I’m so thrilled with my latest short story!
Current mood: excited
Category: Writing and Poetry

After I logged off MySpace in the wee hours of last night (what my retired Air Force uncle would've called "oh-dark-thirty in the ungodly AM"), I called up my ST-2 manuscript and started writing.  It is kind of a departure from the usual BDSM-themed erotica I was writing in that book.  Rather, it kinda delved into the lives of two soulmates who both vowed to never stop loving the other.

The title of this shortie is Shoo Shoo Baby.

That title might sound familiar to fans of classic 1940s music; the Andrews Sisters had a song in 1944 with that title.  What people of this era don't know, however, is that there was a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress that flew bombing missions over Nazi Germany with the name inspired by the song.  That B-17 has been restored and is now on static display at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

So what has that got to do with erotica?  Well, authors are told by their mentors to "write what you know."  I know classic cars and inherited a like of vintage aircraft from my dad.  He subcribes to the notion that "real airplanes have round engines" and I surely do like the thunderous sound they make.

The shortie I wrote is about a young woman named Gwen who has known all her life that something isn't right about her.  As young as three, she's felt like she used to be another person.  Gwen has vivid memories of flying missions in a large olive-drab airplane and looking out for enemy fire from the skies above in what she called "a large upside-down fishbowl."  She believes she was hit by shrapnel during a mission and the point of impact was where her cresent-shaped birthmark now sits, just above and to the left of her heart.  Telling this to her parents gets her nowhere; they write it off as her imagination.

Gwen gets a clue at age eleven while watching a World War II documentary in the school library.  She sees a clip of the airplane she remembers from her strange memories and a teacher tells her about the B-17.  Gwen begins to research the Flying Fortress in her spare time.

Just after her 21st birthday, Gwen goes to the Wright-Patterson museum in Dayton to see the B-17 on display there.  She's stunned to learn it is the very same bomber in which her previous life ended --- tail number 232076, once part of the 91st Bomber Group and also known as Shoo Shoo Baby.  Gwen sneaks aboard (a definate no-no; this is government property, after all) and mans her old post in the top gunner's turret.  While she's there, a young man sneaks aboard with her.

In his previous life, he was Mabel Davenport--- the woman Gwen's  reincarnated spirit Danny Halvert was engaged to be married to once his rotation in the European Theater was complete.  But Danny was hit in the chest by enemy fire returning from a mission over Germany.  As he lay dying on the deck of his B-17, Danny vowed he would be reunited with his beloved soulmate Mabel.  Somehow, some day, some way.

Back in the States, Mabel takes the news hard and vows that she will be reunited with her beloved soulate Danny.  Somehow, some day, some way.  Mabel dies a spinster in 1978, still keeping herself available for her reunion with Danny.

And they were indeed reunited, sixty years later, aboard the Flying Fortress in which Danny died.

Isn't that a trip??!

Sure, it's a departure from the usual erotic fare I write most times.  But what good is erotica without the sexual underpinnings and love it's based on?  There is a difference between porn, erotica, and what Ellora's Cave calls "romantica" after all, and I write to the softer side of erotica.

A few select friends and family will recieve this shortie via e-mail when I get the last of the bugs edited out.  My uncle should really dig it; he was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB during his 23-year career, and used to prowl the airpower museum in his spare time.  There is also what I call a "silent salute" to a certain MySpace friend written into the text.  I pepper my manuscripts with them; the person they're meant for will recognize it's for them, but no one else will.  That's what makes them fun.  But you'll recognize my silent salute to you when you see it, Karman. 

Time to get writing.  Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

8:27 AM - 13 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

So what am I gonna blog about this weekend?
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Blogging

Yeah, the new weekend is upon us.  It's time for your humble author to dream up something upon which to blog.  Trouble is, there's not a lot in my mind other than continuing work on my Sensuous Tails II manuscript.  So how about some news nobody cares about instead....

Nancy (the ex-wife for first-time readers) told me late Thursday evening that she's going in Friday morning to get an outpatient surgical procedure done.  Her doctor found some pre-cancerous cells in her uterus during what I guess was a routine examination of her female apparatus.  The procedure involves (as I'm told) going where parts of my male apparatus hasn't in nearly five years and searing the inner lining of the uterus to get rid of the pre-cancerous cells.  She'll be 46 in October and she says she'll no longer be able to bear children.  That sounds like a case of "DUH" to me; she had her tubes tied in January 1989 after our son John III (or J-3 for short) was born the month before.

