Ash Wednesday

It's been years since I listed what I was giving up for Lent. For me, the season is more about focus than sacrifice. I think about what's essential to my life, and whatever isn't, I give up.

I know many people give things up for these forty days, then are quick to indulge again, but Lent is supposed to be about life change. What can I give up for good that will make my life better? Phrase the question that way, and I answer with ways of thinking and patterns of behavior more often than candy or TV. We like and are comfortable with our thinking and behaviors, in part because of how long we've practiced them. I don't think we want to be locked in all our lives.

Leverage: "The Second David Job"

Got together with my friends John and Deshant at John's apartment to watch the season finale of Leverage. Three months after "The First David Job", the team reconnects as each of them is planning to rob Blackpoole's gallery, one of many cute coincidences stretching plausibility.

But TV viewers are always treated to the big picture. On my own, I would probably fall for ninety percent of the cons and misdirection on Leverage.

My favorite moments involved Nate and his ex-wife Maggie, her outing Eliot as part of the team and her conversation with Nate about their son's death. I hope she recurs in Season 2.

I'm glad to see Leverage's particular tone strike a chord with viewers. Here's to a good run.

Legacy

Lit fans, sorry this has been a TV/movie blog lately. I've been working on Issue 2 of The Lineup: Poems on Crime and yesterday completed my first poem in a while. I do have a few books to blog about in the near future. I haven't Twittered much this past week, either, but a new interview with Robert B. Parker caught my attention yesterday.

Parker has largely given the same answers for years, to the point I wonder why anyone thinks he's a good interview anymore. In this new interview with the Wall Street Journal, he says he doesn't think Ross Macdonald will be read in fifty years, which started some people on Twitter thinking about Parker's legacy and which writers will be read in fifty years.

Parker's legacy is that he helped re-popularize P.I. fiction in the 1970s, along with writers like Bill Pronzini, Lawrence Block, Roger L. Simon, Stephen Greenleaf, Marcia Muller... I used to think he was hurting his legacy continuing the Spenser series as long as he has, but whatever he does in the present won't change his most significant contribution to the genre: a protagonist as psychologically deep as he was physically tough. And where previous characters of the type had been loners, Spenser maintained his relationship with Susan Silverman as well as many friendships.

Is a Spenser book today as good as one from ten, twenty, or thirty years ago? No. But Parker still shows an economy with words that is distinctly his own. You can hear it in the Jesse Stone movies and Appaloosa, the best adaptations of his work to date. This is his legacy as well.

Parker might be better thought of if he'd stopped writing at a higher point of fame, but the same can be said of anyone. Through his willingness to keep writing, Parker has earned the right to dictate his own career path.

Will Parker or anyone else be read in fifty years? I don't know, but one way to ensure one is read is to keep publishing, building a body of work as Rex Stout did, as Parker has done.

The Pelican Brief on Blu-ray

The Pelican Brief is a movie I can watch anytime and be drawn in. Jeremy Lynch has posted my review of the Blu-ray release on Crimespree Cinema.

ABC Family Cancels The Middleman

Looking up Matt Keeslar on IMDb, I came across the news on TVSeriesFinale.com that ABC Family has cancelled The Middleman. I've suspected the show wouldn't be back for a while now, especially since seeing Brendan Hines on Lie to Me, but the official ax always hurts.

Every so often, shows come along that speak to audiences in ways that of course not everyone will get. I'm proud to be among those who caught and enjoyed every episode of The Middleman this past summer, and for those three months, believed in wholesome heroes again.



There is the DVD set to look forward to, as well as a special comic book based on the show's unfilmed thirteenth episode.

Dollhouse: "The Target"

A thrillseeker (Matt Keeslar) hires Echo to be his dream date, an outdoors girl who doesn't mind being hunted for sport. With Echo's personality wiped after each engagement, it's hard for me to empathize with her beyond a general sympathy for the childlike.

