Steve Hockensmith's blog

Hammer Time!

You'll find a lot of talk on the Interwebs about the future of publishing, and it's pretty common to see the big New York publishers compared to antiquated tradesmen. They're buggy manufacturers in the age of the automobile or sail makers in the age of the steamboat or butter-churn upholsterers in the age of Country Crock.

Or they're blacksmiths -- you see that one a lot. But I'd like to hijack that analogy and apply it to myself. As a writer going it alone in the age of the ebook, I'm feeling sort of blacksmithy, you see. Things might have seemed kind of quiet around here -- my last novel came out more than a year ago -- but hark! Do you hear that? The slow, steady bang of metal hitting metal? That's me, alone in my little shop, pounding away at something until it feels just right. Meanwhile, I've got half a dozen irons in the fire. And a couple are finally warm enough to do something with.

Iron #1: I have a new short story collection out. It's called Blarney: 12 Tales of Lies, Crime & Mystery. Those of you who bought my ill-fated fundraising ebook My Dog Needs Surgery (and a heartfelt "Thanks!" to all 17 of you) will recognize a few of the stories. Ditto loyal readers from my days as a regular contributor to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. You can read a full description of the book -- including a rundown of all the stories in it -- here. It's available both as an ebook and an old-fashioned dead tree-book, so you have no excuse not to buy it. Well, except for "I don't want it," which is a pretty darned good excuse, actually. If your excuse is "I don't want to pay for it," that won't work -- because I'll give it to you. You'll have to earn it, though. Just go to the Amazon (preferably) or Barnes & Noble.com page for one of my earlier short story collections (Dear Mr. Holmes or Naughty), hit that silly, seemingly pointless "Like" button (if you're on Amazon) and then post a review. Do that, and I'll send you Blarney in the e-format of your choice. Oh, and I'll send you an e-copy of the book if you're a blogger who wants to review it, of course. Just shoot a request to the e-mail address you'll find here.

Iron #2: Speaking of Naughty (and I was just a moment ago -- remember?), it's not just an ebook anymore. It's finally available as a printed-on-paper book-book. And, boy, do I love the new cover! It was created by the mega-talented Rick Forgus of Atomic Werewolf Studio, and I think it's one of the best covers I've ever lucked into. If it inspires you to buy a copy of the book, you can do so here or here.

Irons #3-12: Sorry -- still not hot enough! But just listen.

Bang....

Bang....

Bang....

Bang.........

And We LIKED It That Way

I haven't told anyone to get off my lawn lately or subjected friends and family to long, graphic updates on my lumbago. So I think I've earned an old fart rant.

Don't worry. It's not about politics -- though, by cracky, I would love to give those skunks and scalawags in Washington a piece of my mind! Unfortunately, I need every piece of my mind I've got left. One less neuron, and I won't remember my own name, let alone where I left my wallet.

Good thing you don't need a brain to watch television -- it can really get in the way, in fact -- because that's the subject at hand. My premise: Back in the day, we didn't always get to watch what we wanted on TV...and that made it better!

If I could've programmed my own station when I was 10, it would've run Star Trek all day every day with the exception of Saturday morning, which would be given over to Challenge of the Super Friends, old Warner Bros. cartoons (though none with that cocky bastard Road Runner) and maybe some Scooby-Doo (pre-Scrappy vintage, natch).

But of course I didn't have my own TV station. (The FCC wouldn't grant me a broadcasting license. Like I said: Scalawags!) So I had to make due with the stations we had. All four of them. None of which ran Star Trek. Ever.

And you know what? I'm glad. For one thing, if I'd actually seen "The Way to Eden" or "The Paradise Syndrome" when I was 10, I would've instantly devoted my life to Star WARS, and years later The Phantom Menace would've sent me into therapy instead of merely making me grumpy. More importantly, I wouldn't have found other things to watch.

Because I couldn't just pull out a DVD of my favorite show, I watched The CBS Late Movie, which is how I discovered Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Avengers (the quirky English spies, not the Marvel men in tights). Because I couldn't look up what I wanted on YouTube or Amazon Prime or Hulu, I watched the old black-and-white movies my dad loved -- and I grew to love them, too. Because we didn't have Netflix Instant Gratification, I was forced to make due with TV shows and movies that were actually 10 times better than what I thought I wanted to watch.

