Under the News

DELIVERED FROM EVIL among 2011's 10 best!

2012-01-20T18:19:00.000-06:00

The readers and editors of TrueCrimeBookReviews.com have named my atmospheric true-crime DELIVERED FROM EVIL -- and exploration of the lives of 10 survivors of mass murder and serial killings -- among the 10 best true-crime books of 2011.

The impressive list included Ann Rule's "Don't Look Behind You," Caitlin Rother's "Dead Reckoning" and M. William Phelps' "Love Her to Death" -- so it's an impressive company in which to be included!

It's just the latest plaudit for a moving crime book hailed by bestseller Gregg Olsen and CBS 48 Hours Correspondent Erin Moriarty.

“In Ron Franscell’s captivating account of the darkest chapters of our history, the author skillfully reminds all of us the meaning of grace and the triumph of the human spirit,” Olsen said.

Moriarty's endorsement emphasized the book's focu son victims and survivors, not criminals.

“In an age when we glamorize killers, Ron Franscell gives a voice to the forgotten victims, a voice you won’t and can’t forget,” the Emmy-winning Moriarty said.

Think you know where the bodies are buried?Play my new CRIME SCENES QUIZ!

2012-01-05T17:16:00.021-06:00

http://www.ronfranscell.com/quiz

Sharp on crime history? Know where all the bodies are buried? You'll love my new CRIME SCENE QUIZ site. Play every Monday and win prizes from some of America's biggest crime authors! Check it out by clicking here!

All you need to do is identify a Google Earth image of a place with some significance to American crime history. Post your answer first at my Facebook author site and you win! Prizes include signed books by bestselling crime authors like Kathryn Casey, Caitlin Rother and Burl Barer! No entry fees, no sign-ups ... just plain fun!

So c'mon over and play!

Huffington Post explores SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB!

2011-11-05T20:09:00.000-05:00

This week, the Huffington Post went deep into my new memoir, THE SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB, the true story of my extraordinary road trip to the Yukon with my teenage son Matt to find the infamous cocktail containing a mummified human toe.

"Fathers and sons traditionally bond over a shared experience -- hunting, fishing, playing catch -- but it's highly unusual for that familial moment to involve sucking on a dead man's toes," wrote HuffPo's David Moye.

Moye's story went on the detail the journey as well as the final encounter with the dead digit at Dawson City's Sourdough Saloon, home of the Sourtoe Cocktail. The story was also my son Matt's initiation into the mass media ... his first interview by a major outlet!

"Meanwhile, Matt Franscell, who is finishing up a history degree at the University of Nebraska, looks back fondly on the time he 'toed' the line with his Dad," Moye wrote. "'When my friends find out I did this, I have to tell the entire story,' he told The Huffington Post. 'I didn't realize when I did it, how important it really was.'"

~~~~~~

THE SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB, just published, is now available at all bookstore in the real world and online. An ebook version is also available for Kindle, Nook and other formats.

And the winners are ...

2011-10-04T06:00:00.005-05:00

And the winners of our SOURTOE DEBUT drawing are (drum roll):

$20 OMAHA STEAKS GIFT CARD
Eileen Rissler

TWO AMC MOVIE PASSES AND FREE DRINKS

Kim Kelly

Don & Marjorie Richard

ONE AMC MOVIE PASS AND FREE DRINK
Melinda Pontruff

AUTOGRAPHED FIRST EDITION OF

'ANGEL FIRE'

Ann Kaplan

Michelle Kodis

AUTOGRAPHED FIRST EDITION OF
'OUTLAW ROCKIES'
Rosie DeLlano

AUTOGRAPHED FIRST EDITION OF
'DELIVERED FROM EVIL'
Julie Franscell

13th & Center Streets, Casper, Wyo

2011-09-10T19:13:00.006-05:00

The house below is on the nw corner of 11th and Center streets. Note the octagonal cupola.

Are you smarter than an outlaw? Take the OUTLAW ROCKIES quiz

2011-07-30T17:42:00.002-05:00

Think you know the crime history of Colorado, Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains? Test your outlaw brainpower with this quiz. If you blow it, you'll want to read THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO THE OUTLAW ROCKIES, a new crime/history/travel book coming Sept. 1 from bestselling crime writer Ron Franscell and Globe Pequot Press. And if you ace it ... you're really gonna love OUTLAW TEXAS! It's a book that's right up your dark alley.

Just like Ron's popular CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO OUTLAW TEXAS, this quirky and fascinating travel book literally takes you to the scene of the crime with photos, maps, histories and GPS coordinates! From the Wild Bunch and Tom Horn to Columbine and Ted Bundy, OUTLAW ROCKIES promises to be a headlong romp through the criminal history in the heart of the Rockies. Put it on your 2011 Christmas gift list for the true-crime and history lover in your family!

Ron Franscell's fall book tour coming to Colorado, Wyoming!

2011-07-27T12:25:00.022-05:00

My fall book tour in Colorado and Wyoming promises to be a wild and wolly tumble through the Rockies! In the nine-day, nine-stop tour, I'll be talking about my two newest books -- THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO THE OUTLAW ROCKIES and THE SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB -- at a series of free public events, culminating at the legendary Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver.

Here's the lineup. Stop by and say hello!

WHEATLAND (WY), OCT 6, 2011 @ 5PM: Wheatland Mercantile Book Nook, 875 Gilchrist.

CASPER (WY), OCT 7, 2011 @ 7PM: Natrona County Public Library.

BUFFALO (WY), OCT 8, 2011 @ 7PM: Johnson County Public Library.

CHEYENNE (WY), OCT 9, 2011 @ 3PM: Barnes & Noble on Dell Range Blvd.

LARAMIE (WY), OCT 10, 2011 @ 3PM: American Heritage Center on UW Campus.

ROCK SPRINGS (WY), OCT 11, 2011 @ 7PM: Rock Springs Library, 400 C Street (in the Ferrero Room).

LOVELAND (CO), OCT 12, 2011 @ 7PM: Loveland Public Library.

LAKEWOOD (CO), OCT 13, 2011 @ 7PM: Barnes & Noble at West Village on West Colfax Avenue.

DENVER (CO), OCT 14, 2011 @ 7:30PM: Tattered Cover, 2526 East Colfax Avenue.

Soundtrack for the Apocalypse

2011-05-20T10:14:00.015-05:00

Here's a playlist for those of us who are unlikely to be snatched up in Saturday's scheduled Rapture. Click the links to listen:

1. Apocalypse Now (The Doors)

2. End of the World As We Know It (REM)

3. Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)

4. Knocking on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan)

5. Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)

6. I Shall Not Be Moved (Elvis Presley version)

7. God Bless Saturday (Kid Rock)

8. DOA (Bloodrock)

9. Waiting for the End of the World (Elvis Costello)

10. Rapture (Blondie)

11. Eve of Destruction (Barry McGuire)

12. Disintegration (The Cure)

13. The Four Horsemen (Metallica)

14. Something to Die For (The Sounds)

15. The Man Comes Around (Johnny Cash)

16. Ride of the Valkyries (Richard Wagner)

17. It's Not My Time (Three Doors Down)

18. Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)

~~~~~~~~~~~

What would you add?

Osama got off easyAmerica hasn't always treated its dead monsters' corpses with such respect

2011-05-02T08:41:00.018-05:00

In the end, Osama bin Laden got off easy.

Killed yesterday in a daring night raid on his compound in Pakistan, Osama's corpse was whisked away by American Special Forces so they could prove that the world's most feared monster had been dispatched.

But now that this colossal dragon had been slain, what would we do with his carcass? Certainly many among us fantasized gruesome indignities, or at least something akin to being trapped in a jet fuel-soaked, burning skyscraper as it crumbled to dust.

But in civilized societies, fantasies and societies often diverge. In this case, DNA and photos were taken and before the sun set again, Osama was quietly sent on his way to Allah and whatever rewards awaited him in Jannah, the Muslim heaven.

Today, a U.S. government official said, quite simply, that Osama was buried at sea and his body was “handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. This is something that we take very seriously, and so therefore this is being handled in an appropriate manner.”

For being on the short list of history's most hated and feared monsters, Osama received a more respectful burial than many lesser enemies of the state. In fact, for all our self-righteous preening about our superior civilization and manners, the United States has actually treated the corpses of its worst antagonists with contempt and irreverence, occasionally bordering on post-mortem sadism.

History is full of examples. Ordinary criminals and evil-doers generally were usually dumped in unmarked graves outside the fences of our "proper" cemeteries. Some were lynched and their bodies defiled in grisly ways (such as Old West train robber "Big Nose" George Parrott, whose skin was turned into a pair of shoes for the governor, and whose skull became a candy dish.)

In 1942, eight Nazi saboteurs landed secretly in America to wreak as much havoc as possible, but their evil plot came unraveled. Six were executed and buried in a remote potter's field in Washington beneath wooden slats bearing only numbers. In time, the graves were lost completely, and that was just fine with American authorities.

Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth (ironically, also mortally wounded in a bold night raid by soldiers) was dissected and initially packed in an old musket case and buried in an unmarked grave on a Washington Army post in 1865. Later, his box was moved to a warehouse where it sat for several years until it was returned to his family (who buried it in another unmarked grave.)

Almost 40 years later, a strange story arose that Booth had eluded his captors and had committed suicide in an Oklahoma hotel room. On the off-chance that the body they tended was, in fact, Booth, the local morticians mummified him and propped his corpse in a rocking chair (reading a newspaper) in their front window for several years, until his body was claimed by a Tennessee lawyer who sold Booth's Mummy into the carnival sideshow circuit. It toured freak shows for decades until disappearing in the 1970s.

In fact, presidential assassins never fared well.

Charles Guiteau, who murdered President James Garfield in 1881, was hanged and dismembered before all but his brain (shipped to a doctor in Pennsylvania) was dumped into an acid vat. His bleached bones and a few other morsels are still in the U.S. Army's National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington.

Leon Czolgosz, President McKinley's anarchist assassin, died in the electric chair in 1901. His body was laid in an acid-filled casket and buried unmarked in New York.

JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was treated slightly better in death, but hardly with generous respect. His funeral in 1963 was deliberately scheduled at the same moment as JFK's services because authorities knew all eyes would be glued to the president's televised funeral, not on Oswald's. In fact, not even Oswald's wife attended his simple graveside service in Fort Worth. Six reporters had to be drafted to act as pallbearers ... because only reporters showed up.

So while it's not known if an imam said any final words over Osama's corpse as it was assigned to The Deep, it's clear he got a slightly better send-off than many of America's enemies have gotten. And in the end, maybe there's some reason to think we're actually starting to get the hang of this civilization thing.

UPDATE 12:12 PM CDT: "Today's religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian sea. The ceremony started at 1:10am and finished at 2:10am ET," the second official said. "Procedures for Islamic body were followed. The body was washed and placed in a white sheet. A military official read prepared remarks, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The body of Osama bin Laden was placed on a flat board, which was then tipped up, and allowed to slide into the sea."

Supplies limited! Two signed books by Ron Franscell!

2011-03-28T15:11:00.010-05:00

Are you a collector of signed books? Waiting for a better price at Amazon? Just haven't gotten around to buying these books yet?

Well, now's your chance of a lifetime (or at least of April) to get Ron Franscell's two newest books, both signed by the author, at a bargain price!

The combined cover price for DELIVERED FROM EVIL and THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO OUTLAW TEXAS would be $43 (plus tax) if you bought them at most retailers. You can get them for $30 at some online stores. Here's the best deal you'll see anywhere: Until Ron's small supply of books runs out, you can get them both for only $29 with free shipping! And signed!

To get instructions on how to take advantage of this deal, just email Ron today at ron@ronfranscell.com. Once your order has been placed, you can pay by check or PayPal, and your books will be shipped right to your home!

Email Ron today!

NOW ON NOOK! My first books

2011-01-27T10:25:00.006-06:00

Good news for my Nook-reader friends! Starting today, my first three novels -- ANGEL FIRE, THE DEADLINE and THE OBITUARY -- are now all available at BN.com as ebooks for the Nook reader! If you Nook ... please look!

Just click on the book covers and go straight to Barnes&Noble.com!

DELIVERED FROM EVIL book trailer

2010-11-30T20:23:00.003-06:00

THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TOOUTLAW TEXAS

2010-10-06T13:31:00.007-05:00

Texas rightfully claims a celebrated place in the “wildest” West of both myth and reality—which makes it truly stranger than fiction that The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Texas is the first-ever travel guide to the many sites related to the Lone Star State’s renowned rambunctious past, complete with GPS coordinates that put you at the scene of the action.

From outlaws like Sam Bass and John Wesley Hardin to Bonnie & Clyde and Houston’s notorious Candy Man killer, Texas has dozens of places where true-crime buffs can actually stand close to history. For many readers, the attraction to these sites—some well-known, some obscured by time—is irresistible.

COMING NOV. 9 TO ALL BOOKSTORES!

"The research in this book is simply amazing! Ron Franscell has basically re-mapped Texas, specifically pinpointing where all of our most notorious outlaws lived, performed their gruesome deeds, and died. On top of that, he's uncovered riveting stories about outlaws in far away corners of the state that very few us even knew about. For everyone interested in Texas' great outlaw past, this is an indispensable guide."
— Skip Hollandsworth, executive editor of Texas Monthly

"Texas has more than its share of unforgettable crime stories that cover a full range of human emotions-from the tragically comical to the unspeakably horrific. None of those stories can be fully understood without the context of place and Ron Franscell's OUTLAW TEXAS, an effective combination of interesting stories, directions, and GPS coordinates, gives us the "what and where" necessary to understand our uniquely Texan true crime heritage."
— Gary Lavergne, bestselling author of "A Sniper in the Tower" and "Bad Boy from Redbud"

"Gifted crime writer Ron Franscell takes you along on an absolutely fascinating road trip. And along the way, be prepared to often hear yourself saying, 'Damn, I didn't know that!'"
— Carlton Stowers, dean of Texas true crime and Edgar-winning author of "To The Last Breath" and "Careless Whispers"

"Can't wait to fire up my GPS. A fascinating trek through Texas crime."
— Kathryn Casey, author of the Texas true crimes "Shattered" and "Descent into Hell"

NOW ON KINDLE! Books by Ron Franscell

2010-06-25T16:25:00.004-05:00

THE DEADLINE

Named One of the Top 25 Best Crime Fictions of 1999 by POISONED PEN

Former Chicago Tribune crime reporter Jefferson Morgan is living his life-long dream of running a weekly newspaper, The Winchester Bullet, in the Wyoming town where he grew up. But when an infamous child-murderer comes home to die and begs Morgan to help clear his name, the dream becomes a nightmare. Under the gravest deadline of his life, amid an extraordinary backlash from his neighbors, readers and advertisers, Morgan struggles with his own conscience to tell a story no matter the consequences, digging deep into the town's past, and revealing a killer who's hidden himself for almost 50 years.

"Ron Franscell has undeniably hit his mark. His masterful storytelling strikes hard at the heart. It leaves his readers stunned one moment, and tenderly moved the next."

—The Denver Post

~~~~~~

THE OBITUARY

When a world-renowned forensic anthropologist journeys to Winchester, Wyoming, to examine the long-dead remains of a woman who claimed to be Etta Place — the Old West’s most mysterious and legendary female outlaw — he’s not expecting to find a man’s headless corpse in her crypt. The grisly discovery plunges him and Jefferson Morgan — the editor of the weekly Winchester Bullet — into a shadowy and deadly world of satellite-savvy highway pirates, rural meth labs, computer hackers and old-fashioned corruption. And they might not survive the fall.

This is the "lost" sequel to Ron's award-wnning 1999 mystery THE DEADLINE and is released as an exclusive to Amazon Kindle readers!

"Ron Franscell's THE OBITUARY is gorgeously written, complex and satisfying — a damn near perfect book." — JOHN LESCROART

~~~~~

ANGEL FIRE
A stunning literary debut listed by the San Francisco Chronicle among the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century West (No. 74)

A modern classic that continues to gather a loyal readership, ANGEL FIRE is a haunting tale of two brothers on separate odysseys of self-discovery. Twenty-four years after war correspondent Daniel McLeod is killed in a Viet Cong ambush, his only brother Cassidy is mysteriously drawn to their Wyoming hometown, where he must confront a lifetime of his own ghosts. Their story is about how we seek equilibrium, a delicate balance between memory and the unknown, dislocation and homecoming, loss and restoration.

Set against the deceptive simplicity of a small town on the high plains, Angel Fire is a story of mythic proportions. It resonates with the rhythms of tales told for millennia, but they are written anew here, fresh as a Wyoming summer breeze. It resonates with the rhythms of a small town, the blessings of memory, and the pain of loss.

"Reminiscent of Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain' ... (Franscell's) themes involve a fresh approach to our rural roots as a font for the elusive American spirit." -- USA Today

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE NOW!

Ready, aim ... firing-squad execution awaits

2010-06-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

On Friday, barring any clemency in the next few days, Utah killer Ronnie Lee Gardner will be executed. That's not especially noteworthy except that Gardner chose to be killed by a firing squad (he was sentenced before 2004, when lethal injection became Utah’s default execution method. His other choice was hanging.)

The same old debate about capital punishment is, of course, unfolding. Let it. As with all hijacked conversations in our hollering society, it ignores a large majority that can see times when the death penalty is appropriate and times when it is not. We've heard all the radicals' talking points before, ad nauseam.

What we haven't heard very often is the sound of gunfire in the death house. Firing squads date back to the invention of guns, but only two killers have actually been legally and officially shot to death in the United States, in 1977 (Gary Gilmore) and 1996 (John Taylor). It's not a default method anywhere, but remains an option for condemned inmates in Utah, Idaho and Oklahoma.

