I made it through the holiday, y’all.
Christmas Eve found me a bit crazy though (as my wife will attest)
What can I say, Maker’s Mark bourbon makes me silly.
Go figure.

But, I had fun, ‘kissing-my-brother-in-law on the cheek’ fun.
Yeah, I don’t think he liked it though.
My sister did give me the holiday hat of my dreams though.

We had all kinds of wonderful food to eat, music playing, inspired conversation, barrels of laughter, Rum Swizzles on ice, wine, beer and we were comfortably surrounded by family;
everything one needs to make the season bright.
You can probably tell from the picture at the top of the post which book I’m currently reading
(a present from my 3 wonderful girls)
I love Wally Lamb but his books do take some perseverance to get through.
Not that I’m complaining.
As a Patriots fan, after yesterday, I have lots of time to get my nose stuck in a book anyway.

I have realized that I’ve been seriously slacking in the reading department, something that changes today, not on January 1st.
To write, you have to read.
And today, it started with no conceivable end in sight.
As far as writing goes, reading helps me and pushes me in a forward direction.
I have no doubt that 2009 will be a great writing year for me.
As far as the blog goes, I won’t be very far away but I’ve made some serious creative promises to myself and will try like hell to keep them. (or Laho will kick my arse)
Damn these New Year resolutions.

Will I give up Guinness?
Yeah, right.

Will I give up blogging?
Don’t think so.

Will I cook less Risotto?
Not if my daughters have anything to do with it.

Will I stop smoking cigars?
Puuuhleeese.

It’s a new year and a fresh chance to chase my dreams.
Many will come true this year.
I just have to keep on believing and praying.
Catch all of you in ’09.
I wish all of you the very best that this life has to offer.
The candles are lit and the prayers waiting to be whispered.
Please let me know if you need one.
Happy New Year, folks.
And go easy on the MSG, okay?
My pen is ready.
It’s time to rock, folks . . .

I have caught up on most comments and commented on many blogs.
But I will admit, I have been a bad blogger lately.
Not the worst but definitely not the best.
A very long work week combined with a busy life in general has grabbed me by the cojones.
I am taking a vacation starting at 6PM tomorrow. (EST)
I will be around and plan on posting a few things during the week but, in the words of the AWB,
I have work to do.
I thank all of you for the visits and the comments.
I will visit my folks on the blogroll as well.
No worries.
See you all on the flipside of the blogosphere.
Gonna take Frankie’s advice for now . . .

An emergency service brought to you by me.
Stuck in your writing?
Of course you are.
Then again, aren’t we all?
Found this site and thought that it didn’t hold much promise for me.
I was wrong.
If your writing is as stale as a 7 day-old loaf of bread, click the picture above.
Problem solved. Kinda.
Coolbeaners.

It was a beautiful night as I rode the Red Line into Cambridge.
From my window, the Longfellow Bridge offered up a brilliant panoramic view of Boston’s Back Bay settling into ‘night mode’.
I made my way to the Harvard Bookstore wondering what the evening would hold.
If you like bookstores, you would fall in love with this antique of a shop (est.1932).
I wandered around Harvard Square until 6:30 before going in and purchasing The Ghost in Love.
It was a very intimate setting with @20 chairs set-up.
I grabbed the closest seat to the podium that I could get.
God, I was excited.
The reading started promptly at 7 as Carroll read the first chapter of ‘Ghost’ in its entirety.
A brief Q&A session followed.
I asked him about his advice for ‘Writer’s Block’.
He laughed and said he never had a problem with it.
He answered honestly and to paraphrase said

“Always leave the windows and doors (of the mind) open . . . if they should shut, put the pen down and go cook a meal, take a walk, see a movie, have sex . . . anything but think about writing. Eventually the doors will open.”