Daughter and the grandsons might have to move back into the College Street house with Nancy.  Her live-in boyfriend isn't on her apartment lease and his presence was discovered during an annual inspection.  To put him on the lease will raise their rent beyond what they can afford.  Having her and the grandsons move back into the house will indirectly benefit me since she will be helping Nancy support the mortgage and other household bills.  At least I won't have the mortgage company knocking on my  apartment door complaining about a lack of payments.  The divorce agreement gives her until January 30, 2010 to either refinance the house into her name or list it for sale.  Until that time, it's jointly owned --- despite the strength it saps from my credit rating. 

My nephew Ralph is expecting a child with his girlfriend sometime soon.  Great.  His only goals in life are to, quote "smoke, drink, fuck and get high," unquote.    Sounds like great daddy material, huh?   He's 23, has never held a job and is a diagnosed sociopath and chronic liar.  His mom (Nancy's sister) booted him out as soon as she was legally allowed.  Meanwhile, my son seems to be following in his footsteps.  He got fired back in June for mouthing off to his boss and has been living on unemployment since.  Ralph told my co-worker Mike that J-3 was simply going to cruise until the benefits ran out, but Nancy says his benefits have already run out.  Sometimes it's hard to fathom that he shares DNA with me, you know?

In happier news, however, I have at least five short stories kicking around my brain for inclusion in the ST-2 manuscript.  I added an author's foreword and disclaimer to the first Sensuous Tails manuscript as well as the second one in progress.  Don't need some jarheaded jackass suing me because he injured his girlfriend trying some kinky sexual thing he read in one of my books.  Maybe I should get a McDonalds coffee cup, cut it apart and put the "Caution!  Contents are hot!" warning banner onto my book's cover artwork! 

Next weekend is Labor Day, of course, and I get Monday September 1 off for a three-day weekend.  Yay me!    I went to the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Festival in nearby Auburn, Indiana last year and got a really savage sunburn on my face, neck, shoulders and (agony of agonies!!) my scalp.  Yes, dear reader, I am 48 years old and my hair is thinning.  I'm not so follically challenged as to be required by the FAA to wear a hat to keep from signaling aircraft with sunlight reflecting off my scalp --- but I fear the day will come.  Some women think Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise (that's registry NCC-1701-D in case you were wondering) looks hot with his bald pate and remaining silver hair.  But I don't think the look will translate well to me.  I'll probably end up having more hair on my chin than on my dome! 

All right, I'm done bitching.  Go read someone else's blog. 

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

8:27 AM - 8 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

How to handle the accidental discovery of your girlfriend’s vibrator
Current mood: silly
Category: Writing and Poetry

Your humble author is on a roll!  Two blogs in one weekend.

I was lurking through other blogs here on MySpace and came across one talking about the strap-ons owned by a lesbian couple.  They had some problems with their plumbing (and no, I am NOT going to touch any of the obvious puns here!) and called a plumber to have a look at their overflowing toilet.  A man showed up and had a look; while he was busy, the lesbians remembered they'd left their strap-ons hanging from the shower rod to dry.  Why they didn't run them through the dishwasher like sex toy dealers do, I have no idea. That detail wasn't forthcoming in that blog.

But it did remind me of a time when I accidentally discovered a woman's vibrator while visiting her home.  Check it out.

Arizona 1983.  I was seeing a woman three or four years older than me (I was 23 at the time) and she was also a student where I was attending college.  She had a four-year-old son from a teenage dalliance gone awry from back before I met her.  He was a cute kid; I think he was laying hints to his Mom about giving his approval about me because he called me "Papa John" on occasion.  This was before the pizza chain by the same name was founded.

Anyway, we're over at her place in the rec room playing pool.  She had a nice ass and knew it, and used it to distract me when it was my turn to shoot.  We were chatting and enjoying each other's company when it happened.  I saw something red peeking out from behind a potted plant.  I pulled it out of its hiding spot and discovered it was her vibrator!

Oh, I had so much fun playfully teasing her about it!  Since it was red, I pretended it was an aircraft signalling wand like you see ground crews use at an airport or military airbase.  It was also a miniature lightsaber from Star Wars.  She was blushing, smiling and looking quite amused yet embarrassed.  Then I got a string of logic in my head.

