The Way 2008 Crumbles, Cookie-Wise

Whatever you're doing, whether it's sipping beer and gnawing on a fried chicken leg in front of the TV, or wishing Ms. Kubelik were with you instead of that philandering bastard Sheldrake, or straining spaghetti with a tennis racket while you down the dregs of someone else's martini, or running out to the store for a last-minute order of those little cheese crackers you used to keep around the place... Secret Dead Blog wishes you a Happy New Year.

Me? I'll be hanging out with the Bride, the Brood, and a priest who loves to shoot guns, drink scotch, and talk about exorcisms. (It's a kind of a family tradition.)

See you on the flipside...

My Favorite Read of 2009 (so far)

I know, I'm a day early. But I picked up Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper yesterday at Barnes & Noble, suckered in by the cover (along with a faint recollection of hearing about this novel at some point) and sucker-punched by these opening lines:

So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me! Naturally there's a gun.

What follows is a raw, funny, violent thrill ride that blends two great tastes that are rarely tasted together: the medical thriller and the mob novel. (With a little bit of World War II revenge story thrown in for good measure.) You've got the medical- geekspeak of Michael Crichton mixed up with some fine, in-your-face attitude a la Don Winslow or Charlie Huston, sometimes in the same sentence:

I'm thinking too slowly to deal with the Squillante problem, though, so I crush a Moxfane with my fingertips and snort it out of the declivity you can make at the end of your wrist by sticking your thumb out as far from your hand as it will go.

Beat the Reaper is packed with great little weird throwaways like this. It's one of those rare novels where voice is king, and man, what a voice. Bazell also does a neat trick with a split narrative: present day events in the present-tense, and chapter-long flashbacks in past tense... which sounds like a mess, but he pulls it off beautifully. There's no pretentious, ooh-ma-look-at-me writing, but there is plenty of seriously smart writing, the kind that makes writers stop reading for a minute and seethe with jealousy. (At least this writer did.)

If you received any bookstore gift cards over the holidays, I heartily recommend exchanging some of them for this kick-ass novel.

In the Words of English Glam Rockers Slade...

... Merry Xmas, Everybody. Hope you find happiness waiting for you under the tree. And sometimes, happiness is a blue leisure suit.

Out Today: Iron Fist 3099

Rail vodka? Check. Cigs? Check. Lottery tickets? Check. Cardboard money envelopes for bratty nieces and nephews? Check. Immortal Iron Fist #21: Wah-Sing Rand and the Mandate of Heaven? What? You mean you haven't picked up this year's must-have Christmas Eve stocking stuffer? What's wrong with you, man? Have you no holiday spirit? Do you have a lump of dead tissue where your heart should be? Get to your local comic shop and take care of this immediately. (Yes, they're open today. Perfect for last-minute gifts!)

Buying the Kielbasa

Finally, Secret Dead Blog enters what I like to call the "Bill Crider Age."

More than two years ago, Mr. Crider brought the wonderful world of internet video to crime fiction, taping snazzy 15 to 30 (maybe even 60) second interviews with everyone from Allan Guthrie (who was caught shopping for a pink baby t-shirt) to Joe Lansdale to Victor Gischler to... well, a whole bunch of cool people.

It was fun. We all dug it.

Now that the Secret Dead Blog Family camcorder has died and gone to heaven (literally... the damned thing only records images bathed in this blazing white light), I bought a modern-day replacement: one of those Flip HD cameras everybody's yapping about. Our Flip arrived today, and as promised, I was shooting video within seconds. Above is a 13-second sample, shot at the Lachowitz Polish Market in Bridesburg, where the Secret Dead Blog Family was engaged in the biannual purchasing of the kielbasa (both fresh and smoked). Not bad for a tiny hunk of plastic, huh?

And... it's in the glory of HD. Does Crider bring you footage in HD? I think not.

Anyway, this is but a mere taste of what (probably) awaits you in 2009: short clips of weird shit shot on the Flip HD. I'll probably share some scenes from the Goodis Memorial in January. Definitely some clips from New York Comic Con in February. And beyond that... who knows? As they say, stay tuned.

A Goodis Gathering

Aaron Finestone asked me to pass this along: an invitation to a graveside memorial service for Philly noir legend David Goodis. (I'll definitely be there.)

"January cold came in from two rivers, formed four walls around Hart and closed in on him." —Black Friday

The night of January 25 is the anniversary of the death of David Loeb Goodis according to the Hebrew Calendar. In honor of the Great Philadelphia Noir Writer, Louis Boxer and Aaron Finestone are staging a gathering to remember David Goodis on the afternoon of January 25 at Roosevelt Memorial Park, 2701 Old Lincoln Highway, Trevose, PA 19053 (215-673-7500), just over the Bucks County line from Philadelphia. The grave is located at Section B-3, Lot 324, Grave 3.

