Full Disclosure

All right, I've been in a funk. Just have, just the way things go. And as I start to come out of it, I have to tell you, I'm kind of blogged out. Too much to keep up with, too many to read. Not enough to talk about, and too much of a pain to link to.

So this site is going to slow way down. That's not to say I'm going to stop doing it. But it's not going to be a regular thing. Maybe once a week? Other people get away with it, so why can't I, right?

So keep checking, keep joking, keep having fun. But I'm not going to be around as much.

And you know what? The last 9 days without posting have been kind of liberating.

I'm catching up on some much needed TV.

Oh, and writing. Lots of writing.

Anyway, I have some exciting public stuff in the pipeline, so keep your eyes peeled.

Boy Oh Boy

This blog has gotten stale, hasn't it?

I should just let someone else take over for a while or something, because Lord knows I got nothing at the moment.

Nothing at all.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Damn

I have two great titles for stories, but no stories to go with it. Hate that. (Yeah ten minutes ago it was just one title.)

Trivia Answer from the other day... Hideki Matsui hit two grand slams in 2003, his rookie year.

JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ

Randy Johnson gets thrown out in the 2nd inning of the Yankees game vs. Toronto for arguing balls and strikes.

And I'm home on a Friday night for the first time in quite a while.

Update: In the fifth inning, the Yankees are up 11-3. I'm not too upset about being home on a Friday, just odd to be home for the first time in a while. And I'm freakin' tired.

Yankees trivia: Before last night's shot by Robinson Cano, who was the last Yankee rookie to hit a grand slam?

Update 2: The Yankees survive 11-10. I finished Catch 22 tonight, after 2 1/2 weeks of reading it. Not a bad novel. Not my favorite novel either, but not a bad novel. I can see why it's a classic. (That could possibly be the most snooty sentence I've ever written.)

Pizza

Tastes good.

Life

More often than not life is just a paranoid ball of bullshit for me.

I Wish I had Something Brilliant to Say

But I don't. In fact, I really have nothing of note to say right now.

Though, if you keep Thursday Januaray 5th at 7:30 in the evening free. I will be appearing at the Kenilworth Public Library to promote the anthology: The Adventure of the Missing Detective and 25 of the Year's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories.

So, I got that going for me.

Which is nice.

Cheer up Post

After yesterdays depression: (this is actually the song I got pulled over to in Ohio.)... but still...it's peppy and not 9/11.

SOMEDAY I'LL BE SATURDAY NIGHT
Hey, man I'm alive
I'm takin' each day and night at a time
I'm feelin' like a Monday but
someday I'll be Saturday night
Hey, my name is Jim, where did I go wrong
My life's a bargain basement, all the good shit's gone
I just can't hold a job, where do I belong
I'm sleeping in my car,
my dreams move on
My name is Billy Jean, my love was bought and sold
I'm only sixteen, I feel a hundred years old
My foster daddy went, took my innocence away
The street life aint much better, but at least I get paid
And Tuesday just might go my way
It can't get worse than yesterday
Thursdays, Fridays ain't been kind
But somehow I'll survive
Hey man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time
Yeah I'm down, but I know I'll get by
Hey hey hey hey, man gotta live my life
Like I ain't got nothin' but this roll of the dice
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night
Now I can't say my name, and tell you where I am
I want to roll myself away, don't know if I can
I wish that I could be in some other time and place
With someone elses soul, someone elses face
Oh, Tuesday just might go my way
It can't get worse than yesterday
Thursdays, Fridays ain't been kind
But somehow I'll survive
Hey, man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time
Yeah I'm down, but I know I'll get by
Hey hey hey hey, man gotta live my life
I'm gonna pick up all the pieces and what's left of my pride
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night
Saturday night Here we go
Some day I'll be Saturday night
I'll be back on my feet, I'll be doin' alright
It may not be tomorrow baby, that's OK
I ain't goin' down, gonna find a way, hey hey hey
Hey man I'm alive I'm takin' each day and night at a time
Yeah, I'm down, but I know I'll get by
Hey hey hey hey, man, gotta live my life
Like I ain't got nothin' but this roll of the dice
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night
I'm feelin' like a Monday, but someday I'll be Saturday night
Saturday night __________,
all right, all right
Saturday night __________,

9/11 again

I wasn't going to post anything on this today, but this article in the Daily News caught my eye.

I'm going to post the excerpts that struck me the most:

Four years gone. Longer than it took the United States to fight World War II.

For many, it was a television event.

"It was right over there, Margaret," a pudgy man says to his wife, pointing at the void. "Right there." A pause. "Remember?"

There is the street where I saw the immense wheel of one of the airliners, and the puddle of fresh blood and the spilled coffee cup and the unopened bottle of juice and the single high-heeled shoe.

My cousin, who's in fifth grad, asked yesterday why the Giants and Jets were playing today. It's 9/11, he said, and they should be respectful.

I argued they have to play, showing that we're still going, that a date isn't going to paralyze us.