He spoke of his craft in a way that was easy to relate to but unique in its approach.
Personally, he could have talked until midnight and I would have stayed.
After being gently prodded to begin the book signing, yours truly was 1st in line.
I did tell him how much he’s inspired me over the years to which he responded with a smile and a genuine ‘thank you’.
He asked my name and we talked a bit as he signed “Ghost” (~a ghost for Michael . . .)
I pulled The Panic Hand from my bag.
He smiled again.
As he thumbed through the first few pages he said, “Ah, First Edition, US. Very nice.”
I told him about the email I’d sent him years ago after winning the book on Ebay as well as my love of his story The Sadness of Detail.
He mentioned how many people really liked that story as he signed my ‘Panic Hand’ book . . .
I shook his hand and thanked him saying I would definitely see him on his next US book tour.
I wondered what it must be like to meet so many people that truly idolize you as an artist.
Carroll takes it in stride and is one of the most down to earth and personable writers you will ever meet.
He will be in California in a few days for anyone on the West Coast that wants a chance to see and hear this brilliant man.
I floated back (a few feet off the ground) to the Red Line and made my way across the Charles to Backbay, opening the two books every five minutes thinking the magical script would suddenly disappear.
This morning I realized just how wonderful last night really was.
It’s always nice when a dream comes to fruition.
And Vienna waits . . .

Click on the book for a little surprise!

ps. saw Stephen King again yesterday as well.
What a day for authors . . .

This post is approximately 5 years in the making . . .
I’ve been an avid fan of writer Jonathan Carroll for the better part of ten years and have read almost everything the man has written. Although he’s relatively unknown in some literary circles he possesses an almost cult following for many readers, like me.
It was January 10, 2004 (my birthday) that I happened to find a rare book by Carroll floating about on Ebay.
It was called ‘The Panic Hand’, a collection of short fiction.
The item on Ebay was listed as ‘first edition, hardback, excellent condition’.
For whatever the reason, I had to have this book.
If you’re a reader, you understand the desire and obsession.
I began bidding and got into a war with someone that wanted the book almost as much as I did.
As I said, almost.
I was working that night and gave my wife instructions to place a bid of $60.00 about 30 seconds before the auction ended. If the book was destined to be mine, then so be it.
I ended up winning the auction and the book was mine.
I’m looking at it as I type this.
‘The Panic Hand’ has some of the best short fiction I think I’ve ever read especially a story called, ‘The Sadness of Detail’, my personal favorite.
Seeing that it was a first edition book, I wanted to have it signed and began looking for the next time Carroll would be in the states.
Sadly, I came up empty-handed and sent him an email inquiring about his schedule (and the fact that I had just purchased a first edition of said book and would love to have it signed).
To my surprise, I received a reply back from him that same afternoon.
He thanked me for writing and said that he didn’t get over to ‘this side of the pond’ too often seeing that he lives in Austria but suggested I keep an eye on his website for future visits.
In my email, I also mentioned how much I loved his story, ‘The Sadness of Detail’ asking where the inspiration came from. He wrote that the story was a ‘very old friend’ and one of his favorites but the inspiration for it escaped him at that time . . . but that he would be happy to sign the book should we ever meet.
Well, folks, next Tuesday night I’ll be going to Cambridge to the incredible Harvard Bookstore to listen to Carroll read from his new book, ‘The Ghost in Love’.
He’s doing a short Q&A session and a signing after that.
And yes, I plan on asking him about how he deals with ‘Writer’s Block’.
I will happily buy a copy of his new book and have it signed and hopefully be able to tell him just how much he’s inspired me in my own writing, although I write in a very different genre.
Then I will plead with him ask him to sign ‘The Panic Hand’ and hope he smiles.
Judging from the tone in his email, I should be one damn happy writer this time next Tuesday night.
Look for a follow up post.
If you haven’t read anything by this brilliant man, at least visit your local library and take something out.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Don’t sound too excited, do I?

When I was 9 years old I had a favorite paperback book called “Stories from the Twilight Zone”, a book of short stories based on the skin and bones for sketches produced on the TV program of the same name.
I had a favorite called “Walking Distance”, the story of a tired middle aged business man that leaves the big city one weekend and simply drives in an effort to get away from his job and the Rat Race in general.
His car breaks down and he gets towed to a local garage for repairs when he sees a road sign for the town he grew up in years ago.
He asks how far it is to the town and is told, “It’s walking distance.”
He enters the Twilight Zone and walks into his hometown of 40 years ago where his mother and father are still alive.

