can I-can I say that on the air?”

     John laughed slightly.  “That’s our problem, not yours.  We’re on a four-second delay.”  Paul breathed another deep breath and John leaned back in his seat.  “Please keep going.”

     “After they killed him, God bless those guys, we were called back.  There was no more need for our unit, so we were directed back to Kandahar, and waiting to be sent back home.”  Paul choked up a bit, cleared his throat.  “It’s a beautiful night out, John,” he said.  The slur in his voice was more noticeable now, and John realized his caller was still drinking.

     “Yes it is,” he said.  “What are we having tonight?”

     There was a pause on the other line, and the noises of the street came through loud and clear.  “Single malt, aged 25 years.  My dad gave it to me when I got back.  Tastes like shit, but it’s better than the stuff we had on the base.”  Another pause on the line, and John imagined Paul taking another gulp.  “I was never a scotch drinker, though.”

     “I hear it’s an acquired taste.”  The noise in the background intensified and sirens came through the speakers, mingled in with the raindrops and the rest of the summertime road noise.

     “Are those sirens?”

     “It’s New York at 12:25 in the morning, Paul,” John said.  “Of course those are sirens.”  Paul laughed.  “so what happened?”

     “I was in Afghanistan for eighteen months, John.  Didn’t see any combat, never fired my gun.  There was a war going on, and I was like a bystander.”  Another pause, another swig.  “My unit and I, we were the lucky ones.  One day this kid comes by, a little girl, maybe nine years old.”  Paul stopped again and could be heard sobbing on the air.  He took a breath to compose himself.  “This happened all the time, you know.  Local kids from the city and the villages visiting the base.  It’s not all like what you see on the news, they don’t all hate us.  So this little girl wanders onto the base, and no one pays her any mind until we here a man’s voice yell out ‘Allah Akhbar!’  I was standing maybe, twenty feet from her, and she exploded.”  The sobs were rolling now and Paul didn’t even attempt to hide them.  John felt a tear roll down his cheek as well.

     “Suicide bombing,” John said.

     “It was a little girl,” Paul said.  “Next thing I know, there’s gunfire and before the dust settled four of the ten guys in my unit were dead.  I took one to the arm, one to the calf.  Me and my CO Joe Ryker take cover in the base, we look out and…”  Paul sobbed and hissed through his teeth.  Sirens in the background grew louder.  “Why are there so many sirens going off?” Paul asked.

     “Don’t worry about them,” John said.  “I need you with me, Paul.”

     “Oh, jeez, are they here for me?”  Paul’s breathing grew ragged and heavy.  “They’re coming for me, aren’t they?”

     “Calm down, Paul.”  Some of the smooth went out of John’s voice.  “We don’t want you to do anything rash.  No one’s coming to get you.  Talk to me, man, just keep talking.”  John felt his heart race as he heard nothing but street noise and sirens from the other end.  “Paul,’ he said, more urgently, “are you still there?”

     Ragged breath could be heard through the speakers.  “Yes,” Paul said, panting.  “Yes, I’m here.”  He took a couple more short breaths.  “What’s happening?  Why are there cops here?  Why are there paramedics here?”

     “Sir, stand back from the edge!”  The voice was amplified by a bullhorn and was scrambled by the cell phone’s tiny mic.  It came over the speakers in the booth tinny and distorted.

     “Paul?” John’s voice caught in his throat.  “Paul, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

     “Th-there’s cops,” the young man said.  “Ambulances.” Two short breaths.  “Shit. Did you call the cops?”

     “Paul, you’re on a live radio broadcast, using a cell phone, and you opened with the fact that you killed people and wanted to kill yourself.”  John let that sink in for a moment while he tried to find the right words to avoid telling a lie.  “The police coming to you was inevitable.”

     Over the speaker was a loud bang that sounded like the door to the roof being kicked open.  Yelling came through the speakers and an authoritative voice was clearly heard saying “Sir, step away from the ledge and put your hands on your head.”

     “Paul, are you there?” John said.  None of the cognac buzz remained in his voice and he gripped the microphone in the booth.  “Paul!  Paul, listen to me, no one thinks you’re a killer.  You’re a soldier.  You’re a hero.  Finish your story and the police will understand!”

     “No!” Paul shouted.  “They were kids!  The ones shooting at us were kids from the village, young kids, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old!  Children!”  Paul was openly sobbing into his phone, and by now the sirens had been turned off.  “They sent children in after us.  And we killed them!  Me.  Joe Ryker.  A couple of other guys who were lucky and weren't really hurt.  We shot them all.