As a car guy, I know one or more of the auto manufacterers have a color called Calypso Red.  The now-late crooner John Denver had a song called Calypso.  Since her vibrator was red, it seemed obvious to mate these two facts to come up with a third fact that honored both.  So I rearranged some of the words to John Denver's Calypso for her in my head---

Aye, Calypso!  The places you've been to!  The wonders you've witnessed and stories you'd tell!

Aye, Calypso!  I sing to your spirit!  And the woman you've serviced so hard and so well!      

It's a wonder she didn't pass out from embarrassment; it looked like every drop of blood in her body was glowing from her cheeks!  She was highly amused and trying very hard not to laugh at my antics, even though she looked like I was really gonna get my goose cooked if she had anything to say about it.

It got worse when her son strolled in and saw me with his Mom's vibrator.

Mom was mortified when he asked me what that was.  I thought fast and replied, "it's a specialty pool cue."  He was like  so I offered to show him.  I leaned over the pool table and lined up a shot, then tapped the cue ball with the blunt end of the vibrator.  I made my shot and Mom looked like we were going to escape the situation with his innocence intact.  Ah, but your humble author wasn't done yet --- I asked him if he wanted to take my next shot for me!

Mom was probably thinking of all the places that big red vibrator had seen when I helped her son kneel on the green felt and line up a shot, using it as a pool cue.  I explained, with Mom hanging on every word of course, that Big Red could be "easily maneuvered into very snug places" to "get your balls ready for where they need to go" and other such innuendo.  She was not saying a word, biting her lip hard and likely thinking that I only have one life for her to remove from me!

Her son didn't make the shot he was taking for me and it was Mom's turn again.  I helped him back down to the floor --- the pool table was taller than he was and he had to kneel on the playing surface to make the shot --- then I turned to Mom and held her vibrator out to her.  "Would you like to try a shot?" I inquired with the alpha and omega of leering innocence.  She snatched the thing from me and was excessively polite when she declined my offer.

Her son got bored after a bit and left for more entertaining things to do.  Wanting to protect my goose from being cooked, I spent the next ten minutes keeping the 800-pound pool table between me and her.  She was quite amused by the whole affair (pardon my pun) but she needed to avenge herself.  When it was my turn and I was lining up a shot, she would venture around to my side of the table.  That was when I decided to try a shot from a different angle on the other side.  That was probably the longest game of pool I'd ever played! 

She went on to study at Arizona State University the next semester while I stayed at CAC.  Ah, but I'll always remember her --- and Big Red too, of course! 

Cheers!

www.johnwadamsjr.com

11:01 PM - 10 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

My advice to authors thinking about their own website
Current mood: bummed
Category: Writing and Poetry

This is my 140th blog and as long time readers of these blogs will confirm, I have my own freestanding website.  A link to it gets added at the end of each and every blog.  My thought is that if a MySpace blog lurker likes what he/she sees here, they'll be tempted to follow the link to seek out more infor about my books.  That's the theory, anyway.

I contacted Spider Media in Auburn, Indiana (see their website at www.spidermedia.net) back in late July 2005, about a month before The Widower made her debut.  They drew up the thing to my specifications and had it up by mid-August.  About two weeks later, I had my very first booksigning after my very first newspaper interview and the website address was featured in the article.  Later was added the Fellow Scribes area for links to other authors' websites, and later still was the "Clippings & Reviews" area added.  The guestbook was specified right from the start.  After all, what author doesn't want feedback from his massive throngs of rapt readers, right?

That was a big mistake.

My guestbook didn't work out that way.  Sure, people did indeed visit my website and leave their accolades for myself and others to admire.  But after two weeks or so, I started getting strange entries.  "Hi!  Great website.  Visit ours at..." and they'd list several website addresses, usually for porn or Viagra or stuff not having anything to do with my website.  Well, your humble author wants to run a clean, tight and respectable ship.  So I axed the spam entries as soon as I found them.

From September 2005 until late April 2007, I logged onto my website every twelve hours or so and swept spam out of my guestbook.  It varied from three to nine entries every twelve hours.  Then in late April, I logged on and found no less than twenty-four spam entries!    It took me about twenty minutes to get them all removed.  I was pissed off about this and sent my website guy Brandon an order to close the guestbook to further entries.  I made the last entry myself on May 1, 2007 to explain why the guestbook was closed until further notice.  I felt smug that I'd solved my spam problems, and life went on, right?

Wrong! 

I checked back five days later and, on a whim, checked my guestbook.  Spammers were still getting entries in there somehow!    So I went back to chopping out three to nine spam entries every twelve hours.  What legitimate entries in there already were left alone and they occupied three pages.