Gardner chose the firing squad because it was "easier" and maybe quicker. The process is cloaked in some secrecy, but in the past five sharpshooting volunteers from law enforcement agencies are chosen. The condemned man is strapped in a backless chair, wearing a hood and a target over his heart. The squad is set up on a sturdy firing platform 20 feet away. On a command, they fire simultaneously. One of the shooters' .30-caliber rifles is loaded with a blank cartridge so that any one of the five might reasonably surmise he didn't fire the fatal shot.

Is it cruel? If you radically oppose capital punishment, even lethal injection is cruel. If you radically support capital punishment, it isn't cruel enough. There have been difficulties with all methods (although not with firing squads in the USA because they are used so rarely). But should four bullets not shatter a human heart as expected, an alternate shooter stands by to administer the coup de grace.

Some have argued that firing squads offer a soldier's death, and that hanging more befits common criminals. Opponents say it is a grotesque, "old style" method that's needlessly cruel and messy; proponents say it is swifter and surer than lethal injection, and therefore less cruel.

What are your thoughts about firing squads as a method for carrying out the public's promise to killers? Better or worse than other methods we've used for more than 200 years?

Journalist Ron Franscell is the author of the upcoming DELIVERED FROM EVIL, an extraordinary study of 10 survivors of American mass murderers and serial killers. It will be released in January.

Computers will predict juveniles' future crimes ... what could possibly go wrong?

2010-04-15T09:33:00.000-05:00

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has just bought state-of-the-art IBM software that they hope will help them identify juvenile criminals who are likely to commit future crimes.

This software will crunch the kids' criminal history, home life, drug habits, gang ties and peer associations -- and more -- in a scientific attempt to predict which juveniles are more likely to be future problems. The idea is that the hard cases can be separated from the rest and given more intensive rehabilitation. Florida officials stress the software will be just one way they try to zero-in on the most dangerous young offenders and tailor rehab and punishment more suitably to all the 95,000 young criminals they get every year.

"Predictive analytics gives government organizations worldwide a highly-sophisticated and intelligent source to create safer communities by identifying, predicting, responding to and preventing criminal activities," said Deepak Advani, a predictive analytics expert at IBM. "It gives the criminal justice system the ability to draw upon the wealth of data available to detect patterns, make reliable projections and then take the appropriate action in real time to combat crime and protect citizens."

Similar systems are already in use in the United Kingdom with adult prisoners. No data on the effectiveness is yet available.

Although it sounds a lot like the plot for "Hal 9000 Gets a Job as a Profiler," it will be hard to argue with this high-tech crystal-balling if it can be shown to reduce juvenile crime and recidivism. I mean, all we had before was Father Flanagan's intuitions. Questions remain (in my mind, anyway) about what kind of a computer-concocted, digitized, and possibly errant "permanent record"might follow these young offenders around for the rest of their lives, even if they never offend again. I also wonder about the unproven effectiveness of these robotic analysts to really see into a human heart. Thoughts from you expert crime-watchers?

Bestselling true-crime author Ron Franscell's haunting study of 10 mass-murder survivors, DELIVERED FROM EVIL, will be released in January 2011.

DELIVERED FROM EVIL: The cover design

2010-04-12T11:31:00.004-05:00

Here's the book-jacket design for DELIVERED FROM EVIL, my upcoming book profiling 10 survivors of mass killings. It will be available everywhere January 2011.

The image on the cover is of a young woman cowering in fear moments after Texas Tower sniper Charles Whitman killed a young man just a few yards away.

The publisher's description: "Delivered from Evil retells the stories of mass murders from the harrowing perspective of a sole survivor. Drawing from extensive research and 1st person interviews with the survivors, the most notable cases will be given a fresh and disturbing new perspective. Using survivor’s accounts, some of which have never been told until now, readers will feel like they are actually walking through the event moment by moment Written in a can’t-put-down-style, Delivered from Evil explores what it takes to be a survivor of a horrific crime in the moment and in dealing with the aftermath of the event."

DELIVERED FROM EVIL ($26, Fair Winds Press) is also available now for pre-ordering at Amazon. Just click here and reserve your copy now!

Five Important Contributions by Prison Inmates (not counting eyeball tattoos)

2010-03-12T08:02:00.001-06:00

If you brushed your teeth this morning before settling down to read whatever fascinating new material was posted at In Cold Blog, you were unwittingly celebrating a prison inmate.

That's right. In 1770, British merchant William Addis was doing time for causing a riot. That's when he decided that the customary tooth-cleaning of his day -- rubbing your teeth with a sooty, salty rag -- wasn't the best idea. So he cadged a small bone from a piece of prison meat and bribed a guard for some horse-hair bristles, which he tied in tufts and inserted in small holes in the bones. Voila! The first modern toothbrush was created.

In fact, more contributions to the betterment of the world have come from prison than you might imagine. In a bawdy recent post at Cracked.com, blogger Manhammer (?) listed five of the most notable inventions or ideas to come from behind bars, including William Addis' toothbrush.

You might be surprised to learn the Erie Canal and the modern carbine were prison products. You've heard of the Birdman of Alcatraz (pictured above, looking nothing like Burt Lancaster)? How about Don Quixote?

OK, so these guys were the overachievers of the hoosegow. Face it, most inmates devote their imaginations to tattooing naked women on their scrotums and trying to figure out how to make a shank out of a cockroach. How many times have you said to yourself, "If only these criminal masterminds would put their creative energies to work for the benefit of mankind, the world would be a better place?"

Well, here you have it. Isn't it nice to know that some inmates have put their "time" to good use?

You can now follow author Ron Franscell at Facebook and Twitter.

ONLY ON KINDLE! Ron Franscell's 'lost' mystery

2010-02-03T08:23:00.004-06:00

This juicy mystery somehow got lost as Ron was on his way to bestsellerdom, but now it's being made available exclusively on Kindle for only $5.99!

Praised by bestselling thriller authors like John Lescroart and Michael Palmer, THE OBITUARY revisits the little Winchester, Wyoming, where history and mystery entangle small-town newspaper editor Jefferson Morgan. When the grave of a reputed Old West outlaw queen divulges its unexpectedly grisly secret, Morgan is plunged into a world of satellite-savvy highway pirates, Internet porn and old-fashioned corruption.

And now all of Ron's e-books -- ANGEL FIRE, THE DEADLINE and THE OBITUARY -- are only $5.99 at the Kindle store!

(And if you are a traditionalist, Ron's books are still printed on paper and still available at Amazon and othe booksellers!)

NOW ON KINDLE! Ron Franscell's THE DEADLINE

2010-01-08T13:12:00.005-06:00

If you're a Kindle reader, you're in for a treat! My 1999 mystery, THE DEADLINE has just come out in a Kindle edition!

A dying convict's last request thrusts small-town newspaperman Jefferson Morgan into a deadly maelstrom as he explores a fifty-year-old case of child murder -- a wound his town still isn't ready to scrape open. Under the heaviest deadline of his life, and amid threats from unexpected foes, Morgan must struggle with his own conscience to tell a story no matter the consequences, dig deep into the town's past, and reveal a killer who's managed to remain unmasked for almost 50 years.

And keep an eye out next month for the "lost" sequel, THE OBITUARY, which will be published as a Kindle Exclusive for e-readers!

More praise for THE DARKEST NIGHT

2010-01-07T09:45:00.003-06:00

The Book Experiment has just posted a marvelous review of THE DARKEST NIGHT, one of those that makes me glad I told the story. Among the reflections on the book was this:

"Somehow Franscell manages to extend his compassion to the lowlifes, Ronald Kennedy and Jerry Jenkins, responsible for the crime. He tells their story as completely and honestly as he tells of their victims. The contrast between the bleak lives that created such pathetic monsters as Kennedy and Jenkins with the ordinary and seemingly safe lives of their victims is all the more breathtaking for taking place in the same town."

When somebody calls my book -- or any book, for that matter -- one of the best of the past decade, I can't help but swallow hard and hope it's true.

NOW ON KINDLE! Angel Fire by Ron Franscell

2010-01-06T09:59:00.003-06:00

The Kindle e-book edition of my first novel ANGEL FIRE debuts today at Amazon!

The San Francisco Chronicle listed ANGEL FIRE among it 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century West ... and now you can read it in a 21st century format!

ANGEL FIRE is a haunting tale of two brothers' separate odysseys of self-discovery. Twenty-four years after war correspondent Daniel McLeod is killed in a Viet Cong ambush, his only brother Cassidy is drawn by a mysterious caller to their Wyoming hometown, where he must confront a lifetime of his own ghosts. Their entangled stories are about equilibrium, the delicate balance between memory and the unknown, dislocation and homecoming ... loss and restoration.

Set against the deceptive simplicity of a small town on the high plains, ANGEL FIRE is a story of timeless rhythms. It resonates with the familiarity of tales told for millennia, but they appear anew here, as fresh as a Wyoming summer breeze.

If you have a Kindle reader, please check it out! If not, it's still available in a traditional book format, too!

Is true crime's death exaggerated?

2009-12-09T12:31:00.000-06:00

By Ron Franscell

Author Joe McGinniss, whose "Fatal Vision" is among a handful of acknowledged classics in true crime (and irrevocably skewed true-crime titles for almost three decades), recently pronounced the genre deader than Marley:

"The last three books I've written have been about soccer, which nobody in America cares about; horse racing, which nobody in America cares about; and true crime, a genre that expired sometime last century . . ."

If the genre is dead, it's died fairly young. It hasn't even been 50 years since Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" plucked crime reporting from the pages of pulp magazines and plopped it down in a book.

Even for a true-crime writer, death isn't usually a matter of perspective. Dead is dead. Maybe true crime is dying, or maybe it has ceased to produce the kinds of profits that McGinniss and other big-time writers expect, or maybe it's just evolving. But a gaggle of new true-crime books are being produced every year, along with an unprecedented number of TV shows dealing with the reality of crime. So "dead" might be a little strong.

For sure, the genre has made a deliberate, intentional shift away from the narrative grace of Capote and Norman Mailer in an effort to appeal to a less sophisticated reader who is more likely to be influenced by faux blood on the cover and will almost always check to see if the book includes gruesome photos before buying. I know of some authors out there who genuinely want to write (or have written) beautiful books that, like Capote, explore bigger issues reflected in crime and punishment, but they are discouraged by editors ... while just about any grocery clerk can publish a quickie book about a local murder case (as long as there is a lurid element, great pictures and the word "fatal" in the title).

McGinniss might be right. If we only took then pulse of true crime's literary merits, the genre definitely died ... right about the time of "Fatal Vision" (1983). McGinniss was among the first big names in true crime to veer away from stories with complex moral reflections on society to the lurid, commercial crap that appealed to a different kind of audience. So it's hard to disagree with Joe -- even though he certainly didn't make the comment knowing that he was part of the sea-change, along with Ann Rule and others.

Moreover, as True Crime Book Reviews noted recently at its Facebook site, "as self-publication become easier and less expensive, [the quality of] all genres will suffer."

Thankfully, there have been a few remarkable exceptions in the past 20 years, among them John Berendt's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and Erik Larson's "Devil in the White City." They are likely to take the rightful places as classics in a genre that, at best, is still defining itself but wants desperately to be just like its earliest forebears.

It's quite possible that the last 20 years have simply been a phase, true crime's adolescence, where it was doing stupid things because of hormones. Maybe the adult years will reflect the genre's early precociousness and return to its sturdier, more robust, more literary roots.

But maybe not. Maybe it will simply decay back into its pulpy DNA and die out completely. Maybe the future of true-crime writing is on life-support in the small houses and POD presses.

You are a true-crime fan. Talk to me. What is the current state of true crime? How does it compare to the past and how would you describe its future?

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Join Ron's new Fan site at Facebook!

2009-11-18T17:44:00.007-06:00

Now you can communicate in real time with Author Ron Franscell at his new Facebook Fan site. Get the FRIDAY FAX every week, chat with other readers, ask questions, even become eligible for giveaways!

Just click here and become a Fan!