     “There was this one kid who saw his friends die.  He looked sick, like he was about to vomit.”  Paul’s voice dimmed to barely above a sobbing whisper.  “He dropped his rifle and got to his knees.  Put his hands up, said ‘surrender’ in English.  I heard it.  I understood it.  I put a bullet in his head anyway.”

     Silence came over the speaker.  The sound of sobbing, of breathing, of sirens and city noise was on mute for a long moment.  “Paul?  Paul, are you there?”

     “They sent me home the next day.”  His voice was unsteady and he sniffled after he spoke.  “There was no investigation.  No inquiry.  They gave us medals.  Freaking Purple Heart.  Every night for the last two years I’ve seen that kid.  Every damn night.  I see him look at me with those big, brown, scared eyes.  I hear him surrender in that shaky voice.  And I… I…”  The line was quiet except for a sniffle every few seconds. 

     “Paul?” John said.  “Listen to me.  You did what you had to do.  It was do or die.  You or them.  Heat of combat.”

     “No!  That’s bull, John!  That boy didn’t have to die!  I shouldn’t have to live with that!  It’s too much!”

     “No one gets out of something like that clean,” John said.  He tried to not shout over his caller, tried to control his voice.  “Not you as a soldier, not us as a country.  That sort of thing changes you.  We don’t blame you, Paul.  You are a hero.”  John took a deep breath to compose himself.  “And don’t let anyone tell you different.  Everything you had to do over there for us, for you, we forgive you.”

     “You can’t forgive me.  You’re in no position to forgive me.”

     “You have a family, Paul?”

     Three more quick breaths came over the line, followed by a long one.  “I was married.  We have a little boy.  She left me.  I couldn’t talk to them, they would never understand, and there’s no way I want my boy to be like me.”

     “Think they forgive you?”

     “They say they do.  But how can they?  How can I ask them to live with this?”

     “How can you ask them not to?”

     A few sobs made their way over the line and died down slowly.  “Did you ever serve, John?”

     “No, sir,” John said.

     A few more sobs came over the line.  “Then-then you can never understand.”  Silence came over the line, then distant shouting.  John heard a cop in that roof yell out “Sir!  Sir! Step away from the ledge!  Sir!”

     “Paul!” John shouted.  “No, don’t do it!”

     The yelling faded and a whooshing sound came over the line.  With a final static smash, the line went dead.

     John shot up from his seat and leaned in close to the microphone.  “Paul!  Paul!  Are you there?  Can you hear me?  Paul!”

     “The call… failed,” Rosie said from the booth.  Tears filled her red-rimmed eyes.  “We can’t seem to get a connection.”

     “Call him back!” John said, pointing at Rosie in the production room.  “Get him back on the line!”

Rosie’s shaky hands dialed the number that just called, and immediately the call went to voice mail.  “Hey this is Paul, leave a message.”

     “No!” John shouted.  He slumped back into his seat.  “No.”  He looked over his shoulder at the red “ON AIR” light and shook his head.  He took a deep breath, pulled up to the microphone and cleared his throat.  “We, uh-“ he wiped a couple of tears from his eyes and cleared his throat again.  “On behalf of WVYR, we would like to apologize to our listeners for that exchange, and we would like to extend our deepest condolences to, uh, the family of Paul.  I’m sorry, we don’t have his last name.”  He took a couple more deep breaths.  “So this is John Benson on ‘Fess Up Friday, and I’m here to say that if you need to confess, to talk tonight, I’m listening.  I’m here.”  The smooth had returned to his voice just in time for the sign-off, and he switched his microphone off.

Copyright 2013 Franklyn C. Thomas

Wanted: Claus, Santa (reprint)

So the song is on the radio at work.

                        You better watch out, you better not cry

                        You better not pout I'm tellin you why

                        Santa Claus is Coming to town.

And here I am, humming along with the song when I realize something; this is a threat.  This is a warning as blatant as any orange alert the federal government placed on New York in the last four years.

 Santa Claus is coming to town.

Now how is this a dire threat, you may ask?  How is an old fat man with a fluffy white beard at all dangerous?  Think about it; every story you hear about the old man has him doing something illegal.  Santa Claus (aliases include St. Nicholas and Father Christmas) should, at least, be in possession of the most speeding tickets ever, and worst be the most wanted international criminal since Jack the Ripper.  He should be the cause of more childhood fear than The Boogeyman in the closet and the monsters under the bed combined.

Think of it; the opening line of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town?"  Sounds like a threat; right there, it's menacing.

