and the little girl who ressurrected it.

When I lived in Smithville, Ontario, Stormy and I would decorate for Halloween. Zombies. Witches. Vampires, Michael Myers and even the nefarious Skinwalker from The Equinox. Every year it got a little bigger. My garage became a hang out for family and friends who came out for Halloween, and for the wage of a beer helped they helped take it down.

I sort of lost my Halloween Spirit when I moved to this little town in rural Alberta. It was two things, really, many of the parents seemed put off that they might have to step over a severed limb as they dragged their kid kicking and screaming up the walk. I got a few indignant looks. What are you? Some kind of monster? These children are vulnerable.

And I get it, maybe your four year old daughter is scared of my smoking zombie or cackling witch. I tried to be sport, would bring the candy to the road for a little one too afraid to come to my porch. The only delivery charge for the sweets was their eternal soul.

Fair trade, if you ask me.

But it wasn’t even that. It was that punk kid, who took off his Darth Vader mask to talk. Likely because he wanted me to see his stupid pudgy-smug-pumpkin face smile cunningly as he said, “Your layout is lame compared to the neighbors.”

Little prick. I felt like punching him in the face.

Of course, they frown on that shit now, so I said, “Yeah? What neighbor?”

Then I craned my neck. That was ridiculous. Who had five fog machines, seven animatronic creatures from witch to zombie and enough severed limbs and spiders and skulls to fill nine crates? While I was looking, he reached up, tugged a bag of Cheetos from my hand, and put on his Darth Vader mask. Then he went down the walk stepping over the severed limbs and was gone.

There really was a lot more to it than that.

The folowing year we put out less, and then we just gave out candy. My heart wasn’t in it anymore. It was a lot of work for a small window of time. It was different when my friends and family were around. This year wasn’t going to be any different.

Then I got a written request from Olivia, the neighbor’s daughter, asking that we make the house spooky for Halloween. “I will be ready,” she signed. She’s a cute kid. I wrote her back and signed, “Get ready.”

Stormy and I have been cooking stuff up. I’m leaving the layout to her, while I do the grunt work. We’ve got a reaper, witches, and things climbing from the pits of hell.

Olivia has ignited the spirit of Halloween in my heart once more.

Watch out for the severed limbs in the walk.

Thanks for listening.

Back to the girls.

Well, I am one episode from finishing Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer story and as with any Netflix series, I am inclined to go back and fact check some of the storyline. Although, I haven’t seen any glaring errors. But Netflix likes to tinker with the evidence. Pinch of salt.

The story itself is well written and executed as a miniseries. The gore was kept at a minum, the storyline dominant, and the characters were very strong. The acting was excellent, particularly by Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer and Niecy Nash as Glenda Cleveland, Dahmer’s neighbor. Peters did well to portray the often meek polite montone Dahmer. Then he delivers the other side, seen only by a few. His performance builds believability. I was watching Jeffrey, not Peters. As for Niecy Nash as Cleveland. Nash had me holding the edge of my seat riding an emotional rollercoaster that went from dread, to sadness, and to tears. What Cleveland went through, the toxic smell of decay coming through her vent. She listened to murders happen right next door in Apartment 213, then there were power tools, saws, and drills. Nocturnal visits to the dumpster.

One night, Glenda Cleveland, Sandra Smith, Tina Spivey, and Nicole Childress, came to the aid of one of Dahmers victims who had stumbled naked and bleeding from the apartment into the street.

They called the police and Dahmer insisted the 14 year old was his friend. Police arrived and they told the Cleveland and the teens to butt out. Dahmer kept insisting it was a lovers spat and his friend was just really drunk. They ignored the fact he was bleeding from both the head and the buttocks. They followed Dahmer, who helped the boy back up to apartment 213. One officer, Joseph Gabrish, said he detected a foul smell. While the other, John Balcerzak said he did not. They left the 14 year old with Dahmer, and reported it as a homosexual domestic dispute. Within an hour Jeffrey Dahmer murdered the 14 year old Laotian named, Sinthasomphone. Officer Balcerzak would be one of the arresting officers, when another victim escaped. Both Balcerzak and Gabrish would be fired, but later reinstated. Two shitty cops.

Cleveland had made numerous calls about Apartment 213, and the strange goings ons, but Milwaukee PD and Balcerzak dismissed her calls. Even as she ranted, “Someone is being murdered over there!” This poor women, what strength she must have had to steel herself against the nightmare next door.