Based on this episode, the shrouded backstory may be more appealing that the Identities of the Week. In my opinion, it should be the other way around, with the backstory only spicing up a hearty main course. I'll probably relate better to Echo as I learn more of her true history, but a big part of the show is about obscuring that history, so I may end up dissatisfied.

Bones: "The Princess and the Pear"

With Booth's back acting up, Brennan investigates the murder of a fantasy convention booth girl with Sweets and Agent Peyton Perotta (Marisa Coughlan). This was a fun episode for a closet geek like me, with good chemistry between Booth and Brennan, Booth and Perotta, Angela and Hodgins, Cam and Fisher.

I also like that Sweets is playing a plausibly more active role in cases. His analysis of Booth and Brennan from afar was getting old. I like Agent Perotta. She clearly likes Booth but doesn't want to get between him and Brennan. At the moment, Booth and Brennan's relationship seems like a really good friendship, so there's still time for Perotta to make a romantic play.

Leverage: "The First David Job"

This time it's personal. To give Nate some closure, or maybe just for the heck of it, the team decides to ruin the reputation of Ian Blackpoole (Kevin Tighe), head of IYS Insurance, whose inaction led to the death of Nate's son. The plan hinges on getting Blackpoole, a collector of Renaissance art, to buy a fake scale model of Michelangelo's David, authenticated by Eliot playing an art expert.

When Blackpoole brings in his own art expert, Nate's ex-wife Maggie (Kari Matchett), the team is forced to steal the real First David, as the planned fake would never fool her. The job seems to go off without a hitch, until Jim Sterling (Mark Sheppard) shows up. Having anticipated their talents, Sterling neutralizes the team on separate fronts: capturing Parker, holding Hardison hostage at Leverage HQ, and sending a formidable fighter after Eliot.

Nate turns the tables by having the team do the unexpected: Sophie stages a daredevil rescue of Parker; instead of fighting six men, Eliot uses electronics to fry their earpieces. And so the team escapes, but their covers are blown, their hideout abandoned. A classic bridge-burning, cliff-hanging season finale—except it was only Part One.

In next week's conclusion, Nate takes a run at Blackpoole with all of IYS's resources aware he's coming.

Trivia: In last week's episode of Burn Notice, Alex Carter played a government agent opposing Mark Sheppard's bank robber. In this episode of Leverage, Carter played one of Sheppard's henchmen.

Psych: "Tuesday, the 17th"

Directed by James Roday, co-written by Roday and Steve Franks, this episode has Shawn and Gus investigating the disappearance of a counselor at their childhood summer camp, due to be re-opened by an old friend of Gus's/rival of Shawn's (Mackenzie Astin).

Meanwhile, Lassiter is nervous about a date with his ex-wife Victoria (Justine Bateman).

The far-out, horror flick storyline was nicely balanced by the very real relationship storyline. It seems episodes of Psych have gotten a little more serious this season. Next week's season finale, with a serial killer kidnapping Shawn's mother, may be the most serious yet. I wonder how it will be handled.

Slam Funk

I tried to watch NBA All-Star Saturday Night but feel asleep almost immediately. Nothing is as compelling as the slam dunk contest. Maybe that's why they save it for last.

I was hoping Dwight Howard wouldn't do the Superman dunk again. It just wouldn't be as compelling. But I heard he did, emerging from a phone booth offcourt. (Now if he'd jumped a standing phone booth and dunked, I would have been impressed.)

I hear Nate Robinson won by dunking over Howard. I would be glad to have a Knicks player as champion, but Robinson has a bit of an attitude and isn't the most coachable player.

Dollhouse: "Ghost"

Joss Whedon's new series opens with a woman (Eliza Dushku) left with no recourse but to join a secret organization that imprints its agents with memories, personalities, and skills to perform whatever they're hired for, and then wipes them clean for the next job.

The pilot doesn't give much more exposition. I wouldn't think memory could be repeatedly wiped and replaced without more immediate debilitating effects, but as a Whedon and Dushku fan, I'll go with it for now.