BREAKING NEWS: Mass-murderer Howard Unruh is dead

2009-10-19T15:53:00.003-05:00

UPDATE 10/20/09: Sources say Unruh's body has been claimed by an unidentified niece. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

~~~~

Howard Unruh, who has been called (somewhat errantly) "the father of mass murder," has died in the New Jersey mental hospital where he has lived since gunning down 13 people in Camden, N.J., in 1949. He was 88 and spent more than 60 years in the asylum.

He was not, in fact, America's first mass murderer, nor even the first one to snap, pick up a gun and start killing people. He was, however, a rarity, in that he didn't commit suicide after his rampage.

Charles Cohen, a 12-year-old boy whose parents and grandmother were slaughtered in Unruh's angry, 12-minute spree, became the most outspoken survivor of the so-called "walk of death." When Unurh was seeking less restrictive accommodations in the hospital, Cohen campaigned to keep him under the strictest control. He kept artifacts of the killings in an old suitcase and yearned for the day the seriously psychotic Unruh would be dead, so he could bury the suitcase -- and his memory. Alas, Cohen himself died at age 72 less than two months ago and was buried on the 60th anniversary of the shooting.

Ironically, Unruh was a WWII veteran who might now be eligible for a burial with full military rites. No services have yet been announced.

The story of Howard Unruh's rampage and Charles Cohen's extraordinary survival will be part of a 2010 book by Ron Franscell about survivors of mass killers.

Real Texas Ghost Video: Haunted Hotel in Beaumont

2009-10-14T23:19:00.005-05:00

The murder of Alice Benoit in 1957 remains one of the most monstrous crimes in Beaumont, Texas. The young prostitute was a favorite among the sailors, dock workers and wildcatters who visited the Hotel Rouler, the city's most colorful bordello. But one night in 1957, Alice Benoit was literally slaughtered by a jealous sailor when she spurned his marriage proposal. Her macabre slaying ignited a firestorm of public intolerance for Beaumont's famed red light district, which was soon shut down by police.

Recently, a local TV crew (the station manager asked that it not be identified) embarked on a story about the 50th anniversary of the murder that changed the face of Beaumont forever. As the crew prepared to videotape a reporter at the long-abandoned hulk of the Hotel Rouler, the videographer was startled to see a misty figure in an empty window. Later, he noticed that an open mike also picked up an eerie sound: A disembodied human voice whispering what sounds like a name.

If you want a real-life scare for Halloween, take a look at the video at BeaumontEnterprise.com and judge for yourself if this ghost really exists. Personally, I'm dubious. The image is verrry faint and the sound is hardly a whisper ... make up your own mind.

Not Lost Forever: New book details little girl's murder survival and search for answers

2009-10-06T07:19:00.011-05:00

Twenty years ago, I was working for the Marin County (Calif.) Independent Journal, the local paper in America's chicest -- and most expensive -- county. So with a new son in the house, we lived a more frugal life a half-hour north, in the quiet chicken-farming town of Petaluma, where my own world had shrunk to raising two children.

Then the news broke that just up the road from my house, just a few miles from my own daughter's kindergarten, the bloody bodies of three little girls were found in the county dump, their throats slashed. But one, little 3-year-old Carmina, was clinging to life ... and the unfolding news was pointing to a disturbing suspect: the little girls' own father.

Steve Jackson's latest true crime book, Not Lost Forever ($25.99, HarperCollins), co-authored with Carmina Salcido officially hits the bookstores today (Oct. 6). The publisher describes it this way: "It is a remarkable story of survival and healing after the 1989 murderous rampage by Carmina's father, Mexican vineyard worker Ramon Salcido in the wine country of Sonoma Valley, California. Left for dead at three years old — her throat brutally slashed — Carmina miraculously survived what is widely considered one of California’s most notorious crimes: the unthinkable attack that savagely destroyed seven innocent lives, including her entire family. At once a harrowing true crime story and the inspirational first-person account of a young girl’s strength, heart, and determination in the nightmare’s aftermath, Not Lost Forever is a shocking and profoundly moving tale of perseverance and hope, and of a precious life regained."

Question: What was different about the style of storytelling in Not Lost Forever?

Answer: Well, Carmina (pictured lower left) was three years old when her family was murdered by her father and she was left for dead with her throat cut. So while her recollections of that morning are extremely vivid, and amazingly accurate when compared to the evidence and what the police believe happened, they are still the 20-year-old memories of a traumatic childhood tragedy.

As such, she had no idea of what was going on around her: the search for her father and his capture and subsequent trial; the massive national and international response to her incredible story of survival, which at the time made her "the most famous three-year-old in the world"; or the impact of the crimes on what to that point had been the sort of laid-back wine country atmosphere of Sonoma County in 1989.

Still, Carmina wanted to tell her part of the story in the first person, which necessitated what I consider a hybrid of first-person memoir with dramatic narrative for passages such as the hunt for her father, Ramon Salcido, and his trial.

There is also some "as told to" sections from my time spent with her traveling to the crime scenes and reflecting on the past in which as the writer, I felt my observations were important to the story, too. Obviously, as she grew older, her memories of the bizarre life she was subjected to AFTER the murders was much fuller and so the first-person aspect is more dominant. We'll see if I was able to achieve a decent blend -- sticking with the wine country metaphor, perhaps something of a cabernet-merlot mix.

Q: How did you fill in the blanks around Carmina's memories?

A. Fortunately, one aspect of Carmina's return to Sonoma (photo courtesy of the Sonoma Index-Tribune) when she was 19 years old was a quest to learn the truth about her family and what had happened in April 1989. So she did quite a bit of digging on her own, looking at library clips and talking to people who had known her mother and father.

She was greatly aided in this by Capt. Mike Brown (Ret.) who had been the detective sergeant in charge of the homicide investigation team that day. He patiently answered her questions, and also helped her with her research, including gaining access to the police, district attorney and court files, which of course contained much more information than what the newspapers had written.

So Carmina actually knew a lot of the story and was able to relate it to me in her own words and in context with her memories. And once again, Mike Brown was invaluable to me as well in regards to filling in those blanks from a dedicated police detective's point of view.

Q: Seven murders, including the brutal slaying of four young girls, two of whom were likely sexually molested, as well as the attempted murder of Carmina ... it seems like a pretty dark story.

A: The depravity of Ramon Salcido is without question. He murdered his entire family and a co-worker in a vicious but calculated manner with plenty of time between murder scenes to consider what he had done and stop himself.

This wasn't one incident, it was four with significant distance between each episode and location. He continues to deny his culpability -- blaming it all on alcohol drugs and untrue allegations about his wife's fidelity -- and has beaten the system and remained alive on Death Row at San Quentin for 20 years.

So yes, if this was the standard fare of a truly heinous crime and then the machinations of justice, it would indeed be a dark tale with very little light with the exception of the work of the detectives working the case and prosecutor who sent Ramon Salcido to Death Row. However, I see it as Carmina's story -- a story about her courage and strength and, for lack of a better term, her indomitable spirit to overcome not just what her father did, but the misery of her life afterward without giving up, and then her quest to learn the truth and finally to confront the man who had done his best to destroy her and everything she cared about.

That she still laughs with such delight and looks forward to life like any young woman who had not been through what she has, is truly inspirational to me. I think anyone who is deal with the aftermath of a crime, or just having a rough ride through life, who reads this book has to come away thinking "I don't have it so bad. If she can overcome that, I can deal with what I have to as well."

Q. I understand that ABC's 20/20 news magazine will be doing a feature on Carmina and the book?

A. Yes, it's due to air on Oct. 16 (check local listings for time). Originally, they planned a half-hour segment to run on Oct. 9, but the producers apparently felt that the story warranted a full hour so it was pushed back a week. I have no idea how they approached the story -- there were several avenues, we chose to write the book as semi-autobiographical (is that even a term or am I making it up?) I do know that viewers will get a good feel for Carmina now, as well as Mike Brown, who once again, though reluctantly (he does it for her), figures prominently in the 20/20 story, too.

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Dirty New Orleans: Anti-citizen government is worse than Katrina

2009-09-28T13:48:00.010-05:00

An open letter to the citizens of New Orleans:

Everyone knows about Stockholm Syndrome. It's a psychological term that describes the behavior of kidnap victims who, over time, become sympathetic to their captors. In some cases, they even see their rescuers as the bad guys.

In almost 30 years as a newspaperman, I've seen the Stockholm Syndrome play out in unexpected places, including the halls of government. Well-meaning people who likely began their public lives as honest, devoted public servants become compliant, submissive hostages to the institutions that envelop, hide and nurture them. In their minds, the noble public slowly transmogrifies into ... the unwashed masses. "These pitchfork-wielding peasants want to harm our comfortable systems and codes," they cry, "and we cannot let that happen!"

Suddenly, the ordinary citizen -- for whom these institutions supposedly exist -- is the enemy. Every ordinary action, such as seeking a day in court, requesting guidance on zoning, or just asking for a simple public document, becomes a terroristic threat to the very people who once swore to serve ordinary citizens. God forbid that we might be forced to depend on our city leaders to actually save our lives in the event of a natural disaster.

New Orleans -- in both its pre- and post-Katrina incarnations -- might just be America's best example of corrupt, anti-citizen government. The silos have been hardened to withstand a nuclear blast of public opinion (although, as you'll learn later in this essay, apparently cannot protect simple file cabinets). Many of the dysfunctional, corrupt, lazy, petulant, unorganized, non-responsive, despotic, Third World behaviors of New Orleans public servants are detailed at this site, so I won't repeat the lengthy laundry list of misdeeds and insults New Orleans government heaps upon its people every single day.

But I will tell you an uncomplicated story about my most recent experience with New Orleans city government, especially its law enforcement agencies. Incredibly, what should have been one of the simplest and most non-threatening open-records requests ever has revealed just how entrenched New Orleans "public" servants have become against you. Maybe against the world.

I am writing a book profiling 10 survivors of mass-murder in the USA, to be published in late 2010. Each story will recap crimes and the moment when the survivor and killer crossed paths, but they will also explore how each survivor has coped with the trauma and its ripple effects over the years. One of my subjects is a retired New Orleans firefighter named Tim Ursin, who was wounded in 1973 by mass-murderer Mark Essex at New Orleans’ Howard Johnson Hotel.

Essex was a racist African-American who targeted white victims (and skipped over blacks) during a famous day-long siege at the downtown hotel in January 1973. He slaughtered 9 white people (mostly cops) and wounded 13 more innocents. He shot Tim Ursin, who was only trying to save people from the burning hotel. He was himself finally killed with the help of a Marine helicopter in the area because the New Orleans police were outgunned and unprepared for such a crime.

My research on Tim Ursin’s heroic experience began in January 2009 with a letter to the New Orleans Police Department seeking access to general reports and photographs from the crime. I followed with a request to the New Orleans Coroners Office with a similar request for Essex’s autopsy report.

Nine months after I first requested simple documents related to one of NOLA's most historic and noteworthy events, I have received nothing. Zip. In those nine months, despite repeated letters, phone messages and emails, I have literally received ONE call back (last March) from a low-ranking media officer who assured me that she was passing my request to the NOPD Records Department and that I'd be hearing from them soon. Never happened.

Today, I called the New Orleans Coroner's Office, from whom I've been seeking similar records in multiple snail-mailings. Just before he hung up on me, badge-heavy and dyspeptic Chief Investigator John Gagliano -- to whom I had addressed three separate letters -- claimed he never got them and that all Essex records were destroyed by Katrina anyway. End of story. Click.

Two letters to New Orleans City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields have also gone unanswered ... even though Louisiana law requires agencies to respond to open-records requests within three days. Clearly, the law enforcement agencies of New Orleans remain unfazed by the law. It just gets in the way.

Now, I must why a government agency would hide documents that actually might make them look good? Could it be that they simply don't know how to be open? That ALL information imbues them with a power they cannot risk sharing with people (you) who simply can't handle the truth?

CitizenCrimeWatch.org has detailed frighteningly numerous government misdeeds in New orleans, many of them quite serious to the public health and safety of New Orleanians. But in my case, we're not talking about records that will blow the lid off city-government or police careers. It isn't an expose of Watergate-like proportion. We're talking about simple official documentation of a historic case that's been closed for almost 40 years. If ineptitude has cost New Orleans all of its pre-2005 historic documents, then you really are a Third World community. But I suspect it's just old-fashioned "we ain't gonna tell ya 'cuz we don't wanna." The barbarians are at the gate!

Your city's leadership is famously (and historically) inept and corrupt. Fixing that rests entirely in your hands. It's not just a change of mayors that's required, but a change in cultures ... and frankly that seems less likely than another mega-billion-dollar disaster in your city.

If New Orleans police agencies are incapable of protecting pieces of paper, how in the world could they be expected to protect people? If they feel no special obligation to the public's trust, how can they expect the public to trust them?

Bottom line, you shouldn't trust the government to always do what's right. You can't even trust them to do what's legal. Right now, New Orleans has a government apart from the people ... of itself, by itself, for itself.

The biggest mess you have wasn't created by Hurricane Katrina, but might have been exposed by the storm. If these easiest public service is made difficult, the core of your government is rotten. You're not the true enemy, but they will sacrifice you to protect their institutions. And it appears you're quite comfortable with that. Like sheep to the slaughter.

All my best,
Ron Franscell

Last Meal: Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger ...

2009-09-25T13:06:00.001-05:00

Your last breath is only a few hours away. The governor isn't going to call. People are gathering outside to cheer your death. The Death Row chaplain has run out of prayers. The clock is ticking like a time bomb.

You have one final decision before your life is over: what will you eat for your last meal? Porterhouse steak? Beef Wellington? French nouvelle?

In Texas, where we keep painfully detailed Death House records, the most common answer is surprising: cheeseburgers and fries. Why? After 20 years in stir, where cheeseburgers aren't commonly served in the prison chow line, they are the most evocative comfort food in a Dead Man Walking's memory of the outside world. Or maybe they just taste good.

Double and triple cheeseburgers were on the Last Menu for killers. Most were prepared in the prison kitchens, but insiders reveal that they'll occasionally make a quick run to the Golden Arches to satisfy a last request.

But burgers aren't the only surprising final entree for the condemned. Hatchet-killer David Long had four BLTs. Baby-killing mass-murderer John Wheat had liver and onions -- and whole milk. Family killer Leonard Rojas had a whole fried chicken (extra crispy). Shootist John Baltazar asked for Cool Whip and cherries. James Powell wanted one pot of coffee. Random killer Jonathan Nobles requested communion for his last meal. And robber-killer Clifton Russell wasn't picky -- he asked for "whatever is on the menu."

Just like the outside world, cheeseburgers are declasse for the celebrities of Death Row. Serial killer Ricky Lee Green had five scrambled eggs, four sausage patties, eight slices of toast, six strips of bacon and four pints of milk. Born-again pick-axe killer Karla Faye Tucker chose a banana, a peach and a garden salad with ranch dressing. Serial killer Kenneth McDuff gorged himself on two T-bone steaks, five fried eggs, French fries, coconut pie and Coke. "Candyman" Ronald O'Bryan -- who poisoned his own son and ruined Halloween for many children -- ate a T-bone with corn and peas, saltines, Boston cream pie and sweet tea. Railroad Killer Angel Maturino Resendiz declined any last meal.

Last Meals are purely symbolic of society's mercy. They are generally served so close to execution that they have no nutritional value to the condemned. In most cases, they don't even have time to digest completely. They are simply a gesture to provide one last comfort or pleasure to a man or woman who'll be dead within a few hours.

So ... what would you order for your Last Meal?

(Want to know more? Pick up the latest edition of "Texas Death Row," Edited by Bill Crawford)

To all the Under-30 Crybabies

2009-09-24T14:46:00.004-05:00

I didn't write this ... I just wish I had.

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking 25 miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways …yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

1) When I was a kid we didn't have The Internet.
If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!

2) There was no email!!
We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

3) There were no MP3's or Napsters!
You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and screw it all up!

4) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!
If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

5) And we didn't have fancy caller ID.
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances mister!

6) We didn't have any fancy video games with high-resolution 3D graphics!
We had the Atari! With games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and the graphics were horrible! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

7) When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with big hair or a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

8) Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

9) And we didn't have microwaves…
If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire...imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing or a pan with HOT oil and real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

10) When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in … we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7-foot cord that ran to the phone - not to the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do.....hang up and talk to them later.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
“The Over 30 Crowd”

A peek inside my writing life ...

2009-09-18T16:04:00.006-05:00

Read novelist Craig Lancaster's Q&A with me about books and literature at his website, A Mind Adrift in the West.

Here's a taste:

"[Validation] is when a reader comes up to me or writes letter and tells me how one of my books touched her in a memorable way. For me, this has always been an intimate contract between me and readers. Agents, editors, booksellers, publicists, reviewers, media are all necessary in delivering the book to a reader’s hands, but when the reader completes the circle and tells me something marvelous about one of my stories, that’s when I know I told a good story."

Sticks and Stones: Let's stop being offended, fergawdsakes

2009-09-16T08:56:00.009-05:00

America is all a'Twitter (literally) over recent outbursts by singer Kanye West, tennis player Serena Williams and U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson. Throw in the righteous indignation over town-hall protesters by suddenly decorum-obsessed followers of Cindy Sheehan and Al Sharpton and ... well, you've got a massive whine-and-cheese party.

C'mon folks. Was the normally prosaic path of your life significantly (or even slightly) altered by any of these knuckleheaded squawks? Sure, depending on your view, maybe you were entertained or enraged briefly, but really ... did any of them truly matter?

Long ago, media critic Jeff Jarvis spoke words that should resonate with us far more than "hope and change." He said:

"The cardinal sin today is to offend (and) the clearest badge of victimhood is to be offended."

Kanye West did nothing more than extend his brand. He's the quintessential gangsta wannabe who can't control his self-centered urge to blurt out inappropriate blather at exactly the wrong moment. It comes to him more naturally than foreign accents come to Meryl Streep. After making unscripted racist comments about President Bush during a fund-raising commercial, and other awards-show interruptions, should we really be surprised by Kanye West? His comments might have hurt Taylor Swift's feelings, but how did they hurt anyone else but Kanye West?

And, oh boy, let's get our panties wadded over a potty-mouthed tennis player! Ever since John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors -- now both cultural icons -- picked up a racket, it's been the template for professional tennis players. But suddenly we're shocked -- shocked, I say -- that Serena Williams has a ghetto mouth.

Of course, Joe Wilson's is worst of all. He said, "You lie!" during President Obama's speech to Congress (and was correct) but now the House of representatives stops its work on, oh, fixing the economy, health care, terror and everything else to admonish the poor guy who has already apologized to the president. And nobody admonished Democrats for booing President Bush in his 2005 State of the Union speech. If delays in health care reform were so fatal, how many people died while Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed her outrage that a Republican would shout at a president who was, indeed, lying?

Let's get past our righteous indignation about people mouthing off. Stick and stones and all that. We are not hurt, nor even significantly diminished, by these outbursts. What should be minor blips on the media radar are being played above the fold in papers and looped endlessly on TV and radio. Talk radio is nothing but a series of these inconsequential outbursts (OK, conservatives will say it's patriotism and liberals will say it's Nazi-racist-anarchist-greedy maundering, but to most of us it's simply inconsequential.)

Maybe we should take a page from Facebook's notebook. Wouldn't it be convenient if, when one of these outbursts erupts, instead of getting all panty-wadded, we could just "un-friend" the offender and never have to listen to him/her again? Can you imagine how Kanye's record sales would fall if the USA suddenly un-friended him in one fell swoop? Or how Serena's pay-days would be suddenly thinner if nobody was watching?

If we continue to just float on the erratic stream of pop-culture like idiot leaves, we will simply continue to be offended, which makes us all victims. Screw that (sorry, folks, but that's as offensive as I can muster.)

Commie, intolerant conspiracy-nut Van Jones: 'What did I do?'

2009-09-06T07:49:00.010-05:00

Van Jones, the green jobs "czar" in the Obama Administration, has resigned. He blames right-wing talk radio and health-care reform protesters.

Gee, really?

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that Jones harbored a belief that the Bush Administration secretly ordered or allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen. Jones admitted last week that he signed a 2004 petition calling for an investigation into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."

And it couldn't possibly be Jones confession that he labels himself a communist.

And it couldn't possibly be Jones' admitted membership in radical, anti-establishment groups like Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which based itself on the teachings of Marx and Lenin.

Nor could it possibly be that he regards all Republicans (in his own words) as "assholes." (I mean, do we really have a man who hates half of America whispering to our President?)

No, it must be talk radio's fault. What a joke. Being someone who really wants "green jobs" to become an important trend in America, I resent that President Obama has subjected it to the extreme views of this one political pervert. Like too many people today, Van Jones proves to be extremely ordinary: he just can't take responsibility for his own behavior.

Good riddance. Let's hope he's replaced by someone with a realistic, honest, positive view of America's potential.

CHARLES COHEN (1937-2009)A second life well lived

2009-09-04T20:47:00.007-05:00

My friend Charles Cohen, 72, has died. He passed at 1:30 a.m. today and he will be buried on Sunday, September 6, in Philadelphia, not far from his parents and gradnmother, who were killed by mass murderer Howard Unruh exactly 60 years before ... September 6, 1949. The timing feels less like coincidence, more like design.

On a day I expected to sit with him and hear stories about his extraordinary life, I will instead attend his funeral.

Over the past several months, I developed great affection for Charles, who found himself suddenly alone in the world at 12 years old. Every time some deranged gunman would kill a large number of people, my phone would ring and we'd talk for a long time about what had happened. Of course, these killings aroused dark memories in Charles, but he always wanted to talk about the survivors and the families of the dead because he had a direct, empathetic connection to them. They were his family, too.

I will miss my friend, but tonight, he knows what we don't.

Ron Franscell will sign books in Milford CT!

2009-08-24T12:53:00.000-05:00

If you're anywhere near Connecticut on Sept. 8, please drop in at Collected Stories Bookstore in Milford CT. I'll be signing my latest book, THE DARKEST NIGHT, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Even if you think I suck as a writer, there'll be free wine!

And there's a rumor that copies of my previous novels ANGEL FIRE and THE DEADLINE will be available, too! So c'mon down and say hello!

Lost Letters of Janis Joplin A glimpse into the heart of a Pearl

2009-08-15T00:01:00.002-05:00

Forty years ago tomorrow, Janis Joplin rocked Woodstock. If she'd lived, today she'd be 3 years younger than Tina Turner. At 66, she might be doing ads for AARP or some osteoporosis drug if she hadn't flamed out at age 27 from a heroin overdose, but probably not.

She was a rebel among rebels. She ran away from home in Port Arthur when she was 17 and went to California. Drugs and disappointment sucked her dry. She wasn't ready for the bright lights and the big city. Withered to 88 pounds, she came home to Port Arthur -- a place legend says she famously hated -- in the summer of 1965 to dry out, to regain her equilibrium and retrace her steps. The road had taken her farther from where she started, closer to where she was from.

But in at least 64 letters from Port Arthur in the last half of 1965, we catch a glimpse of a Janis Joplin remarkably different from the whiskey-soaked, blues-drenched insurgent of legend: She comes across as a dreamy, insecure schoolgirl in love, a homebody who dreams about her wedding day, reconnecting with her faith, being mesmerized by a man flying in space and distant train whistles, not being able to fix her hair right, and being torn between spending a recent windfall on yarn to make her boyfriend a sweater or buying a guitar.

The letters were written to her fiance Peter de Blanc. They'd met in California, but when she returned to Port Arthur, he went home to Manhattan. The letters were made public in 2000, shortly before de Blanc died of cancer in 2002. The 64 handwritten letters, some very short and others as long as 8 pages, were broken up into 28 lots and auctioned off, perhaps never to be seen publicly again.

They contain no bombshells, no startling new facts, no skeletons uncloseted ... just the private Janis, not the iconic Janis. You might never see what they contained, even in this blog, because the Joplin Estate has so far asserted its copyright ownership of them -- Janis did write them, after all, and as such they are like a lyric that is owned by her and her estate. I received copies of 24 of those letters in 2005 from a rock memorabilia dealer, but when I asked Joplin's sister Laura's blessing to reprint them in my newspaper at the time, her lawyers responded emphatically: No way.

Why? The estate feared it would reduce the letters' future value. In other words, they wanted to be able to get top dollar for the contents later.

So, I'm sorry. I cannot excerpt substantial parts of the letters because their contents are legitimately owned by the Joplin Estate, even if the letters themselves are owned by collectors. But I can summarize for you some of the 24 letters I saw, and in a few spots, I will quote her words that have appeared in other reports about the letters.

[Aug. 21, 1965] After Peter visits Port Arthur, she reports that her family likes him. Mom thinks he's very refined and "has potential." She tells Peter her hope chest is filling quickly and that she, Laura and their mother will soon begin stitching a new quilt.

[Aug. 24, 1965] Janis is panicked about money -- or lack of it. She wants some, but the bohemian Janis is suspicious of the Material Janis. Peter comes from a wealthy family and all she's ever known are "ordinary people." She wants a little struggle, but she wants something to hold onto. "I don't want to just live a useless bored life of ignoble ease," she writes.

[Aug. 28, 1965] Janis is delighted to report she got all B's at Lamar and the family got a new light green Volkswagen. She tells him wistfully of lying in bed at night and looking out her window, hearing train whistles in the distance. "It's really a nice sound," she says. "I've never been so happy before ... because of you."

[Aug. 31, 1965] Janis begs Peter to mail Spiderman and Marvel comic books that she can't get in Port Arthur, to fix her fantasy-escapism jones. She tells Peter, who came to be an accomplished recorder musician, that she was practicing on her recorder but wasn't very good. She closes by telling him her mother is starting to work on some linen napkins, "a wedding gift sort of thing."

[Sept. 8, 1965] Janis excitedly reports that a guitar-playing friend from Beaumont is going to take her to a Houston folk club where the two of them might be able to get a gig for $125 a week. Right after she mails the letter, she's going to Beaumont to sing in a small club with "an old spade blues piano player."

[Sept. 9, 1965] Janis has taught herself a few ballads on the guitar "but it scares me much more than the blues," she writes. She chalks it up to her vulnerability, but doesn't really want to go deeper into it before signing off.

[Sept. 27, 1965] Janis tells Peter she wears hose and pins her hair up and "boys flirt with me. Blush. I really like it." Her guitar playing is improving, she says. And she writes that she thinks her head is "really straight now" and she's happy.

[Oct. 1, 1965] Janis is worried about Peter, who has been hospitalized for a drug problem. She gently chides him, saying she shouldn't take tranquilizers because they depress him. She wants badly to be with him as "a wife or an old lady or whatever I am."

[Oct. 13, 1965] Janis giddily reports that she has bought the "first thing for our house"-- a set of cups. She tells Peter he may visit Port Arthur again, but warns that he shouldn't do it simply to escape loneliness because "you won't be lonely long & then you'll be stuck in Texas."

[Oct. 19, 1965] It's been a while since she got a letter from Peter, but Janis reports that she bought a new pair of shoes this day and sounds a little surprised herself that she spent the night before scouring the Sears & Roebuck catalog for her trousseau. She's made A's on all her tests so far. "Isn't that good?" she asks.