It’s funny that I was falling for these kinds of tender stories when I was ten.
Yeah, I was a weird kid, huh?
Much of my writing loosely falls into the same sentimental category. Go figure.
I started thinking about the last good day I had with my mother and father, sadly the memory has vanished deep into the recesses of my own scattered mind.
The ‘moment’ did happen though when I came to a realization that I could never get those moments back; accepting the idea was painfully difficult but I knew it had to be done.
It occurred to me that I began saying goodbye to the individual pieces of both of them, various facets of their personalities, phrases they often used and the stories they loved to tell.

I remember fruitlessly trying to pull my mother back into my world with my “remember when” queries that all too quickly lost their magical powers.
If I’ve learned anything at all from their tragic situation it’s that life is about seizing moments, grabbing them by whatever means possible and never ever letting them go.
I only wish I’d realized that fifteen years ago, wish I’d accepted their fates sooner, if that makes sense.
But I’m only human and I desperately wanted to believe otherwise.
If I could have several more hours with both of them it would be spent on the back deck of the ‘Goodbye House’.
It would be a warm but comfortable summer night with nothing but a cricket soundtrack and a deep, orange creamsicle sunset off to the West.
My father would be standing by the grill wearing his signature wrinkled Bermuda shorts (or were they seersucker? God forbid), sans shirt with his pot belly exposed to the world with a can of Busch beer in his hand as he flipped burgers and hot dogs.
My mother would be flitting around the kitchen like some culinary Tasmanian devil putting the finishing touches on one of her ‘signature’ desserts.
We wouldn’t be talking about anything in particular; it would just be like it once was.
But it would be different to me because I would mentally file away and lock every smile, every laugh, and every taste and smell living inside that one bittersweet summer evening.
And I would remember all of it again, if I had one more chance.
Maybe the truth of the matter is that those memories are never very far away; in fact they’re easily accessible because wherever I am, ‘home’ is always close by.
Actually, it’s walking distance . . .

~m

Most of the time I’m able to let the daily bullshit and banter sift through the cranial grates inside my cue ball noggin but on occasion I get a difficult clinker that won’t pass through.
I have to take it out and look at it and figure out why I can’t mentally digest it.
Case in point: the other night I was surfing the net for the latest in the way of books on Alzheimer’s disease; a simple and innocent task, right?
Imagine my surprise (and horror) to find a book titled “Alzheimer’s for Dummies”.
Needless to say, my searching was over for the night.
I’d found a seriously incongruous clinker that fueled my rage against the literary machine.
I was livid.
This was a subject much too close to home for me and to see it reduced to a ‘manual for dummies’ format personally devastated me.

“Dummies” manuals cover a range of topics: Chess, Poker, MSWord, Windows Vista and Grammar, to name but a few.
But Alzheimer’s disease?
Personally, it was unthinkable.

Why not “Breast Cancer for Dummies”?
How would that go over?
Believe me, I know.
I’ve lost too many friends to the disease and I would be outraged at the total lack of compassion and sensitivity used in publishing such a book.

Never mind.
What the hell is going on here?
I must be losing my mind.

I’ve checked out the contents of the AFD book and I’ve no doubt the author’s intentions were good.
But . . .
So this is what’s it’s come to?
Christ in a sidecar, I’m almost speechless here.
File this one under “roll up that manual and insert forcefully into your keester, sideways“.
But maybe there’s a “Dummies” guide for that as well.
Hey, if ICHC can get a book deal, why the hell not these buttmonkeys?
IMHO, those suffering from this disease deserve an apology from these inconsiderate ‘Dummie’ assholes.
Do I know what I’m talking about here?
Yes, I think I do.
All too well . . .

~m

I am currently reading two books: “Book of Shadows” by James Reese and “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” by Alice Munro.
I always have several in the backpack.
The count was three as of earlier this evening before I finished
“When God Winks” by SQuire Rushnell, a belated birthday gift from my sister
(actually, wicked belated ).
WGW is a book that explores the deeper meaning of coincidence in our lives.