As the secret organization doesn't seem savory, I'm kind of rooting for them to be found out.

A Vocal Valentine's Day

Ah, my annual reminder of singlehood. It hasn't been a bad one. In fact, quite a bit of my Valentine-inspired work is available for your listening pleasure on PodioSo. Comment there or here if you're not out with your significant other.

Burn Notice: "Bad Breaks"

Put out by the reappearance of CSS agent Jason Bly (Alex Carter), Michael nonetheless helps his mother's friend Paula, who believes she's being stalked by someone she met online. When Paula calls Michael saying the stalker has shown up at her work, Michael learns that Paula works at a private bank. Bly is there, too, and stalker Prescott (Mark Sheppard) isn't a stalker, but a bank robber.

Even more than usual, this episode showed Michael's spy expertise in action. After attending to Bly, shot after attempting heroics, Michael takes on the guise of a doctor, pretending to patch up Prescott's men when he's actually disarming or poisoning them. He also manages to defeat Prescott's cell phone block and call Sam and Fiona for help.

On friendlier terms after their ordeal, Bly helps Michael track this season's Big Bad. Unfortunately, the best Bly can come up with is a number with nothing behind it.

Leverage: "The Juror No. 6 Job"

Parker's upstanding alias is called for jury duty, and Nate prods her to serve, hoping to improve her people skills. Parker must help decide whether a man's sudden death was caused by FastLife, an energy supplement he'd begun to take. Catching onto something fishy behind the scenes of the trial, Parker enlists the team's help.

The team discovers pharmaceuticals heiress Toby Earnshaw is looking to buy Live Herbally, makers of FastLife. Already secretly invested in FastLife, Earnshaw is doing everything to ensure an outcome in her favor—from bribing the jury foreman to tracking the movements of Live Herbally's owner, William Quint (Brent Spiner).

In the end, the team uses Earnshaw's controlling nature against her, altering footage on her spy cameras and stealing Quint's cell phone to make her think he's been talking to other buyers. I enjoyed the figurative chess match between Nate and Earnshaw, ending with them finally meeting face to face.

Kudos to writer Rebecca Kircsh.

Now Hear This

I may have mentioned I'm a big fan of sound. I can listen to the same songs on Repeat for hours. So when I saw the text-to-speech Odiogo players on John Rogers's blog, I knew I'd give in and try it sooner or later.

I've created a new blog, PodioSo, and moved my Odiogo experiments over there.

February Flash Fiction Challenge

This time around, Patti Abbott asked each participant to write the first paragraph of a story. On January 13, withholding the original author's identity, she sent each paragraph to another participant to finish the story and post it on February 10.

My story is below:


Last Request

by Gerald So


Dave kept the Crown Vic running straight and smooth while I put the gun in my jacket pocket and opened a beer. I wrapped my parole papers around the can to keep my hands dry. Dave couldn't drink because of the chemo. He just stared out the windshield, left hand on the wheel, right thumb rubbing the badge on his shoulder holster; just like he'd done it for most of the years I'd ridden with him. He sounded wheezy when he said, "I appreciate this."

"I know. It's only the tenth time you've said since last week."

"They never shoulda sent you up. It's like the thousandth time I've said that. Clean shoot all the way. Saved my ass."

"'Cept it wasn't a shoot," I said after a chug. "That's why no one believed you."

He coughed. "Best I could do. They'd never believe what really happened."

"I know."

I'd spent nine years in a state pen for aggravated assault. In other words, I'd ripped a junkie's throat out.

Olga tried to wait for me. Dave saw to it she had whatever she needed. He was the one who broke it to me when she left.

Eight months ago, he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer. And tonight he had this crazy idea...

"Look," I mustered the courage to say. "I'm not sure it'll take."

"That's why you got my gun," he said.

Made me feel so much better.

"How's this?" he asked. "If it doesn't take, I'll eat the gun."

Even better.

For three miles, there'd been nothing but redwoods. I stalled a while longer, then said, "Looks like a good spot."