~~~

In January 1966, Janis Joplin and Peter de Blanc are no longer together. She leaves Port Arthur for Austin and then San Francisco, where she joins a local band called Big Brother and the Holding Company. It's still 18 months before her breakout performance at the Monterey Pop Festival and almost three years before Woodstock, but she's on her way at last. Somewhere along the way, the Quilting Schoolgirl disappears and the Consummate Rebel emerges. On Oct. 4, 1970, she was dead and her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

She was only 27 ... the same age as singer Adam Lambert.

Her star burned bright for only 4 years. And although she visited Port Arthur in that time, she never really came home again. The little girl who lit a candle in her room every night to write to her boyfriend, who dreamed of being a bride, who once sought asylum in a place she reputedly loathed, whose personal blues were belted out in some of the greatest rock anthems ever recorded, became ashes long before she could become dust.

She was a shooting star, not a sleepy, permanent planet.

Ed Gein ... the musical?

2009-08-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

By Ron Franscell

Ed Gein wasn't your ordinary grave-robbing, corpse-grinding, necrophiliac, cannibalistic, would-be serial killer. He could carry a snappy tune, too!

You might recall Eddie. In the late 1950s, cops investigating a local murder in Plainfield, Wis., stumbled upon a startlingly grotesque scene in Gein's farmhouse. Yes, they found their murder victim dressed out like a dead deer, but that was the easy part. They also found a mask made from the face-skin of another local woman; human skulls made into bedposts and soup bowls; four disembodied noses; socks, lampshades and baskets made of human skin; shrunken heads; a box of female genitals; and a belt made from nipples.

In a surprise verdict, Eddie was judged insane. Go figure. He died in 1984 in a Wisconsin insane asylum.

But like all good freaks, Eddie isn't really dead. He lives -- nay, thrives -- in our cultural consciousness. In both books and film, he was the inspiration for Norman Bates in "Psycho" and for Jamie Gumb in "Silence of the Lambs." His affinity for human-face masks was even aped by Leatherface in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Now, Eddie will be the main character in "Ed Gein, The Musical," an indie film by Appleton-based DaviesRussell. It's being shot in Omro, Wis., because the citizens of Plainfield simply weren't interested. Go figure.

Co-producer Dan Davies says his movie will be historically accurate ... but will also feature lots of comedy and "plenty of great music." Oh yeah! Broadway-style show tunes with stirring lyrics like "I'm in love ... she's all cooked up!" and "I truly love you ... you smell of formaldehyde."

Ed must have some strange power over musical minds. Former Marilyn Manson bassist Gidget Gein took his name from Eddie. And there's also a grindcore band called "Ed Gein." Consider their 2003 album, "It's a Shame a Family Can Be Torn Apart by Something as Simple as a Pack of Wild Dogs," featuring the hit single, "The Marlboro Man is a Douche Bag."

Somewhere down deep inside where only God and Eddie Gein have explored, I want to be offended by this, but I just can't. If we can celebrate Sweeney Todd and John Dillinger, then Eddie deserves his screen time, too. In fact, I've got this tune stuck in my head:

Her hands are tasty and her knees are sweet
her pituitary gland is a tasty treat.
Who do you turn to when you need to sup?
... I'm in love ...
she's all cooked up

Uh-huh.

You can now follow Ron Franscell, author of THE DARKEST NIGHT, at Facebook and Twitter. He is now working on his next book, an exploration of mass-murder survivors' experiences -- without music.

Now on Twitter!

2009-07-16T10:38:00.001-05:00

Now you can follow Ron on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RonFranscell

Help me find the Missing Mummy!

2009-07-03T16:24:00.001-05:00

Ready to play Gumshoe?

While researching an upcoming book, I came across the intriguing story of the long-lost mummy of John Wilkes Booth ... or at least a fellow who claimed to be him.

It all begins in 1870, five years after the Lincoln assassination, when a young man named John St. Helen settled in Glen Rose, Texas, where he took a job as a bartender and acted in the local theater. He reportedly had an encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare and remarkable stage presence. But when the daughter of a local politician invited a slew of U.S. Army officers and a federal marshal to her fabulous wedding, St. Helen mysteriously disappeared.

In 1871, he popped up in Granbury, just up the road. He again worked as a bartender at a local saloon and befriended a local lawyer named Finis Bates. Bates noted years later that although St. Helen was a teetotaler, he drank himself silly on one day of every year, April 14 — the anniversary of Lincoln’s shooting.

While in Granbury, St. Helen got sick and believed he would soon die. Secretly, he whispered to his friend Bates, “My name is not John St. Helen. I am John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.”

To be sure, he bore a resemblance to the famed actor and dastardly killer. His age (about 40) was about right, and his theatrical demeanor gave one pause. And he told a remarkable story of mistaken identity on the Virginia farm where Booth was supposedly killed by federal troops.
But St. Helen didn’t die. He recovered long enough to disappear again, reportedly leaving behind a pistol wrapped in a Washington newspaper dated April 15, 1865.

That was the last anyone heard of St. Helen — until 1903, when an itinerant housepainter named David George committed suicide in Enid, Oklahoma. He’d again confessed his “true” identity to a local widow, who described him as an intelligent man who often quoted Shakespeare when in his cups. And the coroner discovered George’s right leg had been broken just above the ankle years before, and he was born in the same year as Booth. They wondered, might David George’s alias be a combination of two Lincoln conspirators’ names, David Herold and George Atzerodt, both hanged for their roles in the assassination plot?

George/St. Helen/Booth’s corpse was mummified and displayed for two years in the front window of an Enid funeral home until his old friend Finis Bates (future grandfather of actress Kathy Bates) came to identify George as his old friend, John St. Helen. He claimed the body, had it positively identified by Booth relatives, then sent it on a carnival sideshow tour as the mummy of John Wilkes Booth.

In 1931, a team of doctors and detectives X-rayed the mummy (pictured above). They allegedly found a broken leg and thumb, and a scar on the neck that matched wounds Booth was known to have suffered. Oddly, they also found a corroded signet ring in the mummy’s stomach — bearing the initial “B.” Suddenly, people began to wonder … could it be?