After David's funeral, friends gathered at the Toddle House to remember David's outrageous humor and recount his devoted friendship. The Toddle House---at Broad and Belfield Streets in Logan---is now a vacant lot. We will re-enact the apres-funeral lunch at the Club House Diner, 2495 Street Road (between Knights and Mechanicsville Road, 215-639-4287) in Bensalem, a few minutes from Roosevelt Cemetery.

The memorial begins at 2 p.m. The luncheon begins at 3 p.m. At graveside we will read excerpts from David Goodis' coldest, most gripping works.

If you would be interested in attending, would you please email us (lboxer1@gmail.com and microbrewjournalism@gmail.com). Your email would not be binding. We just want to give an estimate to the restaurant.

What better way to spend a cold January afternoon.

Looking forward to seeing you January 25.

Hard Case Goes Widescreen

I love this cover to next September's Hard Case Crime release, Losers Live Longer, by Russell Atwood. HHC honcho Charles Ardai writes in his most recent e-mail newsletter:

The book will be printed and bound the ordinary way, but in order for you to read the cover properly you'll need to hold the book sideways. (There are a few examples of sideways covers back in the pulp days, and we thought it would be fun to do one in our line.)

I know that the Regency Books edition of Jim Thompson's The Grifters was printed sideways, but can anyone remember any others?

Probable Claus

If only there was a Punisher who, instead of waging a one-man war against the mob, waged a one-man war against drunk idiots who dress up like Santa Claus and chant "Ho Ho Ho" as they roam the streets of New York Fucking City. Because that would be cool to watch.

Has Anyone Ever...

... seen a character in a movie/novel/story/comic die by being impaled on a spire of St. Pat's Cathedral? Because... I mean... well, will you just look at that damned thing from 67 stories up?

Someday, Son, All of This Will Be Yours

For the record, the view from the Top of the Rock is fairly damn sweet. The kids were fascinated/terrified, which, to me, is what family holiday trips are all about.

Punishing Times

I know, I've been slow on the updates lately. I owe you an Iron Fist annotation. But I've been under the deadline gun all week, and the next few days look like more of the same. (It's been so bad, it looks like I won't even have a chance to see Punisher War Zone before it disappears from theaters.) So in the meantime... enjoy Dave Johnson's sweet cover from Punisher: Frank Castle #69, the fourth issue in my arc, "Six Hours to Kill." (And thanks to SDB reader Arsh Dhadwal for tipping me off to it early.)

Car Wars

There's a quick post over at Mystery*File (one of my favorite crimegeek sites) comparing James Sallis's kick-ass Drive and my own bank heist novel, The Wheelman. Both were published October 2005, thereby damning my novel to be known as "the other bank heist novel published in October 2005." But I'm very happy with Ted Fitzgerald's review, which you can check out right here.

Fight the Future

Today's new comics day (yes, on Thursday, no thanks to Thanksgiving), so be sure to pick up your copies of Cable #9 and Immortal Iron Fist #20.

I know budgets are extra tight these days, so huge thanks to all of you who spend the money on my stuff anyway, month after month.

Meanwhile, there's totally free sneak peak at Iron Fist #21 (a stand alone set in 3099) over at Marvel.com, as well as me nattering on about it. (Did I just use the word nattering?) Anyway, it hits Christmas Eve. Can you think of a better stocking stuffer for the nerd in your life?

My Childhood is Moldy

Behold: my birthright. It's a Tyco train set, along with a half-dozen or so plastic models of buildings. (There's a farm, gas station, split-level home, factory, church... in other words, the essentials.) Best as I can recall, this little fake town was set up under our family Christmas tree from Christmas 1972 until the early 1980s. Eventually we stopped setting up, though it seems to have made a reappearance somewhere around 1990, as evidenced by a set of tickets for a live Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle show I found in the box. (I have no idea. Must have been something my sisters attended.) I think about this train set around this time of the year, when we drag the Christmas decorations out of garage. I think: Man, I should ask my Dad if he still has that train set. Nothing reminds me of Christmas like that set.

Turns out, the Bride did the asking for me, and today, she carried three small, wet, moldy boxes into our house. My birthright.

I didn't know it was mine, but my Mom told the Bride the set had been purchased for me when I was a baby. So I was welcome to it.

Like everything from childhood, the set was a lot smaller than I remembered. I was imagining this huge, elaborate townscape... but instead, it's a fairly small collection of trains and models. And they were very wet. I don't know if they were left out in the rain one night or countless nights. Right now they're drying out in the laundry room.

I have serious doubts about the trains working. The model houses (the gas station especially) needs some hot glue and love. But I'm determined to set everything up this year under our tree, just so that someday I'll be able to bequeath a few small, wet, moldy boxes to my own son.

And the circle of life continues...