Dave pulled over. We got out of the car and hiked into the woods. We reached a clearing and, just like that night nine years ago, there was a full moon.

"Take the gun," I said.

I can't tell what happened next, only the aftermath, when I came to, naked and bloody. I couldn't find Dave's body, his badge, or his gun. I still might have killed him—the blood wasn't mine—but I'd like to think I kept my promise and he's out there, more alive than ever, dodging silver bullets.


###

Notes

A week before Patti announced this challenge, Bill Crider was posting werewolf movie clips on his blog. That gave me the idea for a contemporary werewolf movie called Howl Like Me Now, which became this story's working title. Ultimately I changed it to suit the serious tone set by the chemotherapy in the first paragraph.

The paragraph ended, He sounded wheezy when he said... I filled in "I appreciate this," and took it from there.

Late today, Patti has revealed whose first paragraph went to whom. My thanks to John McAuley.


###

Other Participants

Patricia Abbott, "Initiation"

Steve Allan, "Pieces of History"

Patrick Shawn Bagley, "One More Mess"

Paul Brazill, "Red Winter"

Cormac Brown, "All Time Low"

Ray Foster, "Behind The Mask"

Jerry House, "Bad Break"

Sophie Littlefield, "Reparations"

John McAuley, "No Pool, No Car"

John McFetridge "Cozy Noir"

Thomas Miller, "Valentine's Night"

Scott D. Parker, "Construction Paper Camelot"

Pamila Payne, "Liquid Silver"

r2, "Send in the Clowns"

Keith Rawson, "The Word"

Sandra Scoppettone, "Meatloaf"

Sandra Seamans, "Lost in Vegas"

Kieran Shea, "Malice"

Jacob Weaver, "One Last Night"

WellesFan, "Choices Made"

The Big Bang Theory: "The Maternal Capacitance"

Leonard's mother (Christine Baranski) comes to visit, much to his dismay. With her degrees in psychology and neuroscience, she soon makes Penny, Howard, and Raj question themselves. As one might expect, Sheldon finds her fascinating. To relieve the tension, Penny and Leonard drink together, which leads to making out, which almost leads to sex.

Like any fan of the show, I want to see Penny and Leonard end up together. They could have "done it" last night, but if they had, Penny's relationship (general dynamic) with Leonard would resemble many of her previous flings, and they both deserve better. So I expected Leonard's mother to walk in on them. That didn't happen, but Leonard did bring up his mother at a crucial moment, and Penny threw him out of the apartment.

Early in Season 1, Leonard may have just wanted to bed Penny. I like to think that's changed, but sometimes I'm not sure it has. On the other hand, Penny wanted to talk with him the next morning, and they showed a silent understanding, suggesting they want more than sex from each other.

I don't speak with much authority here. My most serious relationships consist of me being serious about someone, and the someones turning down dates (or in one case, announcing her engagement right before I would've asked her out). Once upon a time, though, someone I was serious about was drinking to get over being stood up by the object of her affection, and she invited me to drink with her.

I was of age, and always imagined I'd drink in this sort of situation, because we'd love each other and it would be okay to let my guard down, give up some control. But when it came down to it, I passed. Actually, I doubt even drink would've made her see me as I wanted. But maybe if I'd drunk with her that night, we'd be closer friends, I'd understand her better.

Anyway, I'd like Leonard and Penny to go into it with their eyes open, appreciating quirks they bring out in each other.

A-Fraud Indeed

Sports Illustrated reported yesterday that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003, his last with the Texas Rangers before joining the Yankees.

Since the incident occurred as MLB was deciding whether mandatory testing was necessary, there will be no punishment from the league. There is no language in Rodriguez's contract that penalizes him for using steroids. This suggests either the Yankees were naive or indifferent toward the possibility.

While I'm no longer surprised by any pro athlete using performance-enhancers, as much as I've always disliked Alex for his oversensitivity and ineptitude in front of the media, I wanted to believe he was clean. That's the loss here, a huge loss of fan trust that would've happened whether we found out yesterday or twenty years from now.