Fast-forward to the evening of August 12.  I logged on and went into the guestbook for my twice-daily ritual.  Usually spammers manage to fill up a page or two (maybe three on occasion) and I chop them out.  But that evening I saw a stunning fourteen pages of spam waiting for me!  Ten slices of spam per page times the eleven pages they occupied!  Sheez, I was pissed --- but I couldn't do anything about it right then since I was less than thirty minutes away from having to leave for work.  That morning after work, I needed almost an hour to remove one hundred and fifteen spam entries.

This evening after logging on, I checked and saw ten pages waiting for me.  Between Wednesday morning and very early Saturday morning, I'd only gotten the expected three to nine entries.  But again, I had a massive hack-and-slice party waiting for me; it took almost thirty minutes to get all the shit out of there.

Come Monday, I'm going to call Spider Media and tell them to remove the guestbook completely.  Which leads me to the main thrust of this blog --- if you're an author thinking about creating (or having created for you) your own freestanding website, Do yourself a HUGE favor and forget the guestbook!  It'll turn into nothing but a spam magnet and make your website look trashy, untended and unprofessional.

My guestbook was intended for friends and readers to leave words of praise, critism, critique, etc., for my books.  Spammers took it over and it instead became a bulliten board for webcam whores, Viagra and Cialis sales, porn websites and other garbage like that.  Well, the spammers are in for a surprise.  They may think they're in the driver's seat and holding the keys --- but I control the whole vehicle.  One call or e-mail to my website guy gets the wheels taken off that vehicle, and my website goes back to looking as family-friendly and professional as I had intended.  It's a shame a few shitheads have to ruin it for me and everybody else.  But I will do what is needed to keep my professional writing image intact.

Like bird poop on the shoulder of a business suit --- it's time to go to the cleaners! 

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

11:27 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Second Progress Report, "Sensuous Tails II"
Current mood: working
Category: Writing and Poetry

I am three-quarters of the way through my four-day weekend and using that time to bang away on my keyboard.  My in-progress manuscript of choice at the moment is Sensuous Tails II as reported previously in my blog of August 10.  Right now, I have kind of surprised myself.  Five shorties are complete with 11,808 words committed to the computer file.  The goal is twelve shorties in all with a word count coming in between 35,000 and 40,000.  That should translate into a book with 130 pages when published, with a cover price of (hopefully) around $8.95.  The goal, of course, is to get the price down low enough to qualify as an impulse buy for somebody trolling the erotica section of a bookstore or surfing my website.

Inspiration is all around me and I have my radar hot and tuned in.  MySpace blogs help some --- don't worry, I'm not plagerizing anything.  That would be unethical and unscrupulous, and I respect other authors a helluva lot more than that!  But I will admit that one of the shorties I've written so far has been based upon a blog found on MySpace.

Also, I found a really hot picture to use for my cover art!  There are websites out there that offer and sell what are called "stock shots" that you can buy and use royalty-free.  The picture I found is of an Asian woman dressed in full black leather dominatrix gear and holding a six-foot-long brown leather whip.  She's standing in front of a neutral beige background and it looks really good; all I will have to have the publisher do is add a title banner.  After my very bad experience with PublishAmerica not getting even close to what I wanted (and asked for!  ) for the covers of The Widower and The Guilty Ones, I've decided to supply the artwork myself.  Anyway, go to Google and enter "stock shots" or "stock photography" into the Search feature to find such websites.  I believe the website I found the Asian dominatrix photo on was www.istockphotography.com but I'm not sure.  I have the credit card receipt printed out in my files somewhere for tax return purposes; if I knew how, I'd cut-and-paste it into this blog so you can all admire her.  But I don't so I won't.

Enough chit-chat!  I got a manuscript to write.

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

10:12 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Progress Report on newest manuscript "Sensuous Tails II"
Current mood: artistic
Category: Writing and Poetry

I finally got my butt busy and created a computer file for my latest fiction manuscript.  Since it's a sequel of sorts, the title is Sensuous Tails II: Twelve More BDSM-themed Erotic Short Stories and I have two short stories ("shorties" for short  ) typed up as of now.  That works out to a word count of 2,756.  The first Sensuous Tails worked out to be 40,108 words after I added an author foreword and a disclaimer about being careful with your kinky fun and games.  I don't want some hose-nose shmuck trying to sue me because he and his girlfriend tried something I wrote about and ended up hurting her or something.  In fact, the title of the foreword chapter is "author's foreword, disclaimers and other stuff."