It is an interesting character study and brings the stories of some of the victims to the forefront. It is the monster we go to see, but in every serial killer’s debris trail are scores of voiceless victims and their broken families.

My view on whether Jeffrey Dahmer was sane or not hinges on his crimes. You simply don’t do the things that he did without some form of mental illness being present. The way in which he dismembered, cannibalized and disposed of his victims yells crazy from the Milwaukee rooftops. Dahmer was diagnosed as borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder, but was deemed sane to stand trial because he knew his crimes were wrong. Personality and psychotic disorder are well known, schizotypal personality disorder is an intense discomfort with close relationships. Dahmer confessed to killing 17 victims, and pled guilty to 15 murders in Milwaukee, Dahmer’s sanity was put on trial. He was found to be sane and sentenced to 15 sentences of life in prison.

In 1994 Dahmer was beaten to death by a fellow inmate.

A lot of emphasis was put on his upbringing, an over protective father and mentally ill mother who seemed to have daily screaming matches. Some of that may have contributed to his inability to get close, but I don’t think Dahmer was made, he was born that way. Certainly the family dynamic did not help.

A tragic story all around. A black mark on Milwaukee PD. And even the Reverend Jesse Jackson doesn’t get a pass, as he moves on to greener pastures rather than protesting the disgusting reinstatement of Balcerzak and Gabrish.

I recommend it.

Thanks for listening

WAIT! DON’T GO AWAY JUST YET

Check out my SyFy Horror, Acadia Event, which was inspired by my time as an ice trucker. No I didn’t see any aliens. But it’s a hoot chock full of action, good guys, bad guys, and bone eating aliens. It’s avalailable on all platforms, in all formats. Here’s a link: wbp.bz/acadiaeventa

The last two Highwayman books were heavily researched, but my fascination with true crime goes back much farther than the publication of my first novel, The Equinox which is a horror novel about a monster, but also happens to have a serial killer in it.

I read extensively about serial killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Toolbox killers, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris. I’ve also read extensively and watched interviews with Milwaulkee Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer. I have seen all the documentaries, read excerpts from the case files and even watched the low budget film Dahmer starring Jeremy Renner as Jeffrey Dahmer, and more recent, My Friend Dahmer, with Ross Lynch which was a study of his teen years, before the murders. The late Ann Heche played Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother in the forementioned film and was incredible.

This new miniseries didn’t really catch my eye, and I didn’t think that I would want to commit to 10 hours about a story I knew already. But Stormy mentioned it and off we went.

The first episode opens on the day that Jeffrey Dahmer, played by Evan Peters, is arrested and the macabre nightmare they find inside apartment 213, at 924 North 25th Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From there the viewer is moved from different periods in Dahmers life, most notably his evolution from school outcast turned class clown to killer. His mother was mentally ill, which led to him growing up in a household in which there was plenty chaos of fighting. When his parents finally divorced, his mother abandon him taking his younger brother, David, with her and leaving him unsupervised for three months in the family home.. His father was staying with a girlfriend. Dahmer’s mother was wreckless, abrasive, at time in full bloom of lunacy.

In those three months, Dahmer claimed his first victim. A hitchhiker looking for a ride to a concert. Dahmer then attempts college at Ohio State but flunks out. Then goes into the army which is short lived, and likely related to Dahmer’s homosexuality and penchant for stealing blood. He moves into the gay district of Milwaukee luring gay men, and a 14 year old teenager to apartment 214 where he kills them and does all sorts of horrific things with their remains. Including cannibalism. There is the reference I make to the teen, but will not disclose to avoid being a spoiler on the series.

What Evan Peter’s, “Dahmer” gets right is the utter revulsion of what drives Jeffrey. There is blood, but so far it isn’t too graphic. Like Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the suggestion works better, the skillfully placed tools of his trade. Like the drill he uses to tap the heads of his victims offering up an almost Tobe Hooper-like scene. Hair from an obscured head in the fridge. You don’t actually see the dismemberment, but the suggestion still makes it horrifying.

I’m only three episodes in, but intrigued enough to continue. Jeffrey Dahmer has always come off as a sympathetic character. It is clear that he had serious mental health issues. In interviews that I watched, he was open and honest about his crimes. Sympathetic, or maybe even pathetic.