My cousin's friend replied, "Yeah, it's just 9/11. Who cares?"

Obviously I didn't get my point across.

I think this article did.

It is Now Safe to Return

She has taken the music down. The site is now quiet.

We are victorious.

BOYCOTT!!!

I am asking you all to rise up and BOYCOTT Christin Kuretich's blog until she takes the music down (Her blog actually PLAYS music.). It is unbearable--even if it's a good song--because it disrupts the music I am already listening to. And everytime you go to comment it starts over and over....

BOYCOTT

BOYCOTT

BLOGGERS UNITE AGAINST MUSIC ON OTHER'S SITES.

Lack of an update

I am very busy. Personally, career-wise, and writing wise.

I'll get back to this when I can.

The History of Matt Herrick

With the recent publication of Acquainted with the Night, I thought it would be interesting to tell the story of the Matt Herrick name.

Despite my best efforts, it's seemed I've followed in my father's footsteps. My first job was at an A&P he worked at. He taught, I ended up teaching. He also wrote a lot--introducing me to Ross MacDonald and Robert B. Parker. The way I figure it, if you're going to follow in someone's footsteps, you eventually better pass them. And I'd like to pass my father in the publishing industry. Meaning, I have to get a book out there. (He'll argue I passed him already with the Year's Finest and the Derringer, but I say NO.)

When he was teaching high school english, he taught an adventure course. Most of the stuff he taught were detective stories. During a test, he wanted his students to be able to identify the a style of writing--police procedural, hard boiled, or cerebral (the then name for cozies, apparently). So as part of the test he wrote an opening to a detective novel.

One of his colleagues read the opening and asked him "What happens next?" And he kept writing. And kept writing. Until he finished a draft of a novel called Blood Tells. The name of his detective was Matt Herrick. Eventually, when he finished the novel, just after Ross MacDonald's death, my father sent the draft to MacDonald's editor. It was rejected, but they seemed to like it. He never did anything else with it.

As I was writing Promises to Keep, I wanted to write another PI story, but not a Donne story. I wanted to see if I could come up with a different PI character. An older, less tortured PI. I came up with the character but needed a name. I remembered my dad's draft (which I have read, and it's good) and asked if I could use the name. He said he wasn't doing anything with it, so I took it.

Now, my Matt Herrick is different than his. His Matt was younger, evicted from his apartment, and not the greatest family man. My Herrick is. But, they share the name, and it's kind of an ode to my father at the same time, I suppose.

These Are the People in Your Neighborhood

Here are the people I shook hands with, met for the first time, talked to the for the first time or saw again the past two days:

Duane Swierczynski, Allan Guthrie, Pat Lambe, Ray Banks, Anastasia Banks, James Lincoln Warren, Paul Guyot, David Montgomery, Laura Lippman, Ken Bruen, Jason Starr, CJ Carpenter, Mary Reagan, Jon, Jen and Ruth Jordan, James Crumley, Dennis Lehane, Harlan Coben, Steve Hamilton, Sean Doolittle, Otis Twelve, Rickards--John Rickards, Bryon Quertermous, Robin Burcell, Steve Sidor, Wallace Stroby, Jim Winter, Harry Hunsicker, Anthony Neil Smith, Theresa Schwegal, David Hale Smith, Michael Koryta, Simon Kernick, Charles Ardai, John Schramm, Russell McLean, Peter Spiegelman, Reed Farrell Coleman, JA Konrath, Todd Robinson, Robert SP Lee, David Corbett, Barry Eisler, Mark Billingham, Raymond Benson (the Bond guy!), Anthony Rainone, JD Rhoades, Con Lehane, Jim Fusilli, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Bill Crider, and David Terrenoire.

There were probably more. I'm doing the best I can. As my memory returns, so will this list expand.

It was very cool.

Highlights:

--Aggressive Homeless people of Chicago and I quote "Lady, you have a lovely ass." one of them said to the woman in front of me at Dunkin Donuts.

--Spending three hours just BS-ing with Lambe and the Banks.

--Talking Rutgers football outside of the hotel.

--Laura Lippman is the coolest.

--Ken Bruen is the coolest.

--Everyone is the coolest.

--Beer.

--The underlying tension at nearly every panel I went to.

--The Naval CPO Pride March up Michigan Ave as I was walking to the Sheraton. Just cool.

--If you've ever seen The Blues Brothers and remember the apartment where they lived, you'll know my hotel room. Just outside the El, the room rattled everytime it went by. Very soothing.

--When leaving on a trip in a car that is not yours, make sure the registration is in the car and not your mother's wallet.

--When in Ohio, don't do over 90 when no one else is on the road. Otherwise, you'll get pulled over. And without a registration, you're definitely getting a speeding ticket.

--Thinking that the St. Vincent's Convention Breakfast was part of Bouchercon the first morning and not realizing why--if I was registered--I couldn't get into the convention.

--Wearing a nametag outside of the hotel and adjoining bar basically was like wearing a big sign that said MUG ME.

--The wicked cool free bag of books.