Making a list and checking it twice?  Only serial killers do that.

            He sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake?  A Stalker!  A Peeping Tom, for Christ's sake!

But wait, there's more!  A guy who climbs up and down chimneys in the dark of night?  Breaking and Entering.  An old man who likes to give "presents" to kids?  Pedophile.  Accepting “cookies” and “milk” for “presents?”  That sounds a lot like extortion, graft, and corruption.  Flying reindeer in the dead of winter?  Illegal genetic tinkering, and cruelty to animals to boot. The reindeer's hooves on someone's roof should definite count as vandalism and property damage, plus illegal operation of aircraft. A workshop at the North Pole surely violates several international labor laws.  And what exactly are elves?  Small people?  Exploiting the vertically challenged at best, at worst, he's running a sweat shop with kids, not to mention the probability of counterfeit goods being produced. And don't get me started on the "Magic pixie dust" -- isn't that what they called LSD?

And how does he get all around the world in one night?  Sounds like somebody's going a little high on the radar gun.  And those sleigh bells, and the trademark yell of "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night?"  at that hour of the morning on Christmas Eve.  Disturbing the peace, no question.

So parents, tuck your kids away tonight.  Kiss them on their forehead.  And for God's sake, watch out and don’t let them pout.

Santa Claus is coming.  And he's watching you.

RIP Heavy D...

Heavy D died today.

That's a weird thing to say.  He's one of those acts that no one missed or until he was dead.  I mean, if you mentioned him, a certain group of people would be screaming "Ohhh, shit, that was my jam back in the day."  He had his fans, not like Joe Frazier, who died yesterday, and I counted myself among the number.  In the early 90's hip-hop was a different beast on the East Coast.  Instead of violent, crime laden stories, it was a much peppier, lighter fare.  This is the time of my life where "inside-out was wiggedy-wiggedy-wiggedy wack."

Heavy D was a direct connection to my youth, a micro-phenomenon that was contained entirely withing my pre teen years.  Not like Biggie, who will still get airplay to this day, who is still broad-based relevant.  Heavy D's influence is and was felt by a very specific demographic at a very specific time.  No disrespect intended, but a lot of the white kids who know who Biggie or Tupac is, have no idea who Heavy D is, and that's shameful in its own right.

Heavy D was one of the few examples of hip-hop that didn't necessarily glorify denigration or destruction.  It's evident in how he was found.  As of this blog post, the cause of death is still unknown, but there's a very good chance it wasn't violent.  In Old West parlance, he probably didn't die with his boots on.

I remember junior high school very vividly.  I remember we had a teacher, Mr. Gordon, who was a dead ringer for big Heav.  I wonder if he's still teaching.  Or teaching there.

Instead, You Get This

Just as an FYI, this week's blog was going to be a humorous look at my long-standing crush on Gloria Estefan.

Vancouver has become, by proxy, my adopted home. True, I'm an American. True, I live in Washington State. But considering the closest big city to me is Vancouver, it's what I identify with.

I rooted against the Canucks, as a joke mostly, because of the passion of my Canadian friends for hockey. The truth is, I don't follow hockey all that much. I just liked seeing Canadians get pissed off. Until tonight.

I've seen two riots played out in the news in my lifetime. The first was in LA around 1990, when the cops beat the snot out of one Rodney King on video and were subsequently acquitted, and the public outrage led to several days of senseless violence, senseless looting, pointless destruction, and stuff being set on fire. In 1992, a young Caribbean child was accidentally hit by a driven by a Hasidic Jew, bringing long-simmering (and utterly pointless) racial tension in Crown Heights, Brooklyn to a flashpoint, and leading to senseless violence, senseless looting, and inexplicably, things being set on fire. Both Los Angeles and New York had to bear the stigma of being cities filled with barbarians for more than a decade following. People to this day ask me how I managed to survive New York without getting shot.

What i'm seeing on the news is even more appalling. This isn't public outrage at a great wrong being done. This is violence for the sake of violence; sore losers and bullies taking their drunken frustration out on a hapless city, and a cruel misrepresentation of one of the most beautiful cities on the continent to the rest of the world, and all so soon after being so well-behaved during a much bigger Olympic deal. I do understand the passion for the game, the disappointment. To compare, I always say the closest thing I ever get to religion is being a Yankee fan. But in the end, it's just a G*d damn game. These players who represent your city, your actions do NOT honor them.

I was going to talk about a Latina woman who has remained beautiful under the radar for my entire adult life. Instead you get this.