Actor, Evan Peters, portrays Dahmer in much the same way he has been portrayed in the media, but he takes us deeper into the darkness. We get to see the stark contrast between the meek and mild, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the manipulator and even the raging Dahmer. The monster hiding behind the benevolent, awkward, character, I saw, and perhaps even you, is not present in those interviews. But it is the monster we want to see, as the mask he wears can be anyone’s. Evan Peter’s was in different recurring roles in the series American Horror Story. He’s an excellent young actor who has managed to make me forget him and see Jeffrey Dahmer.

MURDER FOR RESEARCH

When you research this stuff it can get pretty graphic, especially true-crime accounts and police reports. Sometimes, that level of horror can be two much. One book I read was called, DRIVEN TO KILL The Terrifying True Account of Sex Killer Westley Allen Dodd written by Gary C. King. Westley Dodd looked like the all American boy, clean cut, came from a good home, but he had a darker sidee. Dodd was a child molester and killer. He abducted brothers, Cole and William Neer, 11 and 12, took them into the woods. Aftertying them to a tree and sexually assaulting both, he stabbed them repeatedly and fled the scene. Cole died at the scene and William died on the way to the hospital. If that wasn’t heinous enough, he later abducted four year old, named, Lee Iseli, from a park slide, and took him back to his apartment. There he sexually assaulted him, and the next morning he strangled the child with a rope and hung his body in his closet. He also photographed the hanging body for trophies. When attempting to abduct a fourth victim, the child fought back and members of the public freed the boy, as Dodd fled the scene by car, but his car broke down a block aways and he was subdued by a family member of the child.

He was convicted and sentenced to die, he asked to be hung, citing that he should die the same way his third victim, four year old, Lee Iseli died, which was hanging.

The court gave Dodd his wish, he was sentenced to hanging, this form of execution had not been used in the country since the 1960s. Dodd sealed his own fate, refusing appeal. He insisted that he could not control his urges and would kill again, stating in one court brief: “I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone else. If I do escape, I promise you I will kill and rape again, and I will enjoy every minute of it.”

Sometimes theatre of the mind is not a blessing. I visualize the things I read and research. I see it on a stage that is multidirectional and graphic to the very bone. DRIVEN TO KILL disturbed me so much, I had to put the book down and walk away from it at least four or five times. A little reminder that I’m human, not always pragmatic or clinical.

Dodd was hanged at 12:05 a.m. on January 5, 1993. He was 32 years old. Thirty years after the crime, I am still horrified that these monsters walk among us, but worse, in proximity to our children.

Thanks for listening

MJ

FOUR the EBook is on sale for $1.99 until September 30th, 2022.

Grab yourself a copy

“Cinematic adaptation? Not necessary, as the imagery and action depiction and inherent terror, suffice.” –Grady Harp

Okay, time for a funny trucking story from the old days with my good friend, Brian Halford as the boss. Brian had started a company called, Roadline Transport. We hauled freight, mainly to the eastern seaboard of the United States, but we also went west as far as Nebraska. The dispatcher was a guy named Peter Westhouse. Brad Hardy and I were the first two drivers in the company, and we took pride in making it a success. The only thing that Brian did with the logo made it too big. The letters were 10 feet high. You could be in Niagra Falls, Ontario, and read the company name from Buffalo, New York.

Marketing genius?

“What do you think,” Brian asked.

“It’s way too big,” I said.

“Too big? Why?”

“Makes it hard to flee the scene of a crime,” I said.

Brian was quiet.

Now I’ll tell you my story. New Jersey is one of the crummiest places on the face of the earth for a trucker. Lots of truckers wouldn’t go to New York City. I liked NYC because I understood how and when to navigate it. The only bitch I had was driving through Jersey to get there. Delivering in Jersey was riskier than in NYC. At least four people approached my truck trying to wave me down while driving in bad parts of the many industrial areas we delivered to. Stopping meant getting hijacked. If there was an accident or it was 5 O’clock the backups would pile up for miles and miles and onto intersecting highways. This chaotic mess usually resuted in more fender benders caused by anger and impatience.

I was on my way out of Jersey up into Pennsylvania and by luck the traffic was light. I delivered to a place that ran smooth for a change and escaped before rush hour. I honestly can’t remember the PA city, but it was a burg whose main industry was pulp and paper. I was going in to this place to pick up giant paper rolls destined for Canada. It wasn’t hard to get to there, I turned off the interstate, and caught a state route. I had directions. A brand new Freightliner and trailer. Turn right, go under the bridge turn left your at the gate. I ask how high is the bridge. A lot of these burgs go right back to horse and buggy. Some have very low bridges, below the 13′ 6″ minimum for a standard 53 ft trailer.