A Look at Leverage for Crimespree Cinema

Can't get enough of my Leverage coverage? Head over to Crimespree Cinema, where Jeremy Lynch has posted my primer on the show with three episodes remaining this season. Tuesday's episode features Lauren Holly, Brent Spiner, Armin Shimerman, and was directed by Jonathan "Two Takes" Frakes.

Taint What It Used to Be

February brings the release of The Pink Panther 2, Steve Martin's second turn in the role of Jacques Clouseau, iconically played by Peter Sellers. I recently bought at half-off Get Smart: The Complete Series. Joe Gores's Maltese Falcon prequel Spade and Archer is due in stores February 10. Ridley and Tony Scott and Joe Carnahan have become involved in the feature film adaptation of The A-Team.

All of these have me thinking about remakes and updates again. It's natural to revere originals and pan updates as cheap copies. I've done my share of wondering aloud why there isn't more original stuff out there today. I'm sure it's due in part to the economic recession. The powers-that-be prefer to risk their money on projects with track records than on concepts never seen before. Who can blame them?

But stories have been retold and updated since the beginning of history. The chief motivation may be to share with new generations some resonance of the original. Nothing wrong with that. What's behind the wicked backlash? I'd say people are afraid the remake or update will somehow taint the original's legacy. At a time when so much material is saved for reference, this fear is unfounded.

There's also the fear that new audiences who read remakes and updates will find them so wretched as to never seek out the superior original. I argue that anyone interested in a current version will probably be at least remotely interested in the original.

I'm going to read Gores's book and probably catch Steve Carell's Get Smart sometime because I love the source material and I'm curious what new people will do with it.

Bones: "The Hero in the Hold"

On his way to pick up Brennan for an award ceremony, Booth is kidnapped and buried alive by The Gravedigger (the Season 2 villain who buried Brennan and Hodgins in the desert until they MacGyvered their way out). This time The Gravedigger wants evidence that's gone missing from the FBI. The FBI believes the evidence is with either Brennan or Hodgins looking to work the Gravedigger case freelance, or Thomas Vega, who had been writing a book about The Gravedigger.

Brennan deduces that Hodgins has the evidence, but he convinces her to withhold it and try to both get Booth back and unmask The Gravedigger. Meanwhile, you wouldn't expect Booth to take capture lying down, and he doesn't. He does everything he can to free himself, including hallucinating his dead spotter, Teddy Parker.

This episode has been pretty well panned online. The Gravedigger is apprehended before the final act break. Some wanted that storyline extended. I have to agree with others that Bones' portrayal of the military, both Seeley Booth's Rangers and Jared Booth's Navy, is not too accurate. But I think what's really bothering people is the woo-woo element in a show previously grounded in hard science.

Personally, I accepted Teddy as the personification of Booth's motivation to save himself. To show him working alone would have been less dramatic. What I had trouble with was Brennan's seeing Teddy at the end. I expected an ultra-rational person, who has never put her faith in anything supernatural, to see nothing.

2009 Derringer Submissions Open

Submissions opened February 1 for the 2009 Derringer Awards presented by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to honor the best crime and mystery stories published in 2008. SMFS members as well as any editor/publisher of short mystery fiction may submit stories to Awards Coordinator Nikki Dolson until midnight March 15, 2009.

With author's name and publication name removed, the stories are judged by volunteers from the SMFS and narrowed to five finalists in each of the following categories:

Best Flash Story (Up to 1,000 words)

Best Short Story (1,001-4,000 words)

Best Long Story (4,001-8,000 words)

Best Novelette (8,001-17,500 words)

The SMFS membership as a whole then votes to determine the winner in each category, announced May 1, 2009.

See which stories have been submitted here.

Good luck to all.

Freeze Frame

My friend John Ricotta found some pictures of our college days, and I thought I'd share a couple here:



Picture? What picture? So intense was my focus even then. Behind me are a future production guru for Glamour, a future philosophy prof, a future TV writer, and a future travel agent for the New York Giants.