In 1937, the mummy reportedly attracted more than $100,000 from sideshow gawkers. Various carnivals displayed the mummy over the years until it vanished completely in the mid-1970s ... about the time the feds were cracking down on displaying human remains. Whether the Booth mummy was destroyed or is now in a secret collector's care, the central question is ... where is it?

~~~~~~~~~~

Personally, I am skeptical that David George was Booth ... but it's that sliver of possibility that intrigues me. Even if he isn't, though, maybe we can explore the tragedy of being nobody wanting to be somebody ... and ultimately being lost altogether. Whether the mummy is found or unfound, the book will explore bigger issues of culture and psyche ... and cultural psyche.

Who wants to play? Doesn't matter if you are a skeptic or a believer ... let the courts and scientists sort it out. If you have clues or special inside knowledge, let's see if we can crack the Case of the Missing Mummy. (And you thought it was easy?)

You may post here or write directly to Ron by clicking here

Thinking about a 'book doctor'? Check it out!

2009-05-15T13:23:00.003-05:00

So how do you know if you need a "book doctor"? It's not always an easy call. But since close-editing isn't exactly the highest priority in today's book-publishing landscape, more would-be authors could probably use it than ever before. Here's an essay by a former book editor that might help you decide if you should seek a book editor's help.

See one industry insider's view by clicking here.

Worst U.S. serial killer behind bars tonight?

2009-04-30T21:39:00.000-05:00

Los Angeles police today arrested John Floyd Thomas, Jr., a name no self-respecting true-crime buff will want to forget.

After a recent arrest, a DNA database matched Thomas to evidence left in two 1970s killings in Southern California. Thomas, they say, might have begun a serial rape and murder spree as early as 1955.

Police believe Thomas might prove to be the most prolific serial killer in American history, with an estimated 30 cases in the L.A. area alone.

Stay tuned ...

16 Pages of Shocking Photos! Do you look?

2009-04-06T08:35:00.001-05:00

Funny story. Not long ago, I was telling a fascinating little yarn about the autopsy of a deranged killer whose body was riddled with more than 200 bullets after pursuing police cornered him at the end of one of modern America's bloodiest massacres.

Then my wife nudged me with one of our secret signs that maybe I should change the subject because, after all, we were at a funeral.

In 30 years as a newspaperman and a couple true-crime projects, I sometimes forget my threshhold for grisliness is somewhat higher than the ordinary human's. I have attended autopsies and exhumations, thumbed through hundreds of coroner reports, pored over grotesque evidence photos, learned a couple cool tricks to keep from retching from death-stink, and seen more than my share of gore-splattered crime scenes. Most times, I know how far is too far, but sometimes I forget that I chose to see these things so you (the common public) didn't have to ... mostly because, trust me, you don't want to.

This, of course, totally neglects the voyeurism that is such an intimate part of true crime. From graphic descriptions of rape and dismemberment to uncloseted skeletons, many of us want to see the darker elements of crime and punishment.

This week, while researching an upcoming book, I was given a crime-scene photo that actually caused me to gasp. Honestly, that's hard to do. The first thing that went through my mind was, "God, the publisher will never print that." The second thing was, "God, what if they want to publish that?"

Honestly, I don't know which bothers me more.

I have held forth here and elsewhere in the past that true-crime publishing has become largely pulpy and exploitive, splashing faux blood on bookjackets and promising "16 Pages of Shocking Photos!" I cannot believe that shocking photos are more attractive to true-crime readers than good, dramatic storytelling ... but it wouldn't be the first time I've been dead wrong.

One of the classics of the genre is Gary Lavergne's 1997 "Sniper in the Tower," about Charles Whitman's 1966 shooting spree from the University of Texas Tower. It set a standard for detailed research and reportage, but more interestingly, its photo insert contained images of Whitman's dead wife and mother in which their actual corpses were Photoshopped out. Only the blank outline of their bodies remained. While I understand the motivation to show a little dignity in a genre that usually doesn't, I also felt that someone decided my constitution wasn't strong enough to see two tiny black-and-white dead people. Run the image or don't run the image, I thought, but don't manipulate it.

Bloody crime-scene photos don't affect me much, but I must realize I'm far more jaded than most. For me, color seems to be more provocative than black-and-white; yesterday's images are far more affecting than tintypes of Jesse James' corpse. But in the end, I would neither buy (nor refuse to buy) a book based on my reaction to a surreptitious glimpse of its photos in the checkout line. The images, like the adjectives, just add color to the movie that unreels in my head as I read.

If my wife were here right now, she'd nudge me. She'd remind me that not everyone has inspected, up close, the logo on a dead man's socks, or seen a dead man's bloated body burst like a sad balloon on a hot summer afternoon.

And not everyone can come here to ask some of true crime's most devoted fans how they feel, so ... what's your feeling about disturbing crime photos in true-crime books and magazines? Are they truly off-putting or an essential part of why you read true crime? Will grotesque pictures influence your purchase (or refusal to purchase) a book?

Parking cops and the dead guys they ... miss

2009-02-28T09:04:00.001-06:00

In Gainesville, Fla., parking cops issued seven tickets to a 2001 BMW parked in a neighborhood for several days. It was only after a perturbed neighbor finally called to have it towed a couple weeks later that they found a dead guy in the back seat. John Waldo, 41, had been missing since the day of the first parking ticket.

Why is this important?

Well, we now have solved a true-crime mystery that's been plaguing us for years: Where's Waldo?

Baby Grace: This killer mom is going to prison for life

2009-02-04T23:35:00.002-06:00

Kim Trenor, the twisted mom of a dead child who came to be known as Baby Grace, was convicted in the bizarre murder this week in Galveston, Texas, and will spend the rest of her life in prison without any hope of ever being released ... and, one hopes, with her child's death-cries ringing every day in her dreams.

Trenor and husband Royce Zeigler (Baby Grace's stepfather) are accused of lashing the little girl with leather belts, smothering her under pillows, holding her head underwater and throwing her across a room by her hair during a 4- to 6-hour "discipline session" in 2007. Her corpse was stowed in a storage shed for 2 months before it was set adrift in Galveston Bay. Zeigler awaits his own unscheduled capital-murder trial.

Because the killer mom is a danger to herself and because Texas takes special care with all capital-murder convicts, she'll be held under suicide watch indefinitely. But Trenor's safety in prison might be a whole new challenge, with any number of inmates chomping at the bit to take a shot at a mother who helped kill her own baby daughter, covered up the killing and dumped the child's corpse in the Gulf of Mexico, then hoped nobody would notice her absence.

I believe facts have no moral quality, only what we project upon them.

Thus, it seems to me, a criminal trial is like a cultural ink-blot test, in which society looks at a set of insensate, numb facts and projects its own history, fears, impatience, insolence, clemency, insecurities, dreams — and nightmares — upon those facts.

In theory, we are not really describing the ink blots, but something inside ourselves. And what’s inside is every fairy-tale monster: A brutal ogre, a bloodthirsty werewolf, an elegant vampire, a bullying giant, a scheming devil, a predatory wolf, a sneering troll, or maybe just an abusive mother.

The archetypes of our fears have trickled into every heart. And when a crime captures the public’s imagination before a trial, the great majority of citizens are already projecting the monsters of our collective mythology onto the suspects.

Since no courtroom in the world is expansive enough to accommodate the populace of even a small-ish town in the least populated state in America, we select twelve neighbors at random to sift and cull the truth from evidence, testimony and lawyers’ speechifying. Placing our faith in randomness, we presume these 12 will reflect the psychology and conscience of the place we live, surrogates that reflect the best and worst of us. Their noble duty is to protect the public from the monsters among us. But they are charged with an equally noble trust that almost nobody else wants: To protect the monsters from the public.

For me, Kim Trenor is a monster of the first-degree and I won't lose a night's sleep worrying about her safety in prison. I prefer to save my concern for others whose hearts haven't shriveled and whose lives have not already ended, except for the rot.

Eye Candy: If thine left eye offend thee...

2009-01-10T21:18:00.001-06:00

Accused of murdering his estranged wife and two children and ripping their hearts out, Andre Thomas plucked out his own right eye just before his 2004 murder trial. His self-surgery didn't win any sympathy from his Sherman, Texas, jury: they sent him to Death Row.

But apparently he didn't like the view from his cell. Last week, Thomas plucked out his remaining eyeball -- and ate it.

Look -- oh, sorry -- this guy is obviously either insane or starving. But Andre Thomas proves what your mother always told you about the first-degree slaughter of your family: "You'll put your eye out, kid"

Bopper's Casket: 1950s pop star's used coffin is going on eBay

2008-12-28T10:06:00.010-06:00

By Ron Franscell

Rock 'n' roll's most macabre historical artifact will go on the block when the family of the late 1950s pop star J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson auctions his casket on eBay sometime in the next few weeks - almost 50 years after "the day the music died."

The Big Bopper's 16-gauge steel casket was exhumed last year from his original grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont so it could be moved to a more visible location with a life-sized statue and historic marker. The disinterment also offered forensic experts a chance - with his family's blessing - to examine the pop singer's unautopsied remains after his death in rock 'n' roll's first great tragedy.

On Feb. 3, 1959, Richardson died at age 28 in the crash of a small plane in a field near Clear Lake, Iowa, that also killed 1950s rock stars Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens and sent a shock wave around the world. The accident has since been immortalized as "the day the music died."

Richardson was buried a few days later in his Beaumont hometown with great fanfare, including tributes from Elvis Presley and others.

Jay Richardson, the Bopper's son, plans to sell the empty casket on eBay to raise money for a musical show about his father and to keep the Bopper's memory alive. Born three months after the crash, Jay, who lives in Katy, never met his father in life - but saw him for the first time at his exhumation.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to bring Dad back to life?" Jay, 49, said recently from Canada, where he was touring with a tribute act to his father, Holly and Valens.

"I have no personal use for the casket," he said. "When you get down to it, it is just a metal box. More important is what this particular metal box represents.

"In another 200 years, will people care about rock 'n' roll?" Jay asks. "Who knows? But why would I want to destroy it? Even though it was Dad's resting place for 48 years, it's also a unique opportunity to learn more about the early years of rock 'n' roll."

The exhumed casket is in surprisingly good condition after 48 years in the muddy gumbo of Southeast Texas (shown at right). It bears minor rust spots and a white lime stain showing where several inches of water once leaked into the surrounding vault, but there was no evidence water had ever seeped into the casket itself.

Inside, forensic examiners found the Big Bopper's well-preserved corpse, dressed in a black suit and a blue-and-gray striped tie. He wore socks, but no shoes. Most remarkably, his thick brown hair was still perfectly coiffed in his familiar, 1950s flat-top.

After the 2007 autopsy found he died of crash-related injuries, the Big Bopper was reburied in a sleek new casket donated by the Batesville Casket Co., which made the original. Since late last year, the old casket has been on public display at the Texas Musicians Museum in Hillsboro, Texas.

Tom Kreason, the museum's founder and a rock historian who has developed collections for the legendary Sun Records Museum in Memphis and the Hard Rock Cafe, admits the casket is macabre but says it is a "priceless" artifact of a historic moment in music.

"We gave it a name. We called it 'the day the music died' and there's no title bestowed on any other tragic days since," Kreason said. "No one knew, then, what was being created. This (casket) is very symbolic of how we lost three incredible artists, but it's also a statement about what we've lost with many other artists, too."

The Big Bopper died right as he was hitting the big time. The happy-go-lucky Texas deejay in a leopard-skin jacket would sell a million records but never see a dime from his greatest hit, "Chantilly Lace," a two-minute 1959 novelty song that is both innocent and suggestive.

Richardson, who also wrote the George Jones hit, "White Lightning," was toying with an idea he had for a new kind of jukebox that would play short films of musicians playing their hits. He called them "music videos."

Kreason approached some auction houses about selling the casket, but "they all seemed confused," so he decided to reach for a wider audience on eBay, an Internet site without borders. The Texas Musicians Museum will receive an undisclosed share of the sale, he said.

How much could a used celebrity casket bring on the open market? A handful of memorabilia dealers shied away from guessing, largely because a used celebrity casket has never been offered for sale and morbid curiosity could quickly decompose into open protest.

In the past year, hundreds of visitors have seen the Big Bopper's casket at Kreason's museum, where it's displayed much as it appeared in a 1959 funeral home photo (shown at upper left), along with a reproduction of a guitar-shaped wreath sent by Elvis Presley. Nobody has complained about the grim exhibit, but both Kreason and Richardson expect some protests when it hits eBay.

"Certainly there'll be some distaste, but I think this is a piece of history that is very special," Kreason said. "Even if it doesn't sell, we've made a point about the historical value of J.P. Richardson. No matter what happens, he wins, historically."

Underground Journalism: San Antonio's surprising dead celebrities

2008-11-19T10:13:00.009-06:00

When Lincoln Borglum's sculptor-father died in 1941, he did what any good son would do: He finished his dad's work.

That project was Mount Rushmore, one of America's most spectacular monuments.

So it is ironic that Borglum, who died in 1986, lies in somebody else's family plot beneath an unremarkable stone in San Antonio's dog-eared City Cemetery No. 1.

The defenders of the Alamo are certainly San Antonio's most famous (albeit slightly misplaced) dead people, but the B-list of departed notables such as Borglum in local graveyards is no less fascinating — and a little spooky. Why? Because most living San Antonians probably aren't aware of some famous (and infamous) dead buried in our midst.

One of the big leagues' most powerful southpaw pitchers, one of America's earliest anti-terror heroes, the fevered brain behind one of the nation's most tragic suicide cults, more than 30 Medal of Honor winners including a Little Big Horn survivor, a man who died 140 years ago but whose name is spoken every day in the 2008 race for the White House. They're among dozens of once-memorable figures who have gone underground in some of Bexar County's nearly 200 cemeteries, from tiny churchyards to the sprawling Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

Take Rube Waddell. This Pennsylvania kid grew up to be one of baseball's most formidable pitchers — and one of its most eccentric characters. Waddell led the league in strikeouts every season from 1902 through 1907 — as well as in headlines for pitching drunk, leaving games to chase firetrucks and wrestling alligators.

His personal peccadilloes aside, Waddell still holds the American League single-season strikeout record by a left-handed pitcher almost 100 years after he last pitched.

A bout of pneumonia weakened his immune system, sparking a case of full-blown tuberculosis.

On April Fools' Day, a resident of Grace Lutheran Sanatorium in San Antonio, baseball's clown prince died. He was 37.

Waddell was buried beneath a simple wooden marker in Mission Burial Park. Nine years later, weather had erased Waddell's name so a 6-foot granite monument was erected. In 1946, he was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame.

And not far from Waddell's grave is another Hall of Famer, Ross Youngs, a Shiner native whose remarkable career ended abruptly when he died in 1926 of kidney disease at age 30.

Between 1962 and 1977, Texas-born Heloise Bowles Cruse was better known to most American housewives simply as “Heloise,” a gal with countless helpful household ideas. She moved to San Antonio from Hawaii when her syndicated newspaper column, “Hints from Heloise,” was published in almost 600 newspapers.

Heloise died in 1977. Her tombstone at San Jose Burial Park is as simple as her ideas. All it says is: “Heloise, Every Housewife's Friend.” And at the bottom is a “-30-” — newspaper code for “The End.” Her daughter Heloise continues her column.

Marshall Applewhite and Sandra West's claims to fame came not in life, but in death.

Applewhite was born in Spur to a very religious family, but his faith took a perverse turn. In 1975, he founded a cult called “Heaven's Gate.” In 1997, Applewhite convinced the cult's 38 die-hard believers that if they would commit suicide, an alien spacecraft would fly their souls with the Hale-Bopp Comet into heaven. They poisoned themselves.

President Clinton ordered the cult members' bodies be cremated, and Applewhite's ashes were transported not by a spacecraft but a common hearse to be buried in Mission Park South.

No Halloween cemetery tour would be complete without a visit to Sandra West's grave.

West was a beautiful Beverly Hills socialite and widow of millionaire Texas oilman Ike West. After she was diagnosed with a fatal illness, she decided to leave her $3 million estate to her brother — but only if he carried out her final wishes meticulously.

And her final wishes were anything but simple. Sandra wanted to be buried in a lace negligee behind the wheel of her favorite powder blue, 1964 Ferrari 330 America sports car (only 50 were made). Her body was to be “tilted at a comfortable angle.”

In 1977, the late Sandra and her car were sealed in a giant wooden crate, and then lowered by crane into her super-sized grave at Alamo Masonic Cemetery. Just to be sure future collectors wouldn't be tempted to dig up her slightly used Ferrari, it was encased in two truckloads of concrete at the end of a $17,000 service that was more festive than funereal.

As if to prove money can't buy everything, Sandra West's unpretentious headstone today has sunken at a cockeyed angle.

Now, if we could only find Davy Crockett.

OTHER CELEBS GONE 'UNDERGROUND' IN SAN ANTONIO
(With GPS coordinates for their graves)

Col. Charlie Beckwith (1929-1994) Heroic founder of the anti-terrorist Delta Force who retired a year after the tragic failure of his mission to rescue 53 American hostages in Iran in 1980. Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery (GPS: N29º 28.632, W098º 25.514)

Lincoln Borglum (1912-1986) The son of Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum — who lived with his family in the Menger Hotel for a time — actually finished the national landmark after his father’s death. Given the mountain he carved at Rushmore, his modest monument is ironic. City Cemetery #1. (N29º 25.206 W098º 28.045)

Leroy Daniels (1915-1998) Maybe you know him as Leroy from TV’s “Sanford and Son,“ but this real-life dancing L.A. bootblack inspired the song “Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy” in 1950 and capered with Fred Astaire. Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery (N29º 28.607, W098º 25.349)

Oscar Fox (1879-1961) This classically trained San Antonio choirmaster composed some of the most recognizable cowboy ballads in history, including “Whoopee Ti Yi Yo, Git Along, Little Dogies” and “Old Paint.” Mission Burial Park South (Block 7, Grave 132)

Pattillo Higgins (1863-1955) This one-armed, self-taught geologist is one big reason for America’s modern addiction to oil: he drilled the USA’s first big gusher at Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas, in 1901, literally fueling a nation’s century-long (so far) appetite for black gold. Mission Burial Park South (N29º 20.609, W098º 28.190)

Chuck Hughes (1943-1971) This former UTEP standout remains the only NFL player ever to die on the field during a game. Sunset Memorial Park (N29º 49.943, W098º 43.249)

Lt. George Kelly (1878-1911) He became the first U.S. serviceman ever killed in a military air crash when his biplane crashed near downtown San Antonio. Kelly AFB is named for him. San Antonio National Cemetery. (N29º 25.299, W098º 28.003)

Sidney Levyson (aka Stanley Stein, 1899-1967) A blind Jewish pharmacist from Boerne who was foribly quarantined in a Louisiana leper colony for 37 years until his death. From the isolate colony. He became a leading voice against entrenched fear of the disease, which was neither as communicable nor as untreatable as most people feared. Temple Beth-El Memorial Park (N29º 42.359 W098º 46.608)

Samuel Maverick (1803-1870) The reason we call Sen. John McCain a “maverick” today is because this former San Antonio mayor was renowned for letting his unbranded calves roam free — today, the repurposed term refers to anybody who breaks away from the herd. City Cemetery #1 (N29º 42.034, W098º 46.731)