I've also been spending bunches of time surfing MySpace and other areas of the Internet looking for a sensuous picture to use as the cover art for the first book.  You might've noticed I have "tails" spelled wrong for the context in which I'm using it; that is supposed to be a play on words working in conjuntion with the book's cover art.  My ideal cover picture is inspired by a niche magazine put out by the publisher of Penthouse.  The title of that magazine is Variations and it first made its debut in the very early 1980s.  I can't remember exactly when.  Anyway, the fourth issue of Variations magazine printed had a really stunning cover photo and I want to duplicate it as close as possible.  A nude female model is shown standing with her back to the camera, her wrists crossed behind her back and restrained there by beige leather cuffs.  Her waist-length hair is spread evenly across her back like a veil and a strong light is directly in front of her.  Since the camera is facing a light source, the model in the picture has a really erotic kinda erthereal (sp?) glow about her.  I would modify the picture by having my model in white cotton panties so I could display the cover on my profile here on MySpace.  I even have a model lined up; her name is Amy, she's 36 and a co-worker of mine.  She has a nice ass too.   Amy had agreed to model for me in return for a one-time fee of $200 and a signed copy of the book when it comes out.  A copy of her driver's license (as proof of her age) and her signed and notarized model release will go into my files.  Her biggest concern is that her face not be recognized.

Another pose I have in mind is a variant of what you just read.  This view is from behind as well and still clad in her white cotton panties, but she's got her weight cocked off to one side and holding a coiled whip next to her hip.  This alternate "dominant" photo idea could be used in place of the aforementioned "submissive" picture so the Women's Libber and Femi-Nazi types won't have a cow, man.   On the other hand, putting the "submissive" picture on the cover as a deliberate red flag waved in their faces could generate enough controversy to get me noticed on the national stage!  The Femi-Nazis would scream, fuss and spew vitriol to Fox News, CNN, et al, about how I'm subjacating (sp?) women with my book and its cover artwork.  Millions of people viewing the report would then go look up my book on the Internet and hopefully buy a copy (or ten) just to see what all the fuss is about!  You can't buy press like that and the old adage of "there is no such thing as bad publicity" surely holds true.

Decisions, decisions. 

So that's the news in my writing department.  I got approved (finally) for the two vacation days I've been grumbling about of late and I'll be banging away on my ST-2 manuscript during the wee hours of August 11 and 12.  Maybe somebody reading this will know about the Variations magazine I mentioned and have a copy laying around.  Then he (or she) could take a digital scan of it and post it here on my blog so I finally have something to reference.  I know I can't use the actual image itself because it's copyrighted, but I could send it to a publisher with instructions to create something like it.  I've looked all over Ebay and other websites geared toward the sale of used magazines, but no luck so far.   Still, I keep my chin up and keep on slogging --- he who gives up is lost.  And I'm not lost. 

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

12:12 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

An Ironic Radio Station Moment
Current mood: amused
Category: Life

Yesterday, August 4 had a lot of storms happening in the northern reaches of Indiana.  As I was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation re-runs on Sci Fi Channel, I kept seeing flashes of light outside my living room window.  Finally, I flipped the TV over to the local weather radar channel to see if we had storm brewing.  There was a line of thunderstorms west of South Bend; they reached well into Michigan and down towards Lafeyette.  About 10:30pm, tornado watches began to pop up for the counties west and south of where I live in Noble County.

Come 11:00pm, I killed the TV, doused the light, grabbed my pre-assembled lunchbox and headed to work.  The sky was black, save for streaks of lightning playing across directly west and somewhat south of me.  I drive west on US 6 to head to work in Ligonier so I was driving right into the flashy stuff.

The Sable's radio is always on WLDE-FM 101.7 out of Fort Wayne as I'm cruising to work.  It's a station that specializes in 1960s and '70s music, of which I am particularly fond.  So I'm listening to the expert banjo sounds of the 1973 song Sweet City Woman by The Stampeders when, at 11:10pm, the disc jockey cuts the almost-completed song short to announce a tornado warning for Koskiosco and Wabash Counties.  Koskiosco County is the next one west of Noble, and Wabash County is south of Koskiosco.  The thunderstorm had strong rotation and people should seek shelter immeadiately.  His job done, the DJ fires up the next song on his play roster.

