Bayou Bob, The Baton Rogue

Robert Petitt. Bayou Bob. I met Bob through Sid, and the two of us have written stories with a character named Remy Petitt, the Baton Rogue, as he tells the pretty ladies. In fact, "Skull's Rainbow," published in CONSTABLE NEW CRIMES in the UK, was written almost entirely while we were at the World Horror Convention in 1991, and the story is set at the Crown Plaza, where the con took place. Sidebar: the name of the story came from a little Blues joint down a side alley in sight of the Capitol of Tennessee, SKULL RAINBOW. Not long after we wrote the story, the owner was robbed and shotgunned to death, but I did not hear of this until year's later.

1I'm reading James Burke's SWAN PEAK at the moment. Dave Robicheaux has left post-Katrina New Orleans for Missoula, Montana, and he's brought along his old cop buddy Clete Purcel. Clete reminds me very much of Bob, though Purcel is described different, I still see Bob. Clete is also the dark center of my heart, and I think that's why Burke creatwed his character, for people like me. Clete takes revenge when he wants, yet lets some things slide. Bob left Louisiana for East Texas years back, my understanding is that he got involved with a woman and it was made clear that he was no longer wanted in the state. Of course, it could simply be a story, a barroom tale. I met James Burke at a reading at the Tattered Bookcover in Denver, and bought two copies of BLACK CHERRY BLUES, asking him to sign one copy to "Willy Sid, the con artist." Told him it was Sid who hipped me to him during the dot matrix letters days. Few years later, Sid interviewed Burke, his job at the time was entertainment reporter for the Alexandria (LA) Town Talk, and Burke recognized Sid through my storytelling a year before; Burke mentioned me not by name but that I was from Chicago. In my writings, Willy Sid usually hangs with Lisa Sestina.

SWAN PEAK is a huge book, something I needed for today's travels, as I went out to Homewood for Greg Loudon's annual party. I have to go downtown then backtrack on the Electric Line to about 172nd Street. I could take the bus to 87th and Avalon, avoiding going to Block Zero and then passing Block 87, but Avalon Park is no longer a safe place, even during the day. And so it was that I left the house at 1:00 and arrived there at 3:30, adding waiting 40 minutes for the train and a few blocks walk. Played volleyball all afternoon. I totally LOVE volleyball. I adore Greg's wife, Darcie, and his three kids. I bought Ava, the oldest, MAGIC TRIXIE AND HER DRAGON, illustrated by local artist Jill Thompson. I love Greg's folks, Fran and Len, who sounds like Dennis Hopper. Just about everybody there I have known since 1985 or thereabouts.

Walking to get the 8:53 PM train, I had hoped to see the old-timey downtown Homewood at sunset, me a fugitive on the lam with my backpack, but Homewood Days was still going on, so an opportunity was missed. But I did watch the orange sky from the second tier on the train, annoyed that I would again make a U-shaped trek home, instead of an L, all because of jackasses with guns.We passed 87th and I sighed, continuing to read SWAN PEAK. Walking downtown on a Saturday night is always bizarre, there are very few people on certain streets, others are teeming, you just never know. I lucked out that el pulled in as I hopped down the stairs, and it wasn't too long a wait for the bus. I had stopped reading by then, because I had an epiphany re: my novel, the bridge between SHOTS DOWNED, OFFICER FIRED and PROACTIVE CONTRITION. There's no Clete involved, it will be a dame that helps Frank St. Cyr reclaim his career. But how it happens was in front of me all along. I got home around 11:45 PM, a bit longer because of waiting on the bus, I guess. Now I just need to think of the name of the dame. She tends bar at Uptown Jo's, but that's all I got so far. Guess this means to be continued.....

The Sliding Rule of Justice

Can't help you on the first one, it looks cool, but the link simply went to an mp3 site in Spanish. Aside from the usual bullshit about the state budget and gang shootings, even the FBI is involved over at Burr Oaks now. They found Emmett Till's original grave piled in the back, with squirrels living in it. That might have just made a good sound bite, though. My mom asked if the body was attacked, I had to explain that, aside from Till being dead a half-century, these are poor people with the means to buy only the cheapest wooden coffins. This isn't a non-story to me, I think it's shitty that people get fucked over like this, living people who lost money, and it doesn't matter if you think that spending money on a coffin is like buying stock in Enron. A few years back, there was that asshole in Georgia who piled the bodies up that were meant to be cremated. Get a fucking work ethic. Myself, I give a damn about my death. I've told people I want to be stuffed, then auctioned every year, the money going to charity, so a new writer gets me for 365 days and maybe takes me to conventions and book signings.