John Lang Sinclair (1879-1947) As a student at UT in 1903, this Bexar County farmkid added new lyrics to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and created the song that would someday become the Longhorns’ battle hymn, “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You.” Alamo Masonic Cemetery (N29º 41.978, W098º 46.931)

Adolph (1869-1962) and Elizabeth Toepperwein (1882-1945) In the world of sharpshooting, Ad and “Plinky” were bigger than Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan or Michael Phelps. Even Annie Oakley herself once called Mrs. Toepperwein the greatest shot she’d ever seen. Mission Burial Park South (N29º 20.611, W098º 28.029)

Rube Waddell (Mission Burial Park South; N29º 20.763, W098º 28.033)
Ross Youngs (Mission Burial Park South; N29º 20.770, W098º 28.277)
Heloise Bowles Cruse (San Jose Burial Park; N29º 20.578, W098º 28.310)
Sandra West (Alamo Masonic Cemetery; N29º 42.019, W098º 46.854)

Kiss Your Sister, Luke: Wacky video tribute to John Williams

2008-11-17T12:21:00.008-06:00

I am constantly amazed -- and amused -- by how people spend their time. This is a grand example of creatively wasted time!

Thanks to Corey Vidal, aka ApprenticeA at YouTube.

A Killer Test: How sharp are your murder skills?

2008-11-10T08:06:00.002-06:00

It's safe to assume the readers of Under The News are fairly conversant in matters of mass- and serial-killing. You know your Mansons from your Bundys, right? Well, it's Monday and you've got a tough week ahead, so here's something fun -- in a macabre sorta way -- to distract you from your nasty obsession with Dr. G.

In the next 60 seconds -- and before you read any further in this post -- list as many mass-murderers and serial killers as you can ... ready ... set ... GO!

How many did you get? 10? Watch more TruTV.

20? Not bad.

30? Impressive.

OK, here's another little test for you, and this one is a little harder: In the next 60 seconds, name as many victims of mass- or serial killers as you can. Ready ... set ... GO!

Oh c'mon, if every name you came up with was killed by the Manson Family, that's no better than the devoted readers of Mommy Blogs! Pre-schoolers wandering through the true-crime section at Borders can do better! UTN readers are the cream of the crop! What? You couldn't name a single victim of Bundy, Dahmer, BTK, Gein, Gacy or the Ripper?

OK, forget that test, let's try another one: In the next 60 seconds, name as many survivors of mass- or serial-killers as you can. Ready ... set ... whaddya mean you're not even gonna try?? C'mon it's just for fun. Please?

If some idle cybersurfer drifts through here, he's gonna think that we are more fixated with the killers than with their victims. That just doesn't seem right, does it? I mean, we know ordinary folks are fascinated by demented killers, but we're supposed to be ... I dunno ... extra-ordinary.

Our infatuation with the perverse sometimes leaves little room on our emotional hard drive for the victims of perversity. That's not to say we cannot appreciate the horrors faced by Catherine Eddowes, Nancy Fox, Bobby Piest or Debra Lynn Bonner -- but we forget their names and faces far quicker than the names and faces of the killers who ended their lives.

And when it comes to survivors of these monsters, barely a single name would kindle a spark of recognition in even the most devoted true-crime reader.

Talk to me, friends. What does this say about us?

(How did I do on my own test? Hey, I'm a true-crime writer and a career journalist who started his newsroom life in the cop shops and courtrooms of this great ... OK, I sucked, too.)

A New Money Glossary: Definitions for the modern stock market

2008-10-09T15:11:00.002-05:00

If you're keeping up with all this fuzzy-but-expensive language being tossed around about "bailouts," frozen credit and damaged assets, you're smarter than I am. But for those of us who need a little help understanding the current crisis in America's financial markets, here's a little glossary that will help:

NEW STOCK MARKET TERMINOLOGY

CEO -- Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO -- Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET -- A 6- to 18-month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER -- What my financial advisor has made me.

STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW-- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @$240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Former investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.

One crime wasn't enough ... O.J. takes the cake

2008-10-07T17:04:00.001-05:00

Right at this moment, some pretty smart people are saying a depression is likely, and I am having weird dreams about loading the whole family on a rusty 1974 Pinto for a long trip to California. I still don't understand exactly how giving $800 billion to unethical bankers is going to make my life better. We still haven't gotten to the bottom of this global warming thing. The Dow fell below 10,000 today and a quick calculation of my 401(k) suggests I will be able to retire 42.4 years after my 100th birthday. I think it's possible we don't have the right presidential candidates again. Gas prices are like the weather ... they change every 10 minutes. And Osama bin Laden is still out there someplace.

But I'm not worried about any of that.

Why? Because I'm still obsessed with how O.J. Simpson could be so stupid as to dodge a murder conviction in the "trial of the century" only to go out -- again -- and commit another big-time crime.

Felony stupid.

Yikes Ike: A journey to the scene of the crime

2008-09-18T09:57:00.007-05:00

I find myself back in my old Southeast Texas home this week, helping friends and strangers return some semblance of normalcy to lives jumbled by Hurricane Ike, the third hurricane to hit here in the past four seasons.

From the joy of my daughter's wedding in Utah last weekend to the devastation of the Gulf Coast ... it feels a little like shipping out to war. I came because ... well, because I couldn't stay at home and just watch.

Last night, I helped unload two Red Cross 18-wheelers full of 12,000 gallons of bottled water. Today, we'll clamber on a few ruined roofs to begin the process of "drying in" -- sealing the holes temporarily against the humid, rainy weather. The air is already starting to stink of rotten food, tossed out of powerless, dank refrigerators and freezers. Reliefs crews are as thick as the mosquitoes. The wreckage is somewhat less than we saw three years ago with Rita, but if a tree sliced through your home -- as it did in the house next door to where I am staying -- then Rita was literally just a breeze compared to Ike.

Most evacuees haven't yet returned to this purgatory. It's not exactly a ghost town, but neither is it a vibrant place. An 8 p.m. curfew is still enforced, although scattered reports of looting are circulating. Maybe true, maybe not. Stores are opening in dribs and drabs, but usually only for a few hours. The days and nights are cool, thank God, making working and sleeping a little easier.

There is a resignation here. To storms. To disappointment. To the Sissyphean tasks of patching up a landscape and lives that will likely be wracked again in a month, a season, a year or a lifetime. The second most common thing you hear here is: "That's what insurance is for."

The first most common is actually a sign of hope: "Is everybody OK at your house?"

The Perfect Stranger: Barack, we hardly know ye

2008-09-11T10:53:00.004-05:00

This column by syndicated writer Charles Krauthammer has been e-circulating in the past few days. It offers an interesting perspective on Barack Obama, whom he calls "a mysterious Gatsby."

By Charles Krauthammer

Barack Obama is an immensely talented man whose talents have been largely devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life. Not things. Not ideas. Not institutions. But himself.

Nothing wrong or even terribly odd about that, except that he is laying claim to the job of crafting the coming history of the United States. A leap of such audacity is odd. The air of unease at the Democratic convention this week was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments — bearing even fewer witnesses.

When John Kerry was introduced at his convention four years ago, an honor guard of a dozen mates from his Vietnam days surrounded him on the podium attesting to his character and readiness to lead. Such personal testimonials are the norm. The roster of fellow soldiers or fellow senators who could from personal experience vouch for John McCain is rather long. At a less partisan date in the calendar, that roster might even include Democrats Russ Feingold and Edward Kennedy, with whom John McCain has worked to fashion important legislation.

Eerily missing at the Democratic convention this year were people of stature who were seriously involved at some point in Obama's life standing up to say: I know Barack Obama. I've been with Barack Obama. We've toiled/endured together. You can trust him. I do.

Hillary Clinton could have said something like that. She and Obama had, after all, engaged in a historic, utterly compelling contest for the nomination. During her convention speech, you kept waiting for her to offer just one line of testimony: I have come to know this man, to admire this man, to see his character, his courage, his wisdom, his judgment. Whatever. Anything.

Instead, nothing. She of course endorsed him. But the endorsement was entirely programmatic: We're all Democrats. He's a Democrat. He believes what you believe. So we must elect him — I am currently unavailable — to get Democratic things done. God bless America.

Clinton's withholding the "I've come to know this man" was vindictive and supremely self-serving — but jarring, too, because you realize that if she didn't do it, no one else would. Not because of any inherent deficiency in Obama's character. But simply as a reflection of a young life with a biography remarkably thin by the standard of presidential candidates.

Who was there to speak about the real Barack Obama? His wife. She could tell you about Barack the father, the husband, the family man in a winning and perfectly sincere way. But that takes you only so far. It doesn't take you to the public man, the national leader.

Who is to testify to that? Hillary's husband on night three did aver that Obama is "ready to lead." However, he offered not a shred of evidence, let alone personal experience with Obama. And although he pulled it off charmingly, everyone knew that, having been suggesting precisely the opposite for months, he meant not a word of it.

Obama's vice presidential selection, Joe Biden, naturally advertised his patron's virtues, such as the fact that he had "reached across party lines to . . . keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists." But securing loose nukes is as bipartisan as motherhood and as uncontroversial as apple pie. The measure was so minimal that it passed by voice vote and received near zero media coverage.

Thought experiment. Assume John McCain had retired from politics. Would he have testified to Obama's political courage in reaching across the aisle to work with him on ethics reform, a collaboration Obama boasted about in the Saddleback debate? "In fact," reports the Annenberg Political Fact Check, "the two worked together for barely a week, after which McCain accused Obama of 'partisan posturing' " — and launched a volcanic missive charging him with double-cross.

So where are the colleagues? The buddies? The political or spiritual soul mates? His most important spiritual adviser and mentor was Jeremiah Wright. But he's out. Then there's William Ayers, with whom he served on a board. He's out. Where are the others?

The oddity of this convention is that its central figure is the ultimate self-made man, a dazzling mysterious Gatsby. The palpable apprehension is that the anointed is a stranger — a deeply engaging, elegant, brilliant stranger with whom the Democrats had a torrid affair. Having slowly woken up, they see the ring and wonder who exactly they married last night.

Tropical Punch! 13 Ways to Avoid Worrying About Hurricane Ike

2008-09-09T16:45:00.004-05:00

With Hurricane Ike taking aim at Texas, it's time to start drinking! Only those of you who have been through a major hurricane will truly appreciate these concoctions. But anyone's welcome to try them.

MANDATORY EVACUATION
1 1/2 oz. Absolute Ruby Red vodka
1/2 oz. vermouth
Clamato
Prune juice

Combine vodka and vermouth in cocktail glass. Fill remainder of glass with equal parts clamato and prune juice. Stir. Drink. Ask next-door neighbor whose ficus tree blew over and crashed onto your roof - even though you'd warned him for months to uproot it - if you can use his bathroom. Repeat.

CATEGORY 5
1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. tequila
1/2 oz. rum
1/2 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. gin
Sweet-and-sour mix
Splash of fruit juice

Combine vodka, tequila, rum, bourbon and gin in a tall glass. Fill remainder of glass with sweet-and-sour mix and splash of juice. Stir, then garnish with an inverted drink umbrella. Drink during peak storm hours and vow not to believe anyone who tries to tell you the hurricane that flooded your garage and destroyed your shed was just a Category 1.

CONE OF PROBABILITY
1 oz. cinnamon schnapps
1 sugar cone

Pour the schnapps into the sugar cone. Every time you hear a TV weatherman say, "Cone of probability," bite off the end of the cone and down the shot. If you hear Jim Cantore say it, drink two shots consecutively. (They should change this phrase to the 'Cantore Zone,'damn him. Have you ever noticed that, despite all the cone of probability talk, if Cantore is parked in front of your house your ass is toast?)

FEEDER BAND
2 oz. Midori
2 oz. rum
1 scoop vanilla ice cream

After your home loses power, combine Midori and rum in a cocktail glass. Add a scoop of the vanilla ice cream that is melting in your freezer. Stir. Drink through a straw.

BEACH EROSION
1 1/2 oz. Goldschläger
1 1/2 oz. apple brandy
1 pack Sugar in the Raw

Combine Goldschläger, apple brandy and sugar in cocktail glass. As you drink, seriously contemplate moving your Yankee butt back to New Jersey where it belongs.

DOWNED POWER LINE
1 1/2 oz. rum
5 oz. Jolt Cola

Combine ingredients in a cocktail glass. Drink while trying to figure out how the heck you're supposed to go two freakin' weeks without television and AC.

FLOOD ZONE
2 oz. Kahlúa
2 oz. Baileys Irish cream
4 oz. rum

Serve in a 6-ounce glass and laugh-cry deliriously as the mess spills all over the countertop.

COLD SHOWER
2 oz. Blue Aftershock
4 oz. Sprite

Combine in a cocktail glass with the crushed ice you received after waiting in line for three hours at a mall parking lot. Take a deep breath, sip and scream like a little girl when the cold beverage hits your tongue. Repeat.

LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT
1 oz. Jack Daniel's
Splash of sarsparilla
Rock salt

Load both barrels of a shotgun with rock salt. Climb to the roof of your house with gun, bottle of Jack Daniel's and can of sasparilla. Fill shot glass with Jack and splash of sasparilla. Watch for looters. When you spot one, blast his butt with
rock salt. Drink shot. Repeat.

THE CHAIN SAW
1 oz. Goldschläger
1 oz. Rumplemintz
3 oz. Jim Beam
Splash of vermouth

Combine Goldschläger, Rumplemintz and Jim Beam in an empty soup can. Add splash of vermouth. Drink. Remove chain saw from garage and attempt to cut up fallen tree limbs in yard. Ask neighbor to drive you to hospital when it all goes horribly wrong.

FOUR-WAY STOP
1 1/2 oz. vodka
1 1/2 oz. vodka and Midori
1 1/2 oz. vodka and Galliano
1 1/2 oz. vodka and grenadine

Pour each ingredient into a separate shot glass. Serve one to yourself and three other people. The person with the clear shot of vodka drinks first. The person to his right drinks the Midori shot, and so on. If somebody drinks out of order, develop a quick case of road rage and beat the living daylights out of him.

BLUE TARP
1 1/2 oz. Curacao
2 oz. pineapple juice
Splash of lime

Combine ingredients in a leaky paper cup and serve. Wait six to eight months for someone to repair the cup. If you're impatient, hire an unlicensed, out-of-state contractor to do
the job for an exorbitant sum and pray he doesn't hurt himself in the process.

FEMA FIZZLE
2 oz. Southern Comfort
2 oz. sloe gin
Tonic water

One week after the storm has passed and your neighborhood is still in ruins, with no sign of help on the way, combine Southern Comfort and gin in a cocktail glass. Fill remainder with tonic and add a dash of Angostura bitters.

Serve with a nut brownie. Before drinking, raise the glass and say the toast, 'Doing a heckuva job, Brownie!"

Old Crimes, Long Memories: Bonnie and Clyde are bullet-riddled dust, but they are immortal in our imagination

2008-09-09T10:53:00.000-05:00

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, two of the most infamous outlaws of America's Outlaw Age, have been rotting for 74 years in their Texas graves. But still today, you can buy a 1-inch square swatch of Clyde's blood-soaked trousers at one of two roadside museums, just up the lonely backroad from where the star-crossed lovers -- and cold-blooded killers -- were fatally ambushed by lawmen in 1934.

The Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum is one of those places that crime history buffs like me would drive a hundred miles out of the way to see (I did). It's been open less than a year in Gibsland, La., and is run by the son of one of the six cops who gunned down Bonnie and Clyde. It's also in the building that was once Ma Canfield's Cafe, where the lover-killers stopped minutes before the ambush -- their take-out sandwiches were found half-eaten on the dead Bonnie's lap.

The main industry in Gibsland (Pop. 1,091) in Bonnie and Clyde. Boots Hinton's Ambush Museum has artifacts related to the outlaws, including some of the guns seized from the outlaws' well-perforated car, the famed swatches of Clyde's pants, Bonnie's red tam, rare photos and films, even the prop car used in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde" starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. (The real death car and Clyde's bloodstained shirt are displayed at a Nevada casino.) But there's another museum next door with more stuff. And every May, there's a festive re-enactment of Bonnie and Clyde's Shakespearean end.

Apparently nothing else of note has ever happened in Gibsland, which is fortunate for Gibsland. This little burg has capitalized brilliantly on its single grotesque event. History buffs, crime fans, or just tourists with quirky tastes flock here to pay $7 a head for a peek at a bloody page of history.

Just about 8 miles down the road, a cracked, graffiti-ravaged stone monument marks the exact spot where Bonnie and Clyde died in a hail of 130 bullets fired by 6 Texas and Louisiana lawmen who never gave the killers a chance to reach for their weapons. Within minutes, the place was crawling with curious bystanders, who snipped some of Bonnie's hair and pieces of her gory dress, picked up shell casings and broken glass, even tried to cut off Clyde's finger and ear ... all for souvenirs. Like something out of the Old West, photographs were taken of the disfigured corpses, and the town where the couple was embalmed -- not buried -- swelled to five times its normal size with gawkers hoping to catch a glimpse of the dead couple.

But what's the modern fascination with Bonnie and Clyde (or Dillinger, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy or Al Capone)? It's one thing for a true-crime author and history nut to chase ghosts of unrepentant, angry thugs, but ordinary people? It hardly seems to be the opportunity to live a moment of justice, but maybe ... Is it the promise of blood? A chance to rub up against death?

In the case of the former (and to some small degree the latter), author Joseph Geringer, who wrote "Bonnie and Clyde: Romeo and Juliet in a Getaway Car," explained the long-lived legend this way: "Americans thrilled to their 'Robin Hood' adventures. The presence of a female, Bonnie, escalated the sincerity of their intentions to make them something unique and individual -- even at times heroic."

Indeed. A few of the vandals who have defaced the stone marker at the death site pay tribute to Bonnie and Clyde. To be sure, locks of Bonnie's hair or even that half-eaten sandwich might turn up on eBay when you least expect it.

Dissident Lost: Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89

2008-08-03T20:11:00.005-05:00

“Not everything has a name.
Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
1918-2008

Why I'm Voting Democrat: The terrorists will like us

2008-08-01T13:51:00.005-05:00

This screed is circulating on the Internet ... and it's pretty funny in a cynical sorta way!

10 Reasons I'll Be Voting Democrat in '08

10. I'm voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

9. I'm voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

8. I'm voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people.

7. I'm voting Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in 10 years if I don't start driving a Prius.

6. I'm voting Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

5. I'm voting Democrat because I believe that businesses should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as wise liberal-minded thinkers see fit.

4. I'm voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

3. I'm voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don't have to hide from us over there, when they come over here I don't want to have any guns in the house to fight them off with.

2. I'm voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my horse.

1. I'm voting Democrat because I like the words "hope" and "change." Also "kazoo." That's a funny word.

Makes ya wonder why anyone would EVER vote Republican, now doesn't it?

Remember Me: A child reminds us what's important

2008-07-31T10:49:00.007-05:00

This poignant YouTube video was made by 15-year-old Lizzie Palmer of Columbus, Ohio, and has been viewed more than 25 million times. Known as FlutieCutie at the video site, Lizzie says: "I'm a senior in high school, and I play the flute/piccolo. I plan on joining the U.S. Army after I graduate. I only hope I can make America as proud as our troops today have, and I hope I can honor them in the way they deserve with my videos."

Living Stupid: Backward caps are a sign of the apocalypse

2008-07-27T17:35:00.011-05:00

If you're older than 10 and not a baseball catcher, wearing your ballcap backward just makes you look stupid. Not cool, not fly, not hot, not sexy, not dope. Just stupid.