He tells me it’s 13′ 6″.

I turn, see the bridge. It’s marked 13″ 6″. I proceed under the bridge and I hear sound. A double tap of tearing Aluminum. Ponk! Ponk! I got my head the window, and slow crawled out the other side. Now, I’m pissed. Because I know something on that bridge damaged the roof of the trailer. I’m seething. Now I was going to have to call dispatch. Look Brian in the eye, after damaging one of his brand new trailers. “Fuck me and the horse I rode in on!”

I get to the plant, line up on a door and go back and open the barn doors. I climbed up inside and walk to the nose. I looked up to see two pen sized holes side by side. Not a tear, but punctures. Definitely a bolt or two from the bridge undercarriage. I taped it up and sighed, and called dispatch. They loaded me and I grabbed my paperwork and got out of there. I took a picture of the bridge sign when I rolled out, the extra 43000 lbs of paper had lowered my trailer significantly so I passed under it safely. Then I came to a light, which was a T-Junction off to the right. Now keep in mind that I’m still brooding. “Fucking bridge!” I stop at the light ready to turn right, and my advance turn green lights up but the opposing traffic keeps turning left blocking my turn. “What the fuck?” I wave my hands. “What are you doing?” One car goes by, Jersey plate, they finger me. “Huh? Fuck you too!” So, I pulled out both six shooters gave a double fuck you right back at them. The next car has his finger up, right out the window. Jersey Plate. And me, not shy to express my feelings give them the double pump, and a big helping of, “Fuck you too! And you and you and…”

Then I saw the Hearst, and the funeral tags, and I melted into a puddle of shame on that air ride seat. I holstered my guns and my anger. When the last car passed, I turned north toward Scranton. When I felt far enough from the scene of the crime, that the ghost would not haunt me for my disrespect, I let out a short laugh. Then, I got on my Mic phone and called my buddy, Brad.

“Hey, Mark, what you up to,” Brad answered.

“I just hit a bridge and fingered a funeral procession.”

Then I told him the story.

They would never know who that double pumping foul mouthed lunatic trucker was. Except that he was behind the wheel of a brand new Freightliner pulling a brand new trailer emblazoned with the 10 foot high letters: Roadline Transport.

Thanks for listening

HEY, DON”T GO AWAY JUST YET.

Check out the Highwayman series.

Book One Highwayman Book Two: Four

How I got here…

I recently watched a George Clooney film, THE TENDER BAR, based on the memoir by J. R. Moehringer. I’m not going to review the movie other than to say I enjoyed the story. It also stirred memories. I haven’t written a lot about myself. But I could identify with this movie’s main character for several reasons. The protagonist in The Tender Bar and I both had much in common regarding fathers. But more importantly, he is an aspiring writer. I have always aspired to write. It is my true passion. The written word can be raw, abrasive, honest, eloquent, and whatever you want. It can also be a distraction from the things that scare or haunt you or memories no child should have.

I had a father who chose a life of crime over his family. In 1968, my brother Kenny, just seven years old, was taken by the icy waters of the Saint Lawrence River. When the time came to bury my brother, my father did not attend his own son’s funeral because the cops had the cemetery staked out. I think that is the most unforgivable thing he did in my book, and he did some pretty unforgivable things. My family was devastated by the loss. I was a baby, three years old, not old enough to understand. But if ever we needed a father to step in and pull a family together, it was then.

He was on the lamb.

Our lifestyle eroded my relationship with my father. He came in and out of my life for the next thirty years. Making and breaking promises. Not all the memories were bad, but those are the ones that stick. There was the way he used to loop his belt over and crack it before dealing corporal punishment. We didn’t think this was abuse; many kids got the belt in the 70s. Schools still had the strap. But the cracking of that belt was a terrifying preamble to the punishment. That fear was worse than the belt itself.

On my first day in Kindergarten, I remember my brother saying, “If anyone asks you, your last name is Gardner.” We were standing outside the school two years after our brother’s death.