Dust In The Wind by Kansas!     

I kid you not!  That's the song that came up next!  If there was ever a really ironic song to play after a tornado warning, that's it.  I can just imagine a farmer in Wabash County --- having just gotten under cover a moment before the tornado blows his barn away --- listening to the soothing tones of Kansas singing "all we are is dust in the wind." 

Yes, friends and neighbors --- I am a strange person! 

By the way, no tornadoes touched down and no damage has been reported that I'm aware of.

I now return you to your local programming. 

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

6:11 AM - 5 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

A small piece of local history discovered and written into "Two Roads to Reunion"
Current mood: pleased
Category: Writing and Poetry

A wise man once said "even fiction has its basis in fact."  Or something like that.  In other words, no matter how outlandish the science fiction or fantasy story you're reading is, there is at least a small piece of reality interwoven into it.  Otherwise the story loses credibility.  Take Star Wars for example.  There are those who scoff at the whole series of movies because of the physical impossibility of the light saber, the famous Jedi weapon.  Personally, I think the light saber is possible to achieve someday; it's just a matter of humanity's scientific knowledge advancing to meet it.

I'm wandering off-topic already.  Sorry.  Anyway, the main thrust is that a fiction novel has to have certain elements based in the hard reality we all live in.  For your humble author, I am pleased to announce that I recently discovered a small but relevent piece of reality to weave into one of my manuscripts.

You've all read about my Two Roads to Reunion manuscript and how it is currently in the hands of Triad Publishing Group, being considered for publication.  That book follows the lives of birthday twins John Adler and Roger Sprague --- John is the only child of loving and educated parents, while Roger is the youngest of three born to an uneducated hooker.  In fact, all of Darla Sprague's children have different fathers; they were concieved during the sex-for-money act.  The story hops back and forth between John and Roger as they live their lives.  Each chapter starts with a date, location and a one-sentence synopsis of that chapter.  About halfway through the book, in a chapter set on July 11, 1974, John is helping out in his dad's TV repair business.  He and his parents Jerry and Connie get into a discussion about possibly diversifying the business since televisions are (at the time of the chapter) moving toward becoming a throwaway commodity.  Your TV dies, you throw it away and buy another.  The Adlers agree to diversify the business into pinball machine and jukebox repair.   Meanwhile in the next chapter, Roger is headed up to Michigan from Indiana with three buddies for what was known back then as a "beer run."  Back then, Indiana had a drinking age of twenty-one and Michigan had their drinking age at eighteen.  Teenagers who were underage in Indiana could (and did) drive up to Michigan and buy booze legally.  It was in this way a classmate of mine lost three older brothers in a horrible head-on collision just south of LaGrange, Indiana back in 1973.  I was thirteen at the time and attending Rome City Middle School; I remember they closed school after half the day and had the funeral in the gymnasium.

Anyway, that's the basic premise behind Two Roads to Reunion.

I was reading the newspaper at work this past Tuesday and came across an article that tickled my toenails.  It told of the 35-year anniversary of Max Platt Ford-Lincoln-Mercury here in Kendallville.  This is important to Two Roads to Reunion because, on October 26, 1969, John Adler buys his parents a brand new car from that very dealership!  How he got the $3800 to buy the 1970 Ford Torino Squire station wagon at the age of nine is something you'll just have to buy the book and read to find out! 

Anyway, the newspaper item I was reading said Max Platt bought his dealership on July 23, 1973.  Before that, it was known as Johnny Roman Ford.  Since Two Roads to Reunion is set in and around Rome City, Kendallville and Noble County from 1960 to 1997, this small fact needed to be woven into the story since I hadn't known it before.  I took great pains during the writing of 2RTR to make it as accurate to local history as possible.  Someone my age or thereabouts should be able to read my book and say "Oh, yeah!  I remember that place!"

So what I had generically referred to as "the Ford dealership" in that particular chapter is now Johnny Roman Ford in my book.  The modification to the manuscript's computer file took all of ten minutes --- but 2RTR is now just that much more accurate and believable because of it. 

Now if only Triad Publishing Group would let me know they've accepted it! 

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

10:15 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

What useless stuff do you remember from college?
Current mood: smart
Category: School, College, Greek

Somebody at work asked me, "what do you remember the most from your college days?"