Let's think this through: one wears a baseball cap to shield his eyes and face from the sun. To buy a fitted ballcap for $15 just to nullify its sole purpose by wearing backward suggests you aren't real good with money -- which is a major attraction to women who A) want you to spend money mindlessly on them, and B) don't care if they're seen with idiots who wear their caps backward.

Why not just wear a brimless beanie? You know, one of those with the little propeller on top? Maybe a raspberry beret? Too gay?

Bloggers Will Layman and Chris Osmond lamented the "disquieting modern trend" by saying:

"Dudes, here’s the thing: the backwards baseball cap makes you look like Charlie Brown’s hapless catcher, Schroeder. If you must wear the cap, then please wear it facing forward as God and Joltin’ Joe intended that it be worn. ... You’ll be less likely mistaken for a prematurely bald guy in the wrong light, and you’ll help to rid the land of the beastly musical backcap phenomenon that calls himself 'Gavin DeGraw.'"

This is a fashion trend that should die a hasty death ... but won't.

NEXT WEEK'S FASHION COMMENTARY: Guys who wear their ball caps sideways ... you know, like retarded children in the 1920s.

A Beautiful Afternoon: A short film, a long time coming

2008-07-25T15:38:00.004-05:00

HISTORIA DE UN LETRERO (THE STORY OF A SIGN)
To put a little lift in your weekend, take a look at this 4-minute short film by Mexican filmmaker Alonso Alvarez Barreda, winner of the NFB Online Competition Cannes 2008. With a stroke of the pen, a stranger transforms the afternoon for another man.

Dixie or Yankee? This quiz will score your 'Yankee-ness'

2008-07-23T13:57:00.006-05:00

Down here in Texas, it ain't hard to identify Yankees. They're the ones who believe the insidious myth that there are actually 49 other states.

And it usually ain't hard for Yankees to identify Texans ... who usually start any conversation by saying, "I'm from Texas."

But for many folks, it's not easy to discern one's "Yankee-ness" or "Suthun-ness." So we're lucky that somebody has actually come up with a simple test that will actually gauge just how Southern or Yankee you are. (I scored 48% Yankee, which I daresay is neither Yankee enough nor Dixie enough to satisfy either group.)

Wanna take the test? Just click the link below, and please leave your score in the Comments section for our prurient interest:

Are you Yankee or Dixie?

Hello Dolly: Three years later, another storm lurks

2008-07-21T09:46:00.011-05:00

This blog was launched at the height of the disastrous 2005 hurricane season, shortly after Hurricane Katrina unleashed her little bit of Hell. And now it is resurrected as a new storm lurks in the Caribbean, just a couple wobbles from slamming into my old stomping grounds in Southeast Texas.

It's not ironic. It's hurricane season.

If soon-to-be Hurricane Dolly does hit Southeast Texas -- and right now it is tracking well south -- it will be the third hurricane to rake across that unlucky region in 3 years. The place is still recovering from Katrina's traumatic little sister, Hurricane Rita, in 2005; Humberto in 2007 was a relative weakling but still cut a destructive swath across the bayous and refinery yards.

Ah, but I live safely inland in San Antonio now, in a brick house no less. What the hell do I care? After Rita, I swore off the swashbuckle, promising I'd never waste another year of my life just to peer into the gaping maw of a killer storm.

Oddly, I do care. Hunkering down under two hurricanes makes me care. For my friends, for everyone else. I find myself hoping that every big storm dissipates before it makes landfall. That ain't gonna happen, but it's a wish as good as any other when a hurricane is bearing down. Even though we know a lot about their behavior, hurricanes remain unpredictable. Its path can shift as much as 100 miles in 24 hours -- left or right. As both Rita and Humberto taught us, anything can happen up to the moment it does.

Dammit, I wish I were as unpredictable. If Dolly veers toward Southeast Texas, I'm sure I'll go back. I'd rather be there with my friends telling the story than here in my safe brick home reading about it.

Ron is back! Under The News is open for business

2008-07-18T14:30:00.002-05:00

After an 8-month dalliance with ... ahem ... another blog, Ron has returned to Under The News! He's newly married ... he's working on a new book ... and he's ready to rock!

Bookmark Under The News and come back often. The fun starts now!

Gipper's Zipper: DNA proves George Gipp didn't father illegitimate child

2007-11-11T01:41:00.000-06:00

DNA tests on the moldering corpse of Notre Dame football legend George Gipp have proven that the old fella didn't father a baby that his former girlfriend gave birth to months after he died of pneumonia and strep during his senior year in 1920. Another 87-year-old rumor bites the dust.

The Gipper -- made famous by coach Knute Rockne in a half-time pep talk and played in the movies by a nearly unknown actor named Ronald Reagan -- was dug up last month amid great secrecy. Why?

Years ago, a Gipp biographer stumbled on an Internet posting by a woman who claimed to be a descendant of the football great. Her grandmother was Eva Bright, whom Gipp had dated for about a year before he died. Her claims caused a Gipp grand-nephew to exhume the body for a DNA test.

So last month, Gipp's right femur was snatched and his other legless remains were reburied. A Dallas testing lab this week confirmed no link between Gipp and the Bright granddaughter.

In other news, 1-9 Notre Dame's backfield still sucks. Perhaps they can put the Gipper's spare leg to good use.

Cow Poop: More than a redneck lawn ornament

2007-11-07T10:46:00.001-06:00

Folks up North say we Texans have more money than brains, more oil than money and more bulls*** than oil. Well, now we also have the world's largest manure-to-gas plant and they're dang jealous.

Every day, Microgy Inc.'s new Huckabay Ridge plant mixes 10 dump-trucks full of cow poop with grease and other restaurant waste, purifies it and turns it into methane gas ... which will power 11,000 Central Texas homes a year. That's the equivalent of 4.6 million gallons of oil a year.

One company official referred to Texas dairy cattle as "non-depleting gas wells," and for good reason: Each cow produces about 15 gallons of poop every day, and there are hundreds of thousands of them in Texas alone.

Can't do that in Manhattan! Thank God and Goodnight for Texas BS!

Baby Grace: A dead girl, score of tips, no answers

2007-11-06T10:23:00.000-06:00

It's a sad statistic: At least two dozen little girls match the description of Baby Grace, the unidentified toddler found in a plastic box on an island in Galveston Bay last week. They come from homes all over America and one of them might be her.

Even sadder, none of them might be her. She might be a child whose absence was never noticed by family and friends. Her disappearance might have fallen through bureaucratic cracks at some cop shop. Or her disappearance might be a monstrous parent's handiwork. Might she be from Southeast Texas? We are surrounded by wicked possibilities.

It's been suggested that she might be little Madeline McCann, the 4-year-old British girl who disappeared from her parents' hotel in Portugal last May. Galveston investigators are fairly certain it isn't her ... but they have so few clues so far that they won't rule it out either. That's not a sign of incompetence, but a reflection of the fog that surrounds such a grotesque and inhumane act.

Without a big break, it will be a slow, frustrating, arduous process. For now, we can only hope that whoever set this little dead girl adrift on a sea in a plastic storage bin will be found and removed from civil society.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office at 409-766-2222, the agency’s tip line at 866-248-8477 or any Crime Stoppers organization.

Shocking video! Did TV crew capture whorehouse ghost on film by accident?

2007-10-31T09:55:00.000-05:00

The murder of Alice Benoit in 1957 remains one of the most monstrous crimes in Beaumont, Texas. The young prostitute was a favorite among the sailors, dock workers and wildcatters who visited the Hotel Rouler, the city's most colorful bordello. But one night in 1957, Alice Benoit (at left in only known photo) was literally slaughtered by a jealous sailor when she spurned his marriage proposal. Her macabre slaying ignited a firestorm of public intolerance for Beaumont's famed red light district, which was soon shut down by police.

Last summer, a local TV crew (the station manager asked that it not be identified) embarked on a story about the 50th anniversary of the murder that changed the face of Beaumont forever. As the crew prepared to videotape a reporter at the long-abandoned hulk of the Hotel Rouler, the videographer was startled to see a misty figure in an empty window. Later, he noticed that an open mike also picked up an eerie sound: A disembodied human voice whispering what sounds like a name.

If you want a real-life scare for Halloween, take a look at the video and judge for yourself if this ghost really exists.

Quote of the Day: Freak dancing in Argyle

2007-10-29T09:37:00.000-05:00

The Quote of the Day comes out of Argyle, Texas, where the school superintendent has outlawed freak dancing and strapless dresses at school dances, causing the predictable collision of generations. Supt. Jason Ceyanes, 34, the first-year superintendent in Argyle ISD,says he's only trying to maintain an environment that's "conducive to learning" and reflects the standards of the community:

"If we're at a point in American society where kids are going to dry hump, then it's time for school districts to get out of the business of having dances."

Every generation reaches an eventual point in its wisdom when it must step forward onto an elevated stage and ... aw, to hell with it. Wouldn't it be fun to dance as if nobody was watching?

Meet the Press ... Not: FEMA plants fake reporters

2007-10-26T10:21:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, FEMA gave an impromptu press conference in Washington D.C. about the California wildfires. Reporters were given only 15 minutes notice and an 800-number where they could listen in. Fox and MSNBC aired parts of the briefing.

Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, FEMA's deputy administrator, appeared on-camera with opening remarks, then took questions from reporters, who lobbed softball questions that elicited lengthy, smooth responses -- without all the yammering follow-ups. When's the last time you saw a high-level press briefing like that?

Well, it turns out that the "reporters" weren't reporters at all, but FEMA employees playing reporters.

Of all the sneaky, scheming, dishonest ... and FEMA-like ... tomfoolery! It seems like all they learned in Hurricane Katrina was to keep the media from reporting the facts! They've avoided the stumbles of Katrina and Rita, but they've also had two quiet hurricane seasons to prepare.

And one of FEMA's preparations was to form its own press corps. All the good things they've learned to do go out the window when they prove to be deceivers.

Out of the Box: Bopper's casket hits the road

2007-10-25T09:18:00.001-05:00

The Bopper's son, Jay Richardson (left) and forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass
exhumed J.P. Richardson's casket last March in Beaumont

In what will certainly be one of the most macabre musical mementoes in Texas history, the new Texas Musicians Museum will display the "used" casket of J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, the Beaumont pop star killed in the same 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Take the kids!

The Bopper was exhumed from his next-to-final resting place in Beaumont's Forest Lawn Cemetery last March and moved to a new grave in a brand-spankin'-new casket. The old one was stored secretly by his son, Jay Richardson of Katy, while he considered donating it to an appropriate museum, such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

On Saturday, Nov. 10, a vintage 1949 hearse will deliver the Bopper's original box to the Hillsboro, Texas, museum. Rock 'n' roll authority Bill Griggs of Lubbock -- who observed the Bopper's exhumation and autopsy in March -- will talk about the famous 1959 plane crash, what the autopsy revealed, and the Bopper’s musical legacy.

The casket will be displayed through November in Hillsboro, about 60 miles south of Dallas/Fort Worth.

Coming in December 2007: Willie Nelson's booger collection.

Geography of Men and Women

2007-10-24T03:01:00.000-05:00

GEOGRAPHY OF A WOMAN

Between 18 and 22, a woman is like Africa, half discovered, half wild, naturally beautiful with fertile soil.

Between 23 and 30, a woman is like America, well developed and open to trade, especially for someone with cash.

Between 31 and 35, a woman is like India, very hot, relaxed and convinced of her own beauty.

Between 36 and 40, a woman is like France, gently aging; but still warm and a desirable place to visit.

Between 41 and 50, a woman is like Great Britain, with a glorious and all conquering past.

Between 51 and 60, a woman is like Yugoslavia, lost some wars, won some great battles but haunted by past mistakes, still very strong and proud.

Between 61 and 70, a woman is like Russia, very wide and borders are now largely un-patrolled.

After 70, she becomes Tibet. Off the beaten path , with a mysterious past and the wisdom of the ages...still desirable but only those with an adventurous spirit and a thirst for spiritual knowledge and true love dare visit there.

GEOGRAPHY OF A MAN

Between 1 and 78, a man is like Iran, ruled by a dick.

Thanks to my loving daughter for this expert bit of romantic anthropology ...

Take a Bite Out of the News...

2007-10-23T14:24:00.001-05:00

Southeast Texas' newest ... and toothiest ... blog

THE BAYOU

You never know what you'll find in The Bayou, where some of the tastiest local and national news gets digested in rather entertaining ways ....

Link to it ... if you've got the guts.

Have they found 'D.B. Cooper'?

2007-10-23T10:47:00.000-05:00

FBI sketch of DB Cooper and Kenneth Christiansen photo

Have private investigators cracked the case of the world's only unsolved skyjacking? Has the most infamous missing man since Judge Crater finally been unmasked? Was he a mild-mannered airline employee ... and former paratrooper?

According to a marvelously written article in the new New York Magazine, a strong new suspect has surfaced ... well, not "surfaced" exactly, since he's dead, but you get my drift.

Check it out.

Toddler Rape Tape: Chester's depressed

2007-10-23T09:39:00.000-05:00

Chester Arthur Stiles' court-appointed lawyer told reporters a couple days ago that Chet is "a little down in the mouth." Luckily, he's also a little down in solitary confinement for his own safety.

You might recall that Chester the Accused Molester was the prey in a nationwide manhunt after Nevada deputies showed images from a videotape allegedly showing a man -- identified as Stiles -- raping a 2-year-old girl named Madison. (Early on, Madison was believed to be 3 years old in the tape, but it's since been determined she was even younger.)

"He's caught a lot of heat in the media, and guys in the jail watch television just like a lot of folks," public defender Jeff Banks said. "It's a very prejudicial charge, so of course I'm concerned about his safety."

Duh. Maybe our hope that convicts take perverse liberties with baby-rapers is a little overblown, but it's a comforting thought, isn't it?

Graf of the Week: Oh man, Omani

2007-10-22T08:10:00.001-05:00

It's only Monday, but I think I've found the paragraph that will beat all comers in the next six days. It comes from the obituary of a famed British "escapologist" in today's London Telegraph:

"The Great Omani could not hold a glass because he was flat on his back with his hands set in concrete, so the barmaid poured neat rum down his throat. He nearly choked."

Ever wonder what an escape artist's epitaph might say? The Great Omani wrote his own:

They have put the Great Omani in a box

They're using nails instead of locks

But at the funeral, do not despair

There's still a chance Omani won't be there.

Always showing off. R.I.P., Great Omani. R.I.P.

A Video Conversation With ...The director of upcoming Bopper biopic

2007-10-21T10:55:00.000-05:00

Sorhab Mirmontazeri

Director of

'The Day The Music Died'

Spot the Molester: A Halloween Game

2007-10-18T08:01:00.000-05:00

Can you spot the child molester among these four people?

Admit it, no matter which one you choose, you'll be guessing. You can't tell a pedophile just by looking. We all carry certain wayward beliefs about what a molester should look like. And wouldn't it be comforting to be able to spot a molester ... or rapist, murderer, con-man, burglar or armed robber ... at a glance? We can't. The next person to walk past you might be a molester.

And here comes Halloween, when children knock on strangers' doors and accept candy, or maybe some playful conversation. Luckily, we can prepare children to be safer as they trick-or-treat, but we can never be sure that we aren't sending them onto the radar of people who would sexually exploit them on any other day of the year.

On top of all the personal safety measures you can teach your kids this Halloween, check to see where registered sex offenders live in your neighborhood. One good site is Family Watchdog's National Sex Offender Registry, where you can enter your address and get an updated map of offenders in your neighborhood. Many of them will be under orders to keep their porchlights off on Halloween; some must put out signs declaring a sex offender lives there. And gently guide your children away from those homes. Better safe than sorry?

So did you figure out who was the sex offender among the four folks pictures above? Click on "Read More" to get the answer....

All of them

Bomber's Paradise: LAX preferred by 3 of 4 terrorists

2007-10-18T07:21:00.000-05:00

Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport (left) missed 75% of the fake bombs and bomb parts sent through security in a recent test by the Transportation Security Administration. In other words, if 10 terrorists showed up with 10 bombs, 7 planes are going down.

But, hey, Chicago's O'Hare International didn't do much better, missing 60%. Look on the bright side: Only 6 planes would be blown to smithereens.

San Francisco International was the champion of the three-airport study. Screeners there missed only 20% of the bombs. Only 2 planes would blow up! Happy day!

Gee, I feel real safe. We're spending a lot of money for this allegedly "increased" security. I can't imagine we can render our airport security failsafe, but I sure as hell would expect us to get better grades than F-minus.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
A reader comment at AOL: "I think it's obvious that the security personnel at most airports are not qualified to pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were written on the bottom."

Toddler Rape Tape: One mom hoped Chester's life would end in a hail of bullets

2007-10-17T08:59:00.000-05:00

The mother of one of Chester Arthur Stiles' alleged molestation/rape victims was disappointed that the accused pedophile was arrested peacefully Monday night, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports this morning. Instead, ex-girlfriend Tina Allen was hoping for a much more painful police shootout.

Allen also told the R-J that police should get a restraining order against her because she desperately wants to hurt Stiles. Asked what she might say to Stiles if she had a chance, she simply said, "I'd scratch his eyes out."

Police also report that shortly after the alleged survivalist Stiles -- whom they feared would never be taken alive -- surrendered during a routine traffic stop, he barfed in the parking lot where he was stopped.

Stiles was jailed and the car he was driving was left overnight in the parking lot of a Subway restaurant. Looky-loos peeked into the vehicle and wondered aloud about the cardboard box in the front seat and trash strewn on the floor. The word "sorry" was smeared on the dusty driver-side window.

They figure Stiles wrote it.

Word of the Day: Suckatorium

2007-10-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

I have a pretty large vocabulary, but it's not size that matters. It's how you use it. Yet some days -- like today -- I realize my shortcomings.

Today, I learned how I could have a larger vocabulary. No, it wasn't a spam message, it was an article in the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald and the word was:

Suckatorium

Now that's a word you don't see every day. I won't be so bold as to define a word I just learned. Rather, here's how Elizabeth Farrelly defined it in her article:

"A suckatorium is ... the (usually gay) equivalent of that unforgettable scene in the film Kandahar, where the doctor must examine his female patients through an eye-sized hole-in-the-wall. In suckatoria the hole is usually larger, sometimes described as 'fist-sized,' but in both cases its purpose is to afford physical knowledge without personal intimacy."

That's right, a suckatorium is a place filled with "glory holes" (my pitiful common language) where a special kind of, um, sexual gratification is dispensed. What kind? Sound it out. I shall use the word today to make it mine ... but God knows how I'll work it into conversation.

Toddler Rape Tape: Chester sees judge Friday

2007-10-16T23:17:00.000-05:00

Accused child-rapist Chester Arthur Stiles will stand before a Las Vegas judge on Friday. It won't be a momentous legal occasion -- the judge will merely set his arraignment date -- but it will be the first time the general public will lay eyes on a man accused of videotaping his rape of a little girl named Madison. Do you think cameras will be there?

Almost since Madison was first identified from the video, she was said to be 3 years old at the time of the rape. Sadly, her mom's attorney now says Madison was even younger at the time.

Can't you just hear the mothers of America sharpening their blades?

Toddler Rape Tape: Chester is busted!

2007-10-16T06:55:00.000-05:00

STUPID: A child rapist videotapes his crime against a 3-year-old girl. STUPIDER: "Losing" that tape.

STUPIDEST: Prime suspect in child rape driving a car without license plates, carrying somebody else's driver's license, in the same town where his crime was committed ... and not shaving his trademark Thin-Man mustache.

Yep, Chester Arthur Stiles, accused in the videotaped rape of a 3-year-old named Madison, was busted during a routine traffic stop in Las Vegas last night. When the cop noticed that he bore no resemblance to the person on the driver's license, he 'fessed up. "Hey, I'm Chester Stiles," he said. "I'm the guy you're looking for. I'm sick of running."