I didn’t question it, didn’t understand. It was the norm. I went off to my first day of school under an assumed name because my father was again on the lamb from the cops. His crimes were multiple armed robberies, banks mostly. He’d been in jails from Kingston to Yellowknife. He got his front teeth knocked out in Yellowknife after being nabbed in a shootout with the RCMP that luckily didn’t kill anyone. He told me about that when I was an adult. He talked about how poorly he was treated, and I listened, trying not to cast judgment and forgive. I thought he deserved more than getting his teeth knocked out. He was jamming his gun in some innocent person’s face, shooting at police on an open street. I suffer violent criminals poorly.

Watching this film, I remembered going to Boston on what I thought was a vacation. But my father was on the lamb for a job he pulled. We were living in Hamilton, Ontario. Just before this, my grandfather had died, and my brother, who was maybe ten, stayed with my grandma up in Montreal, Quebec, to keep her company and help her out.

That year, I flew solo with my mom. My father was gone more than he was there. They fought, and sometimes it got violent. I remember him bouncing her off a fridge for refusing to hand over the rent money so he could go to the track. I started crying, and whatever spark of humanity there was in his heart brought him back, and he relented. I remember the look of shame on his face. Like he’d been caught after the mask hiding the monster dropped away. He leaned down, wiped my tears, and tried to assure me that he wasn’t mad, but domestic violence was a mainstay in our household.

One evening, I was pulled from my bed, and my mother was screaming frantically. There had been another fight, but this time, my mom clobbered him with a lamp. She rushed me out the door in my pajamas. She thought she had killed him. We drove to a motel at Niagara Falls to hide out. I remember seeing a pool and thinking sadly, “I don’t have any swim trunks.’ Then I was off to bed, my mother sitting by the window, chain-smoking, watching, terrified. I fell back to sleep and woke up in the morning. My mom was still sitting there. She said to me, “Your father is coming. We’re going to talk.”

He showed up, they went outside, sat at a picnic table, and talked for a long time. I watched my mom cry, I watched her scolding him, and I heard his promise not to do it again. But even at the tender age of five, I knew it rang hollow, as I had heard that promise before.

There were some good memories.

Once, we all went to a cottage at a creek, and he gave me a peanut and began making a clicking sound with his mouth. When I looked up at him, he smiled at me and pointed. I turned and looked at the tree he was pointing at and saw movement. It was a squirrel. My father clicked again, and that squirrel came right to me, reached up with his little hands, and took the peanut from my fingers. Astonished, I looked up, and he was smiling. For a kid from my background, that was a damn good memory. I remember watching THE INVADERS and THE FUGITIVE with him. I remember him explaining how a flat tire will come off a rim after it’s been shot out. I suppose he identified with the fugitive because he was always on the run. As this is a blog in the memoir section and not a full-fledged memoir, I am only giving you the Readers Digest version instead of the entire story.

Eventually, my mother and father separated. Even that was a violent affair after he took my mother and future stepfather at gunpoint from a bar. He forced them into their car. My mother was sure my father intended to execute both of them. She later told me that he had stated those were his plans. But my father did not expect to be entrapped by his jealous rage, as my mother had been used as bait by the police to arrest my father. In a takedown that involved robbery detectives and multiple police cars, my father was removed from the vehicle and cuffed. They arrested him on charges of armed robbery. It went to trial, and he was found guilty and sentenced to ten years.

He did six years, paroled out for good behavior.

Six years out of a domestic abuse family dynamic into relative normality?

Anything but normal. Still dysfunctional, it was enough to save my brother and me from a life that would eventually have consumed us. Neither my brother nor I became abusers of our wives or our children. We both despised him for this. I was tough on my kids, probably tougher than I should have been. I never used a belt, but I did spank my kids. I spanked them not because I was angry or wanted to instill fear but because they were being assholes. Didn’t expect that did you? I have three boys, and I love them with all my heart. They all seem to be in good places these days; that is all I need. If they are happy, I’m glad because they’re not welcome to come back and live with me. I’m still pretending to hold a grudge.

Many years later, I would reconnect with my father, as would my brother.

It was a stormy relationship that eventually fell apart. My father had

contracted Hep C in prison, drank to excess, and his liver was on its way out. Aside from the jug of Absolut Vodka he kept in the cabinet, he ate Percocet like candy. He was an addict. There were times through this stormy relationship that yielded some pleasant memories. My mother forgave him, but I never quite trusted him. Ultimately, he became bitter and mean-spirited, sabotaging our relationship.