I suppose the thing I remember is The Doctor Demento Show, which ran on Sunday nights from 9:00 to 11:00pm on KUPD-FM 98.1 out of Tempe, Arizona.  I used to record all his shows directly off the radio onto cassette tapes and go back later to dub out the commercials and otherwise offensive stuff.

There was plenty of stuff to offend you too.  One song sang about hitting the dog with a lawnmower.  "I'm looking over my dead dog Rover whom I hit with the power mower.  One leg is missing, the other one gone, a third leg is scattered all over the lawn.  No need explaining the leg remaining is just spinning on the carport floor..."    Now that gives you a mental image, doesn't it?  How about the child molesting clown?  "Kinko, Kinko, the kid-loving clown, if the kids just love me back, I'll never wear a frown..."  Yeah.  Charming.    And of course, let's not forget the 1940s song titled "Slap Her Down Again, Paw." 

But there was plenty of hilarious stuff too.  There was one song I liked called The Circus Song.  "The circus came to town, to the circus I went.  Didn't have a nickle, didn't have a cent.  The circus man said to see the show without a cent, I had to carry water for the elephant..."  Another song told of a man with a pesky and resourceful mouse living in his place.  "Papino, oh you little mouse, oh won't you go away?  Find yourself another house to run around and play!  You scare my girl, you eat my cheese, you even drink my wine.  I try so hard to catch you but you trick me all the time..."  Part of that song is sung in Italian!    And one from 1915 sang about his little old Ford.  "Now Henry Jones and his pretty little queen, took a ride one day in his big limousine.  The engine wouldn't start and the starter wouldn't crank, there wasn't any gas in the gasoline tank.  About that time along came Mort and he rambled right along in his little old Ford..."  I especially like the line toward the end that says, "...if the power gets sick, just hit it with a brick and the little Ford will ramble right along."    You gotta love the Model T. 

But I suppose my favorite thing was a thirty-second time filler KUPD-FM used; it depicted Bullwinkle, Rocky the Squirrel, Boris and Natasha from The Bullwinkle and Friends cartoon show of the late 1960s.  I'll  reproduce it here.

Narrator:  Last time we left our heroes, Bullwinkle and Rocky, were caught red-handed by two police officers.  But they're not police officers as they're Boris and Natasha in disguise.

[The voice of Bullwinkle goes "dun-de-dun-dunt" here.]

Bullwinkle (indignantly):  Gee, Rocky.  Why are these police officers going to arrest us?  All we're doing is smoking this funny-looking cigarette.  I'm a grown-up moose, you know!

Rocky:  Hey, Bullwinkle, that cigarette is full of highly illegal narcotics!

Bullwinkle (disappointed):  Oh, well that's a roach of a different color. 

Boris (in Russian accent):  Look, don't want to bust you.  Just want funny-looking cigarette.

Rocky:  Hey, I've seen your face before.

Boris:  Is good profile, yes?

Natasha:  Boris, darling, we must hurry. Moose is smoking funny-looking cigarette away.

Boris:  Look, I'll make you deal.  Will trade this gold watch for funny-looking cigarette.  Is deal?

Rocky:  It's a deal!

Narrator:  Oh-oh!  Watch it.  That's no ordinary watch.  That's a miniature time bomb!

Boris:  Of course!

Narrator:  Tune in next time for "up, up and away" or "picking up the pieces."

So what useless stuff do you remember from college??

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

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How Yogi Bear met his sidekick Boo-Boo
Current mood: chipper
Category: Blogging

There comes a time in the life of every author when he realizes he is good at telling stories.  Whether it's in writing or off-the-cuff during a conversation, on stage or at a party doesn't matter.  He's pleased to get a happy reaction from his audience.

For me, that realization came as a 7th grader at Rome City Middle School.  I was fourteen, it was 1974 and it was lunchtime.  After eating, students headed down to the gym to throw basketballs around.  There was also a unicycle, believe it or not.  There was also three ping-pong tables and three tables available for cards, checkers or chess set up on the stage recessed into the west wall.  People could find a spot on the bleachers and read or do schoolwork in a breathless rush.

I entered the gym one day at lunch and headed for my usual parking spot on the bleachers to read.  On my way to that, however, I saw five cheerleader classmates of mine amusing themselves with a muppet.  This wasn't the kind of muppet you'd see Kermit the Frog interacting with on The Muppet Show or something, but it was much more than just a cloth bag with a plastic head that covered your fingers.  One of the five called me over (I think she was sweet on me) and I decided to hang out with them instead of reading.  Hey, the book will always be there, but a chance to hang with five drop-dead gorgeous cheerleaders is something for my fourteen-year-old male hormones to remember!