God Wink ; a personal signal or message, directly from a higher power, usually, but not always, in the form of a coincidence

My sister bought it for me simply because she and I are intensely familiar with God Winks.
There’s this.
Or this.
Or this.

The book goes on to explain that these instances of coincidence (or serendipity, if you like that better) are signposts from the heavens that we’re on the right track; cosmic signals that we are not alone.
I’ve had many “winks” in my lifetime.

A few years after I began writing, I entered a contest at Writer’s Digest.
Ten people could win $100 in WD writing books and a year’s subscription to Writer’s Market, a WD site that helps find a home for that oh, so lonely priceless manuscript.

Months passed and I forgot all about the contest BUT I was still writing.
I remember sitting at the computer one day and staring at the damned blinking cursor thinking, “What the hell am I doing? I can’t write. This is stupid.”
Feeling disgusted and totally unoriginal, I closed Word and checked my email.
Spam.
Spam.
Spam.
Word of the Day.
Spam.
Writer’s Digest.
Writer’s Digest?
Hmmm.
I opened the email and started yelling.
I won.
Ask my wife. I NEVER WIN ANYTHING. Truth.
A wink to be sure.
And hey, I’m still writing, right?
Now I pass the pen to you guys. I love coincidence and I love winks.
Tell me about one.
Come on, now. You have at least one if you really think about it.
I know for a fact that Kelly and Maureen have had a few.
Hell, Annie, too.
How about it guys?
One wink for the gipper? (I’m trying to say that with an Aussie accent)
~m

Ps. Sis, the book was bloody brilliant. I could have written it myself . . .

I was sent an email from my good writing friend Deb Woehr.
The email had some truly amazing pictures.
I sent it to many people.
If you didn’t get a copy, leave a comment and I’ll send it on to you.
What amazed me ( and my wife) was the picture above.
I swear to God, it looks exactly like my male cat, Sherlock!
Maybe it’s his identical twin; a feline doppelganger of sorts.
Too cool.
I’m off next week and plan on reading, writing, drinking some beer, smoking some good cigars, watching some movies, raking some leaves and cooking alot.
(a pot of Guinness Chili is already on my mind)
Sarah has been bugging me for Chicken Parm. (on its way, for sure)
I’m off starting Sunday but on Monday I truly start my “vacation” with a massage from my good friend and fellow blogger Yvonne.
Good God, I can’t wait. {and she knows that :0)}
Not sure what’s up for the blog but chances are I’ll be around in some capacity.
Have a great weekend, folks.
Go Sox! Go Pats! Go Celts! Go Bruins!
It’s great to be from New England these days . . .

~m

About “No Reservations” . . .

I’ve read some bad film reviews in my life but nothing can top what folks are saying about this rotten turd of celluloid.
Just had to share this.

“No Reservations” has garnered comments such as this from
Shawn Edwards of Fox TV:

“The most delightful film of the year!”

and from Bonnie Laufer of Tribute TV

“Irresistible and charming. The PERFECT DATE movie.”

and from Gene Shalit
(Does anyone really believe this mustachioed whackjob anyway?)

“A Pleasure”
(thank, Gene. Now take care of the caterpillars mating on your forehead)

I want to set the record straight with a few choice comments from a weekly paper here in Boston. You can click HERE to get to the WeeklyDig but right now the site is suspiciously under construction. [BRB]
I’ve read reviews here before and have to say they’re usually outrageous and downright true.
And no, I haven’t seen the movie, but damn, this was funny . . .
Here are a few choice comments from David Wildman of the Dig:

“Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart go through the motions of pretending to be real humans with actual feelings, all the while displaying the depth and emotional resonance of the underwear models in a Sears circular.”

Nice.

“Watching this film is the cinematic equivalent of taking that dreadful feeling you have just before you know you’re going to barf and prolonging it for 90 minutes.”

You know that feeling?

Wildman goes on and on but I think you get the point; do yourself a favor and take No Reservations off your menu immediately before someone else gets sick.
Just wanted to save you a few bucks.
Hey, there’s always NetFlix, right?

~m