Yes, I am wearing a Boston Red Sox cap. I was a Spenser fan, it was 1995, and I felt sorry for them.

And on a fateful trip to Tannersville, NY that summer, I get to live a dream:

Deroga-Torre

I've had mostly positive things to say about former Yankee manager Joe Torre here. He always had the best players, but it was some feat to keep them on course through each long baseball season to make the playoffs twelve times and reach the World Series six.

Yesterday Torre appeared on Live with Regis & Kelly to a standing ovation and almost convinced me he did nothing wrong giving readers a look inside the locker room in his new book, The Yankee Years.

It can be argued he did nothing wrong. Many coaches and managers slam their players by name in the media, but after Torre took on the aura of a multiple World Series winner, an emblem of how to play the right way (intentional Larry Brown allusion), he held himself to a higher standard: never embarrassing his or opposing players.

Perhaps rightfully vindictive toward the Yankees, he's violated only his own standard in writing the book. And as well as he's mastered the art of spin, he can't expunge his personal failure.

Leverage: "The 12-Step Job"

The proprietor of a soup kitchen hires the team to retrieve money missing after alcoholic lawyer Jack Hurley (Drew Powell) promised to invest it. When the team's attempt to snatch Jack fails, Nate decides to check him into fake rehab with Sophie as session leader and Nate and Parker playing fellow patients.

Jack turns out to be a well-intentioned soul who only borrowed the money, intending to pay it back until he got into hot water with other, more violent investors. A more compelling storyline is Nate's period of withdrawal from drinking, during which he feuds with Sophie and hallucinates archenemy Jim Sterling (Mark Sheppard). That said, I hope Nate's alcoholism has a real arc and isn't simply a convenient trope.

Early Reaping

Zap2it.com's Hanh Nguyen reports The CW's Reaper is returning two weeks early, March 3, slotted an hour earlier, 8PM.

More LEVERAGE!

Zap2it.com's Rick Porter reports TNT has given Leverage a fifteen-episode second season to premiere later this year. Congrats to my friend Christine and everyone on the cast and crew.

Private eyes are watching you...

A little Hall and Oates to introduce the latest logo for DetecToday. After trying to upgrade our previous logo:



to an iPhone or BlackBerry, I decided to avoid having to keep up with the latest phone technology. I give you this year's logo:



a digital camera disguised as a cigarette lighter. Like the fedora in our previous logo, it's meant to evoke the classic and the modern at once. Check out the camera's specs.

PSYCH: A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO READ by William Rabkin

I'd been curious about this novel since the news broke last January it would be written. I was most curious how author William Rabkin would handle Shawn-Vision, Spencer's ultra-perceptiveness shown on TV in extreme close-ups and highlighting. I'm happy to report it's delivered quite smoothly (e.g. Shawn looked at the truck driver and he saw. Saw the chafing on his face. Saw the redness in his eyes.") as is the interplay between Shawn and Gus, the heart of the show.

What I'd heard of the plot doesn't do the novel justice. It's best described as a series of scrapes Shawn and Gus bumble into and escape by the skin of their teeth. The show's plots seem more cohesive, perhaps due to TV's time constraints, but as Psych isn't the most realistic concept to begin with, I read on, entertained enough. First-time novelist Rabkin breaks the one-viewpoint-per-scene rule at times, jumping from Gus's head to Shawn's to others, and I don't see this as mimicry of the show. If he gets a handle on it, I'll be back for more.

Be My Asinine Valentine

As I've mentioned, I have much unluck in love on which to draw. Reprinted this month in Asinine Poetry is "Gotta Wonder". My thanks to editor Richie Narvaez.

Crimespree #28 Goodness

The Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Crimespree features not only my DVD review of Reaper Season 1, but also Craig McDonald's column "The Rhyme and Reason of Crime Fiction", which mentions The Lineup. Get yourself a copy.