I watched for about fifteen minutes as the five passed the muppet around between them.  This muppet covered a person's arm from hand to elbow and it had two thin black sticks to direct the movements of the arms.  None of the chicks could quite get the hang of coordinating the voice with her hand movements inside its head, and they kept confusing their voice with the muppet's voice.  In other words, they forgot to either stop or start the cartoony voice at the right time or start or start their normal voice when appropriate.  Let's just say Jim Hensen didn't have anything to worry about. 

Finally, the cheerleader who I suspect was sweet on me suggested I try it.  I did, reluctantly, and slipped the muppet on my arm.  Instead of holding a conversation with the muppet as the girls had while the other four watched and listened, I used the muppet to interact with them.  In short, I gave that muppet its personality.

For whatever reason, my alternate persona in the muppet mentioned he did impressions.  The girls asked me (a-k-a, the muppet) to clarify and I quickly ran through my mental catalog of cartoon characters.  Then I started to have the muppet do an impersonation of Yogi Bear.  I was throwing in some dirty-minded material and a good time was being had by all; the five were laughing with delight and most of them blushed a few times as well.

Then one of the chicks asked the muppet how Yogi met his little cartoon sidekick Boo-Boo.  I very quickly assembled a dirty-minded short story in my head and provided a rather cruddy rendition of Yogi Bear's voice as the muppet told the story.  Just remember as you read this that the phrase and concept of "political correctness" hadn't been invented yet; we are talking about 1974 here.  Apologies are offered ahead of time if you're miffed or offended.

Yogi said he was driving "the Yogimobile" down the road and chanced to pass by a gay bar.  He saw eight "faggots" chasing a cute little blonde in a nice dress down the road and decided to rescue her.  He hoped to be chivalrious and "maybe get a little something-something to remember her by."    He drove around the mob and came alongside the running blonde.  "Jump in, sweetie, and I'll rescue you!" Yogi shouts out the passenger window.  The blonde dives head first through the window and Yogi stabs the gas, leaving the "fags" standing in the road and shaking their fists at them.  He looks over to see if the pretty blonde was okay and was surprised to see her wig had fallen off.  He was even more surprised to see that she was a he!    "What the hell is this?!" Yogi demanded, his voice indignant.  "That's false advertising, you know!"  The bear in drag replied, "thanks for rescuing me, Yogi.  Those guys were really gonna cook my goose.  My name is Francis and we're going to be life-long buddies."

"Your name may be Francis," Yogi replied with disgust, "but I'm going to call you 'Boo-Boo.'   Because you're the biggest freakin' mistake I ever made in my life!  Yea-hey-hey!" 

Those five cheerleaders almost laughed themselves sick and were blushing like crazy.  It dawned on me right then that I could spin a pretty decent story when the mood struck.  I honed my storytelling skills every now and then as time passed, but I never wrote anything down.

Over the years, I told the occasional dirty-minded story.  I also told clean stories too, just in case you think I'm a perv.  Over Christmas 1992 at the party hosted by my grandparents, I overheard Mom telling her sister of her latest garage sale score.  My mom was literally a terror on the streets while out doing the garage sale routine; she was almost an urban legend!  Anyway, I butted into their conversation and pretty much did a stand-up comic routine about how I'd seen Mom plow through fences, knock down live oaks, slaughter chickens and carve 100 miles of use off a set of tires.  By the time I'd run out of steam and material, everybody (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, in-laws -- about 25 people) had paused their own conversations and were laughing it up.  Mom was glaring at me with a slightly red face, but you could see in her eyes that she was amused.  She was a good sport about it too.  She declared, "you know, the way you can spout bullshit off the top of your head like that, you oughta write a book!"  Well, I laughed it off, thinking it was her verbal revenge.  But a couple of weeks after the New Year, she showed up unannounced at our door with a working and even-then ancient Amstrad PC-1212-DD personal computer.  "You laughed it off, but I was serious," she said of her gift.  "So try writing some of your stuff into this computer and see what you get."  I took her advice and, five years later, my first novel The Path of Healing was complete.  Almost sixteen years later, I have ten more completed manuscripts, three partials in progress, and concepts for four more in mind.

And it all pretty much started by doing a Yogi Bear impersonation with a muppet for five cheerleader friends of mine. 

Cheers.

www.johnwadamsjr.com

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