It's Netflix that got me thinking about all this, actually. Over the last year or so, I've seen a lot of online grousing about how limited the company's offerings for instant viewing are. To which I say this:

[Stands up slowly, totters forward a few steps, shakes fist, stamps cane]

WAH WAH WAH!!! CRY ME A RIVER, YOU BIG BABIES!!!

No, you won't find the latest Hollywood blockbusters in your Instant queue. But what you could find, if you had a drop of curiosity in your body, are some great films and TV shows you might never have tried if you could just watch Jack and freakin' Jill instead.

In the last few months, I've seen fun flicks I'd never heard of (Rope of Sand, No Name on the Bullet, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Bad Company, Pulp, Ulzana's Raid, It's in the Bag), fascinating science shows and documentaries I probably wouldn't have rented (How the Universe Works, How Does the Brain Work?, Being Elmo, Shut Up Little Man!, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Cropsey, Reel Injun, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project), funny comedies I was vaguely aware of but hadn't sampled (Father Ted, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, The Whitest Kids U' Know) and some mind-blowing crap (Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Birdemic: Shock and Terror).

Oh, and I've watched a few Star Trek episodes, too. Because Netflix offers every Star Trek show ever for instant viewing. Which means the dream of my youth has come true. And you know what?

Usually, I'd rather find something new.

Not-So-Super Heroes

WARNING: The following essay contains the words "asshole," "prick," "damn," "dick," "dickishness," "son of a bitch," "assholes" (plural), "dick" (again) and "tool." If you are offended by such language, you should've stopped reading after the first "asshole" in this warning.

It's a good thing Raymond Chandler's dead. For one thing, if he were alive he'd be 123 years old, and I can't imagine that would be much fun. For another, even if he'd only lasted to 116 or so, I might've actually met him (assuming they were still wheeling him out at mystery conventions), and I'm glad that never happened.

Chandler, you see, is one of my heroes. He also seems to have been a colossal asshole. The little I've read about Chandler makes him sound like a mean drunk who was never sober long enough to be nice. If our lives had overlapped, I think there's a good chance he would've been a prick to me, or to one of my friends, and then all those wonderful books would be ruined for me forever.

I can't say I'm glad Kurt Vonnegut's dead -- the world was a better place with him in it -- but I will say this: I'm damn glad the guy wasn't my dad. And that's too bad, because he's an even bigger hero to me than Chandler. Vonnegut's my biggest hero, actually, and has been for 30 years. And yup -- the guy was a dick.

Or so Charles J. Shields would have me believe. I just finished reading Shields' new(ish) biography of Vonnegut, And So It Goes, and, alas, starting on page 82 there seemed to be dickishness in every other line. That's because it's on the bottom of page 82 that Vonnegut gets married for the first time. Though he could certainly be a son of a bitch away from home -- after his career took off in the late '60s, for instance, he betrayed and abandoned the two editors who'd kept him going through the lean years -- it was with his family that Kurt Vonnegut, Bastard, reigned supreme.

He was selfish. He was demanding and temperamental. He was irresponsible, untrustworthy and a bit of a phony. He was mean. He was, in short, everything Kurt Vonnegut the author told us not to be. Which made him a hypocrite, too.

So I'm grateful that when I did meet Kurt Vonnegut, it happened like this: I found one of his books in the school library and I took it home and I read it and I loved it. (In my memory, the book was Breakfast of Champions, but it's hard to imagine a teeny little high school in West Virginia having a book with drawings of "wide open beavers" and assholes on its shelves. But if I'm remembering correctly, then "SAAAALLLLL-UTE!!!" to you, Bridgeport High School.)

I quickly read every Vonnegut book I could. They were funny. They were worldly and wise. They were outrageous, sad and sincere. They were kind. I truly believe they helped make me a better person, and how many books can you say that about?

About 200 pages into So It Goes, I had a scary moment. I've been slowly working my way through Vonnegut's oeuvre the last few years, rereading (and, for the most part, still loving) books I hadn't picked up in decades. But this week, thanks to Shields, I had to stop and ask myself: Can I read this dick anymore? Have his books been ruined for me?

The moment passed, I'm happy to say, and I'm looking forward to revisiting Deadeye Dick or maybe Mother Night next. Kurt Vonnegut, human being, tool, is dead. Yet Kurt Vonnegut, author, hero, will live on and on and on. And for that I'm very, very glad.