But I hold as much hatred for those four asshats as I do Anthony Abbate for beating on the Polish bar girl. I do write about these events in some of my stories and somehow some people think that it is worse written down than something that goes away on TV as soon as the next child molesting singer drops dead. It doesn't matter to me what anyone else thinks about fucking with dead bodies. Dead is dead. But I don't trust myself with a gun, a bat would be fine. I could thin the herd of the world's population without having to travel too far from my home. Then I'd sneak away to an island off Tahiti and try and forget everything I have seen or read about my entire adult life.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

When the plant was at the old location, 127th & Cicero, Burr Oaks Cemetery was directly east. They've made national news now because of digging up graves to bury new corpses. Lay two on top of each other, then get rid of one to make room for a third coffin. This is a fairly famous cemetery, Emmett Till, the kid murdered in Money, Mississippi by white biggot asshole pricks, is buried here. Seeing an overhead view from our local newscam was sickening, far against the area that borders the Cal Sag Channel, a place I described in detail many times here, there were broken caskets, crypts, and VISIBLE BONES STICKING OUT OF THE DIRT. Police were tipped off by a gravedigger who thought that the four pictured had gone over the line when they dismembered a dead body so that it would fit into a smaller grave.

Preople ask me why I write what I write. I don't make this stuff up. Charles and Sid are from Louisiana, so they get it. But if I didn't write about things like this I might be walking around with a baseball bat with every intent to use it.

Drownded Rats & Condoms

Man, its 54 degrees outside. But its going to be in the 80s tomorrow and the 90s by the weekend. Chicago, the bipolar town. Here's photos from that kayak trip two weeks back. Starts out up near Addison and Rockwell. Because of the rains, the water was well above its normal level and there were quite a few drowned rats and maybe a few less condoms. I took more photos, but they were kind of dull. Still can't figure out what that boat was doing hanging over Division Street during rush hour, though.

My Transistor Radio That I Bought At That Place Behind Quimby's

OK, here's how it went down. Saturday night in May, I'm meeting Rick Therrio in front of Quimby's and then we are going to see The Polkaholics. I get to Quimby's ahead of Rick, tell the girl inside that if some guy comes in describing me (easy enough, bat ears, cyclops) to tell him I'm coming back. I was going to take a few photos, as I did with the Rapid Transit Cycle Shop mural, then found this fantastical basement shop that might have been a dream only I still have this transistor radio that I bought for twelve dollars and it still works.
The photo of Rick was taken by Mark Kolodny and modified by Rick his ownself.

A Month Ago, A Ghost

Just came back from the Twilight Tales readings, and it's one day short of a full moon. Harry's ghost wasn't on this trip, though a large amount of drunk Cubs fans were on the train for part of the way. Still eerie like last time, I was the sole passenger from Washtenaw on to Cicero. Empty lot, but instead of a clear sky, there were odd little black clouds like smoke signals. I love the sound of street traffic as I walk through an empty lot, I wonder if people who drive get a similar feeling, maybe from being on the open road. It's about a half-mile walk and for some reason, the city has been infested with mosquitoes in the last week or so. Nasty ones. I used to never get bit because of the Zostrix I put on my elbows and neck. The bastards adapted! Well, anyhow, I'm enjoying tonight, listening to Dizzy Gillespie as I type this, and right at Lawler, before the church parking lot, there's an building with a basement apartment. Often the kitchen blinds are open, not tonight. But I've seen different families at different times of day, all from that odd angle of being maybe five feet above them. Last month, it was that girl putting the key in the lock, today, in front of the same house, it was two kids playing with a soccer ball. Plus, more mosquitoes. Yet, I will take getting bitten and wearing short sleeve shirts over walking home in winter anytime.

Ah, but what's with the green guy, you say? It's J'onn J'onzz, the Manhunter from Mars. Harry loved this guy, his stories ran alongside Batman's in Detective Comics for most of the 1950s. A guy stranded on Earth via a teleportation beam, from Mars, he does what any guy would do, takes on the identity of John Jones and becomes a detective in Denver. Well, last year, during the Final Crisis even that killed Batman (for now), Martian Manhunter (as he was called during the 60s on up) was killed, as well. I sent Harry a comic called Requiem which was a sort of recap of MM's life on Earth, and he was around for more than 60 years, fer cry-eye. Kinda ironic, kinda sucky I did that. When I was at Harry and Diana's house in December, the comic was on his doodle shelf. I am certain some image from that book would have ended up on a postcard in the future. In the early 90s, a much-overlooked three-issue book by Gerard Jones was published. AMERICAN SECRETS was a cool 1950s story, with lizards from space, contestants on quiz shows being brainwashed or their heads explode, and thinly veiled characters like Elvis, the Beaver, and some girl who I can't recall, not Shirley Temple, but someone from the movies. And they went to Las Vegas, too! Martian Manhunter has some great lines in the books, once, when he sees both Oreos and Hydrox (remember those?) on the shelves, he asks the owner of the shop "Why are there two of everything?". Plus the page I scanned above. Just like we joked about Ed and his turbines and Billy getting on the plane, every now and then we'd answer each others phone calls with the question "Is it warm there in the magazines?"

Lights Out

From The Onion a few years back. Man, sometimes they hit it right on the head.