We found out he died two weeks after the fact. His wife, who is also now dead, never bothered to call. My Uncle Ron, his brother, reached out via email. His brother was a good guy—ex-military, solid through and through. Ronny is gone too. It was our father who terminated the relationship. He did something that angered me greatly. I called him up and gave him a piece of my mind?” He said, “I’m going to hang up now.” And those were our last words.

My poor brother didn’t do anything. He wasn’t even involved in the argument. But he never called either of us again. I think the sickness, addiction, booze, slow death, and his wife’s urging to cut ties blew it all up.

What the hell are you going to do?

I never shed a tear for him. He pissed away the gift of grandkids. He forfeited a second chance. I also vowed never to carry it as excess baggage. I haven’t. In fact, as a writer, I absorb it as a sad section of chapters that got me to this point in time and sentence. I have more or less reconciled and come to understand a bit about domestic violence. It is not born out of anything. It is often learned from an adult abuser, sometimes with substance abuse as an enabler. I loved my mom. She was flawed and had poor taste in men, but she did her best. For that, she gets a pass on the shortcomings. She got us out alive.

My brother and I both served in the military. After the military, he went on to get his engineering degree, and he’s one of the most intelligent and decent people I know. After the military, I got my Class one and drove a big truck. I crossed the highways of Canada and the United States from New York City to Houston, Texas, and straight up the world’s longest ice road. In all these cases, my rig doubled as a study, where I concocted tales that became novels and short stories on the steering wheel of a parked truck.

I don’t hate my father. I feel sad for him. He ruined his life and pissed away the years that could have been devoted to being a grandfather. I find that most tragic of all. I know more about him in death than I did in life. I know that his father abused him terribly, and at 14 years old he set out on a journey that hurt people and himself. He once told me, “I really fucked up my life.” To which I said, “You’re still alive.” He lived in the past, and those demons took too much of his soul. He isn’t the only one.

Why such a personal blog? I don’t know. I’m doing a little self-inventory at 57, always looking forward and remembering to look back. It’s how I got here. I am analytical and pragmatic about my past. I am often dissecting and following the bread crumbs. I use what I have learned in writing. Rather than hit you with a pitch to buy a book, I thought I’d give you a little piece of me.

Now buy a book and leave a review.

Thanks for listening.

I started watching Devil in Ohio from Netflix which has really interesting premise. In fact it reminds me somewhat of The Chidren of Red Peak by author, Craig DiLouie. In DiLouies book, children, now adults, go home to face their demons after escaping an apocalyptic cult. Great book. In the case of The Devil in Ohio, a girl escapes from a Satanic Cult and takes refuge in the family home of the psychologist treating her.

It has my attention until the end, but there are two things I find extremely annoying about it. The Netflix writers tripped all over itself to display wokism throughout and it distracts from an otherwhise interesting storyline.

I haven’t read Devil in Ohio, but I am considering doing it to compare it with the Netflix adaption. The other criticism I have is that it feels like a pre-cable movie. No one is swearing. Not even the detective, investigating a cult that carved a pentagram into a girls back. Also the detective looks more like a fragrance model than a detective.

Now, I don’t care what a characters gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation is, but when characters start feeling like product placement, it distracts from the story. Big time.

Comparably, Sundance TV did a fantastic adaption of Joe R. Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard, picking great actors to portray excellent characters. The characters are two men, Hap and Leonard, cemented as brothers when a horrible car accident kills both their fathers. They grow up together, fight for each, and others, against a myriad of interesting villains.

Hap Collins, played by James Purefoy, is a working class Texas Cowboy who has deplorable taste in women, and Leonard Pine, played Michael Kenneth Williams, a Vietnam veteran, gay black man who isn’t afraid to take up arms against evil people. I’ve read some of these books and sorrowly disappointed when they cancelled the series. It was fantastic. I think the lesson is that you can have characters in story who are gay, who are straight, who are white, who are whatever, but you have to make people like or identify with them. And you can’t display them like a box of laundry detergent or a can of beans to tick off a demographic checkbox. It’s lazy, and it’s lazy.

As I said, I’m going to finish it, and try and ignore the glaring distractions in an otherwise interesting scenario.

Thanks for Listening

PS:

I’m hard at work on the new book. I will be making an announcement once I get a look at the publishing timeline. While your waiting, I’d be honored if you’d check out my books, and if you already have, please tell a frien or a bunch of friends. Word of mouth means everything in this business, friends. Oh, and so do reviews, so if you haven’t dropped one, please do.

Thanks

MJ