Stiles now faces 21 possible felony charges and a wrathful community. In Vegas, you can bet they're taking odds on the outcome.

In the end, though, it turns out that Chet wasn't the knife-wielding survivalist he painted himself to be. Instead, he was a victim of his own stupidity -- again. Never take him alive? Ha.

If he proves to be Madison's rapist -- and his homemade videotape will be his most damning witness -- may prison life prove to be a life lesson for Chet about what it feels like to be powerless and exploited.

Have You Decorated Your Pumpkin Yet?

2007-10-15T07:52:00.000-05:00

Don't fall behind! Only two weeks 'til Halloween!

Inconvenient Untruth: Does Al Gore deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

2007-10-12T08:04:00.000-05:00

I give Al Gore credit for bringing a looming environmental catastrophe to the public's attention. For a nation populated by lazy, fat, celebrity-obsessed wasters of time, energy and air, it took a familiar face to raise the issue to cocktail conversation. Despite his political petulance and past imprecisions (~~"I invented the Internet"~~ CORRECTION: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet"), I applaud Gore's leadership on this globally crucial issue.

But the Nobel Peace Prize? Pffft.

While he deserves applause for bringing global warming somewhere nearer the forefront of our American conversation (global warming still doesn't get as much discussion as Britney Spears), Gore's a documented hypocrite. He talks the talk, but doesn't quite walk the walk. A carnivorous, global-jetting, mansion-heating guy isn't exactly practicing what he preaches.

And now his documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth" is officially flawed. A British judge has said that while the film is generally true, it contains 9 significant "untruths" that make it unsuitable for showing to schoolchildren unless "balancing" information is also taught.

Gore's Tennessee mansion consumes more than 20 times more natural gas and electricity than an average home, according to recent analyses. And while he globe-trots in a private jet to promote himself, he is one of America's leading consumers of greenhouse-gas-producing jet fuel. And the chubby ex-VP obviously keeps meat close by, even though the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2006 that the livestock industry emits more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation combined.

I have believed Gore's form of environmentalism served mainly to keep him in the public eye while he plotted a new political future. When he was in the White House, he had plenty of time and opportunity to accomplish his stated goals, so why didn't he? One might recall that he had billions of gallons of water released from a dam so he could have a canoeing photo op ... but what significant impact did he have on the American or world environment when he was a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Is this really the kind of leadership we call "great" today? Say it, but don't do it?

But the bigger question is: What the hell does all this have to do with world peace? Is it possible that the Nobel Committee has caved in to America's celebrity obsession?

UPDATE @ 4:35 p.m.: Several international sources are now answering my question about what Gore's activities have to do with world peace (because a lot of people are apparently asking), and they actually connect the dots nicely. To summarize, if we cannot curb greenhouse gases, the global climate shifts will cause some areas to dry up, coastal areas to be flooded and agricultural lands to change. If/when that happens, people will begin to fight over the areas that are most productive for whatever future needs we have, including food. Thus, to avert the worst effects of global warming is to ultimately avert wars.

That's an awfully simplistic rendering of some heavier thinking, but it makes the point: An environmental crusade can have peace implications.

But I still wonder of Al Gore was the right choice ... or merely the most Hollywood of choices.

Dig One for The Gipper: George Gipp exhumed

2007-10-11T09:21:00.000-05:00

They've gone and dug up the Gipper.

The family of George Gipp (left), the Notre Dame football player who died from pneumonia and a strep infection during his senior year in 1920 and inspired Knute Rockne's locker room exhortation to "win one for the Gipper," sought a DNA sample from from the 87-year-dead corpse.

Why? Was George adopted? Is someone claiming to be his love child? Did the fantastically popular Gipper pull an Elvis and fake his own death to escape the limelight? Or is Notre Dame hoping to clone the Gipper to bolster its awful backfield this season? Nobody's telling. But ESPN filmed the exhumation in Laurium, Mich., and a noted sports author was on hand. So we're likely to find out in the good old-fashioned American way: Marketing!

Some cousins believed the exhumation desecrated Gipp's grave and memory, but Gipp was dug up because at least one family member -- reportedly his sister's granddaughter -- asked for it.

I love a mystery, even a fabricated one. After attending the exhumation and autopsy of J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson last March, I'm even more fascinated by what modern forensics can tell us about long-ago deaths of famous people. But I'm not sure we should go digging them up willy-nilly merely to satisfy idle -- and ultimately unimportant -- curiosities.

Perhaps the exhumed Gipper will answer some important questions. I desperately hope he wasn't disturbed just to sell some books.

The Darkest Night: Coming in paperback

2007-10-11T00:51:00.000-05:00

One of the unique thrills of being an author is seeing the cover of your next book for the first time. I got that thrill this weekend. "The Darkest Night" is the St. Martin's paperback version of "FALL: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town," my true-crime/memoir published earlier this year.

It will be released in March 2008, although pre-orders are being taken now at all online booksellers (hint, hint.)

Gay Superheroes: This will end badly

2007-10-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder what happened to the gay superheroes of our youth? Well, OK, there weren't any out of the closet until recently, but pretty much, they all suffered desperately gruesome, un-superheroic fates. Pretty much, it doesn't pay to be a gay superhero.

Here's a list from a Harper's list of homosexual comic-book characters and what happened to them. It was compiled by Perry Moore, the author of Hero, a young-adult novel about a gay teenage superhero, published by Hyperion.

AMAZON: crippled, made a supervillain terrorist, electrocuted
APOLLO: gang-raped
BATWOMAN: revealed as a closeted lesbian, kidnapped, tortured; stabbed herself through the stomach with a sword
BLARNEY COCK: disemboweled, whereupon a gerbil crawled out of his anus

BLOKE: killed on first mission
NED CAMPBELL: slashed into bits after his wife finds him having sex with a male lover
CAPTAIN METROPOLIS: decapitated
CAPTAIN POWER: disfigured by an explosion, driven to insanity, murder
CHAIN: dead
KAROLINA DEAN, HULKING, & WICCAN: tortured while straight teammates were not
DESTINY: dead
DESTROYER: in the closet
FRENCHIE DUCHAMP: alcoholic, double-amputee; beaten nearly to death with his prosthetic leg
ELECTRO: realized he was a homosexual after a lengthy stint in prison
EL EXTRANO, “THE STRANGE ONE”: attacked by an AIDS vampire
FAUNA: dead
FREEDOM RING: finger sliced off; impaled on twenty-eight spikes, including one through the groin and anus
GREEN ARROW II/CONNOR HAWKE: made retroactively heterosexual
HOODED JUSTICE: murdered by teammate
ICE: murdered, last seen in hell
JARVIS: shot through the head, dead
JERICHO: impaled on his father’s sword
JETMAN: blackmailed by a villain who threatens to out him
KARMA: raped as a child, kidnapped, disfigured; later reappears but is too fat to move on her own
WALTER KASKO: killed in a botched gang-slaying
MADAME FATAL: dead; his funeral, attended by drag queens, is mocked
MIDNIGHTER: heart ripped out
MONSIEUR MALLAH & THE BRAIN: sadistic gorilla and disembodied brain in a jar; searching for a body for the Brain so they can consummate their love
MOONDRAGON: kidnapped, ear ripped off by a villain who makes her girlfriend deliver it to Moondragon’s father as a ransom note
NORTHSTAR: killed in three different realities, resurrected as a zombie assassin
OBSIDIAN: depowered, corrupted by his sexual strife, manipulated by dark forces, thwarted in an attempt to destroy the world, made a security guard for a team of heterosexual superheroes but not allowed to sit with them at the table
PHAT: dead
PIED PIPER: parents murdered by teammate
RAWHIDE KID: revealed he was only pretending to be gay
ROBIN: exposed as a villain; explained that his turn to the dark side was due to his unrequited love for Batman
SHATTERSTAR: rewritten as a heterosexual
SHOUT OUT: thumbs ripped off
SILHOUETTE: murdered, along with her lover, after being outed
SUNFIRE II: dead
ULTIMATE NORTHSTAR: shot at point-blank range, left to die
UNION JACK II: dead
WING: admitted crush to his mentor, who broke his arm and beat him; given a check for $750,000 and forced to leave his superhero group in dishonor

Wet Back Problem: Car dealer lays a lemon

2007-10-10T07:09:00.000-05:00

When a car dealer placed a newspaper ad that asked, "Tired of the Wet Backs?" he thought it would really catch potential customers' eyes for his Lincolns' neato-keeno air-conditioned seat backs.

It caught eyes, all right. And he got a deal he couldn't refuse: He was fired.

What's next? "Hunting for a Rag Head? See our convertibles"?

'Great Escape' Jump stuntman dead at 77

2007-10-10T06:44:00.000-05:00

Bud Ekins, the iconic stuntman whose first-ever job was to jump Steve McQueen's motorcycle over a rail fence in "The Great Escape," has died at age 77 in Los Angeles.

Geek Love: Computer or girlfriend?

2007-10-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Isn't it romantic? It’s the relationship to which you devote the most time every day ... and it has gotten deeper over the last few years. For many of us, it can end up in bed in the first night. When things go wrong, you get very upset but, face it, you're willing to spend hours patching it up. And no matter how carefully you have chosen this mate, you can still get a virus.

Wait. What? No, dummy, not your girlfriend. It's your computer!

64 percent of Americans say they spend more time with their computer than with their significant other, according to a new study. And 84 percent said they were more dependent on their computer than they were three years ago.

Take that, Match.com! EHarmony, my ass!

When confronted with a dead computer, the researchers found, 19 percent wanted to hurl it out the nearest window, 9 percent felt stranded and alone, 11 percent used language normally reserved for special occasions, 7 percent did so loudly, 3 percent did so tearfully and 3 percent "vented their wrath on inanimate objects." (Admit it, you've felt the same way when you fight with your significant other!)

On the other hand, like my ex-wife, a healthy 32 percent said that they basically shrugged.

The survey's respondents also said they spend an average 12 hours a month trying to fix those problems. If we spent that much time on our marital woes, the divorce rate would go waaaay down!

What's that? There some some intimate things computers can't do for a mate? Ha. Just Google "XXX" and see if your partner can do THAT!

Sex in Class: Cellphones illegal ... hump happens

2007-10-09T08:20:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, Under The News reported that two 13-year-old eighth graders at Houston's Crockett Middle School engaged in "a sex act" in class after the teacher stepped out. Few details on the whole affair have been released, so I went to the school's website to see what news, if any, might be brewing.

Nothing. Maybe if they ignore it, it'll just go away.

BUT ... in light of the salacious extracurriculars, I was amused by a short article basically asking, "Is Your Child Ready for Middle School?" It said, in part:

"Good work management and organizational skills are essential for balancing the load and minimizing the stress. For some students, organizational skills come naturally, but for most, they must be learned. While there is little classroom time to assess and train students in work management skills, here are some ideas for how you can help your students be prepared."

Hmmm. I guess there's slightly more classroom time than this writer expected .... and those "essential skills" come in handy when the teacher steps out of the classroom.

But if 13-year-old kids can snatch a quickie when the teacher isn't looking, I'd say middle school isn't ready for THEM!

Bad Timing: The fog of war

2007-10-09T07:21:00.000-05:00

WARNING: Gratuitous flatulation humor ... but it's a gas!

Still Dead: Greatest T-shirt Salesman Ever

2007-10-08T07:16:00.000-05:00

40 years ago today, this man went to Bolivia and all he got was a hole in his head. Today, we know him as the greatest T-shirt salesman who ever lived.

Who was he?

Sex in Science Class: Middle-schoolers hook up ... in class

2007-10-06T23:28:00.000-05:00

Two eighth graders in Houston's Crockett Middle School were caught in a sex act ... in the classroom ... during class!

Several students witnessed the undescribed sex act, which reportedly happened when the teacher stepped out of the classroom. If you close your eyes and visualize every 13-year-old boy's fantasy, you can probably imagine what happened. Vividly. What hath Bill Clinton wrought?

Remember the good ol' days, when high schoolers talked more about sex than actually doing it? When you made out in the back seat on Lover's Lane? When you were embarrassed to take off your clothes in a junior-high locker room?

Well, forget them. Those days are apparently long gone.

Grumpy Old Gays: Keep the straights out

2007-10-05T07:06:00.000-05:00

It's funny how reasonable discrimination seems when you're protecting your own interests. And it's even funnier when the discriminators were the discriminated not so long ago.

At a condo development for gay seniors in Santa Fe, N.M., the grumpy old gay residents are angry because straight people are buying condos. There goes the neighborhood.

"If straight people are in the majority, it's different. It's not what we came here for," one resident told the Los Angeles Times. "It's not where we want to live out the rest of our lives."

According to the Times, the gay seniors are "quick to say that they don't want an all-gay enclave, just a majority one where gays can show affection without fearing rebuke, and find respite from a world in which the vast references to romance and daily life are in a heterosexual context."

In other words, they want to live among "their own" and not be bothered by the messiness of diversity. Once, gays cried out for tolerance and acceptance ... they marched on Washington, protested at Stonewall, crusaded for inclusion in sports, entertainment and media, even "outed" each other as a way to show their often-hidden roles in society. Now they grumble about uppity straights who only want to spend their retirement years in the rather luxurious accommodations they enjoy.

Once, they crusaded for housing laws that prevented discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Now they want to banish them ... at least as much as they apply to straight people. Straight people shouldn't have the same rights as gays?

Once, gays argued that what they did in the privacy of their own bedrooms wasn't anyone's business, least of all the government's. Now they're saying it means everything ... and what others do in their private bedrooms might simply be abhorrent to them.

I gotta wonder: How many homophobes will be moving to a renowned gay-senior retirement complex? Probably not many. The grumblers are only grumbling because they fear people who aren't like them.

Gee, sounds like the same old Broadway show-tune, second verse.

PHOTO ABOVE: Kate Barbee, left, and Patty Gomez, both of Santa Fe, take a spin around the dance floor. (Katharine Kimball for the Los Angeles Times)

Rat-head Stew: Don't worry, it's sterilized

2007-10-05T06:03:00.000-05:00

A Utah mom was startled to find a rodent's head in a can of green beans she bought at a Wal-mart store. But she was even more startled when the canning company offered her $100 if she promised not to sue them.

Yesterday, a company spokesman casually dismissed the woman's disgust over the extra bit of protein they included, free of charge, in her green beans.

"There's no way that [rodent's head] could have hurt her," Allen Canning spokesman James Phillips said. "This rodent was rendered commercially sterile. We cook each can individually at a temperature up to 265 degrees."

Oh, phew. Thank goodness! I thought eating a rat's head would be icky.

Trick or Tract: The Christian Hallo-weenies

2007-10-04T07:39:00.000-05:00

Some of the scariest spooks who'll haunt us on Halloween will be the slasher Christians who see the holiday as the Devil's barn dance. Party-poopers.

Lori D'Augostine, an associate producer at Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, posted an essay at CBN's website on the evil behind Halloween. To her, trick-or-treaters are little souls surrounded by the Occult, but instead of turning off the porchlight, she advises Christians to reach out to them.

"Did you ever wonder why Halloween seems to primarily feed off of a market of 3-13 year olds?" Lori writes. "This is a Satanic ploy for our children. I don't think that Christian children should completely abstain from the festivities of costumes and candy, because they can be a light through their alternative behavior. [I personally plan on dressing my children up in Biblical and God-honoring characters that will draw people to ask questions.]"

Satanic ploy? I thought it was just good, old-fashioned American marketing. I must be a true heathen.

And I'm not sure some Bible characters would be an improvement over SpongeBob Squarepants. ("Oh, such a pretty little girl. Who are you?" "Thank you, ma'am. I'm a Bible character named Jezebel!") Hey, maybe a bunch of kids could go as the ~~Seven~~ Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Instead of candy, Lori suggests handing out homemade Bible tracts or Scripture Candy and EvangeCandy, "the only candy with color-coded Gospels on every wrapper!" All the cavities of pagan candy without the guilt.

Yeah, that's the way to save a soul ... and get your house TP'd. maybe you should give the little devils some Hershey's white chocolate. That'll teach 'em.

Deadly Sherry Enema: Did she try the Heineken Maneuver?

2007-10-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

This just in: Charges have been dropped against a Lake Jackson, Texas, wife who administered a fatal enema to her husband.

Fatal? Yep. The enema fluid contained so much sherry -- yes, the liquor -- that his blood alcohol level rose to .47 percent and he died of alcohol poisoning -- six times higher than the limit for drunk driving ... well, OK, he wasn't exactly driving, but you get my drift.

Tammy Warner's husband, Michael, died at their home in 2004. She was charged with negligent homicide for, um, getting him loaded, but a judge has now decided there's not enough evidence to warrant a trial.

Her defense: Her husband had been addicted to enemas since he was a kid and he often used booze in his colonics as a way to get drunk.

So next time your weirdest buddy asks you if you want a beer ... wait, with friends like that, who needs enemas?

Quote of the Day: Batteries not included

2007-10-03T06:19:00.000-05:00

Alabama bans the sale of sex toys. A lawsuit seeking to declare that ban unconstitutional reached the U.S. Supreme Court this week ... and the justice refused to hear it. That means Alabama's ban stands and sex-toy sellers are getting the shaft (ahem): They face criminal charges if the cops decide to strike a blow for decency. And since Alabama cops have thwarted all murders, rapes and robberies, I imagine a massive raid on Montgomery sex shops will happen in, oh, the next few hours.

But at least one vendor isn't going down so easily. She was quoted as saying:

"My motto has been they are going to have to pry this vibrator from my cold, dead hand."

To read the whole sordid tale, click here.

Toddler Rape Tape: Mother of the Year?

2007-10-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

UPDATE on "Where's Chester?"

While cops still hunt for Chester Arthur Stiles (left), the mother of his alleged rape victim -- a little 7-year-old girl named Madison -- is hardly cutting a sympathetic figure.

It turns out the videotaped rape of her 3-year-old daughter was committed while Madison was left with a babysitter -- possibly the unmolested older girl seen on the video or an adult friend who clearly were not as responsible as a typical mother might like. Mom is believed to have been working her two jobs 6 days a week and living in a friend's apartment when the video was made, but her own lawyer admitted Tuesday that the abuse had likely been going on even before the tape was made. But Mom has no inkling?

While America had been seeing Madison's face on the news for a couple days as cops tried desperately to identify her, Mom was oblivious. Does she notice anything at all?

And when her lawyer was asked if Madison's mother was at least grateful for the news media circulating photos that helped break this case, he replied: "Not really ... there's some things maybe you don't want to know." She would have preferred not to know of the trauma against her daughter? She would have rather just let it pass?

Say what you will about women's intuition, but she apparently had no hint that her child had been raped by a stranger in their midst. Then her distraction from the world around her allows crucial days to pass before police can get Madison's identity, a pivotal development in identifying her rapist.

My heart aches for little Madison, and every day that her rapist roams free my anger grows. But I'm beginning to get a picture of her mother as a disconnected, distracted and desperate woman whose own dysfunctions -- whatever they might be -- put her baby girl in the hands of exploiters.

The rapist must take all the blame -- and I hope there's plenty to be meted out -- for his crime against Madison. But the scant peripheral evidence is suggesting to me that Madison's oblivious mother unwittingly put her at risk, a pathetically common scenario in many molestation cases where predators focus like a laser beam on children whose parents have left them vulnerable to abuse.