ALEX CAVANAUGH PLAYS AT MEILORI'S

The crowd was even wilder and more undead than last night with Jeremy Hawkins. 

Luckily I thought to have Samuel McCord sitting at the table I reserved for Alex after he finished his gig with Nightwish and Elu ...

Or it finished him.  Meilori's is that kind of place.

Tarja had even agreed to once more sing with Nightwish.  Floor Jansen and Anette Olzon were not amused.  The two of them were whispering in the wings.

I sighed.  Nothing ever went right at Meilori's.  Marco Hietala was playing the bass guitar next to Alex, his face beaming with pleasure and excitement.

Elu, though Apache, was on center stage wailing the Lakota chant to CREEK MARY'S BLOOD.

Suddenly, Floor and Anette flung themselves on a startled Tarja.  A wavering figure leapt at Elu from the other side of the stage.

The ghost of George Armstrong Custer, roaring, "Take my scalp, will you?"

Elu made short work of Custer ... again. 

But with Tarja, Floor, and Anette there was such a flurry of corsets flying, legs flailing, and assorted bared flesh that Alice Wentworth covered my eyes with her cold, cold fingers.

I heard a crash.  Alex stood with Marco's shattered guitar in his hands, having snatched it to smash an attacking fan of Anette over the head.

Marco roared, "Why did you take my guitar to do that?"

Alex smiled, "I love MY guitar.  Yours not so much."

It took a bit from Sam McCord, Elu, and Father Renfield but things finally settled down ... a bit.

Alex sat down with a gush, "Roland, why do things turn into a furball with you?"

There was nothing to say to that as Alex groaned, " Life used to be so simple.  I worked.  I watched movies and played games.  I jammed on my guitar, played with my band.  I volunteered at church, and my wife even remembered what my face looked like."

He shook his head.  "My life wasn't adventurous, but I liked it."

He smiled wryly, "And then, I found that manuscript I wrote in my teens, and my life has never been the same." 

"How do you do it?" I asked. 

Alex made a face.  "It takes usually six hours a day to visit my quota of 100 blogs and comment.  I won't be able to keep up the pace forever.  But then, this is my last book."

Sam raised an eyebrow, and Alex smiled ruefully, "Yes, I have an outline for another Sci Fi book but right now my music is taking off."

Alex looked dubiously at the wreckage on stage.  "But tonight has given me second thoughts about that."

I asked, "Do you have any writing rituals or superstitions?"

"I’m not superstitious, but I do like everything just so before I write – water bottle in place, music playing, and my mood relaxed."

"Describe a typical writing day?" I smiled.

"I work full time and occasionally have time to write during the day. But the bulk of my work is done in the evenings, after I’ve chilled with a sports show and about 30 minutes of guitar playing."


"Where do you write?" asked Alice.

"I do most of my work in my office. It’s my comfort zone. Everything I need is nearby – my computer, TV, stereo, and of course, my guitar. Just needs a fridge!"

Sam cocked his head, "Do you wing it when you write?"

"I don’t do anything in life without a plan! I created detailed character profiles before writing any of the story. Since the main characters remained even when the story changed, their personalities and traits just fell into place."

From out of the shadows a battered Tarja, Floor, and Anette limped up to our table and as one asked, "Whose voice do you prefer?"

Behind them, the hulking Marco growled, "You owe me a guitar!"

Alex glared at me.  "Roland, you always do this to me!"

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{Elu you can spot easy -- can you spot Alex?}

THIS FRIDAY:
HER BONES ARE IN THE BADLANDS

PEOPLE PASS ON YOUR POST WHEN ...

DON'T FORGET MY HALLOWEEN BLOGFEST where you can win Brad Pitt's autograph!

And his DNA!

Click on my sidebar for details.

THIS JUST IN!

ALEX WILL PLAY AT MEILORI'S
ON WEDNESDAY
THE 18TH!!

 

PEOPLE PASS ON YOUR POST

WHEN ...

 

1.) When they've seen it all before:

 

ALEX CAVANAUGH's CASSASTORM Book Tour is

 

"storming" all over cyberspace --

 

just like a SPACE EPIC should!

 

In fact, Alex will play at Meilori's tomorrow and will wow you with his guitar work as he plays guitar to accompany Elu, the greatest Apache shaman.

 

 

 

But that is for WEDNESDAY'S post.

 

 

 

2.) Today I am trying to help you help Alex ...

 

Have you noticed that book tours posts are beginning to look all the same?

 

Alex's tour posts will draw because ... well, he is Alex.

 

Having everyone post about one book or the author all at the same time gets old for readers fairly fast. 

 

UNLESS ...

 

3.) YOU GIVE THE READER SOMETHING NEW

 

 

Put a new angle on something the reader expects.

 

The repetitiveness of the run-of-the-mill blog tour posts often defeats the point,

 

since a reader is more likely to pass over blogs that are re-sharing the information or have the same theme as a million other blogs that week.

 

4.) ASK WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW AND FIND IT OUT AND SHARE.

 

Now, tune in WEDNESDAY for Alex's debut at Meilori's:

 

Death, Sex, and Violence ...

 

And those are just the lyrics!

 

 

 

 

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Athee glared at Byron. “It’s your fault that I’m in this ridiculous outfit, isn’t it?”

Byron whispered as he counted off his fingers. “One, I see too much of you aboard my ship as it is without seeing this much of you!”

Athee snorted, “Yeah, right. Like seeing me in this doesn’t ping your radar.”

Byron made a show of ignoring her, which given how little there was of her outfit was something. “Two, we are trying NOT to be noticed so as to rescue this Alex Cavanaugh from the grey aliens.”

Athee did some counting off of her own slender fingers.

"One, there are no such things as ‘grey aliens’ in the known universe.

Two, why should we care what happens to some primitive alien called an Alex Cavanaugh?”

“One,” Bryon started ….

Athee snickered, “I made you lose count.”

Byron’s lips twitched and dust motes swirled about him.

“One, under orders we used that alien artifact to transport us to this alternate universe. Two, this Alex Cavanaugh somehow viewed our universe, writing it down in some manuscript named CASSAFIRE.”



Athee frowned, “CATCH FIRE?”
“I wish you’d catch fire,” muttered Byron.



“I heard that,” snapped Althee.

“I would hope so since we are standing way too close!”

He jabbed a finger at me. “Three, this primitive’s unconscious affects these Shadowlands. So HE is to blame for that wretched outfit.”

Athee snorted, “Wretched? If your eyes stay any longer on my legs, I’ll charge them rent!”



Athee pointed her weapon at me. “So if I kill you, I’ll ….”

“Go up in the same puff of smoke as me,” I whispered.

She lowered her weapon. “Then again, I’ve always wanted to talk to a primitive alien.”

Byron smiled crooked, “I think you’re full of skit.”

She flicked ice eyes to me. “The only way I’ll ever warm up to Byron is if we’re cremated together. Speaking of which, we are at the cabin you said the greys dragged this Alex Cavanaugh.”

I pulled out my note pad and pen. “I’ll rescue Alex. You just cover my exit.”

Athee smirked, “Oh, is that what you humans call your butt?”

Byron frowned, “When they kill you, we’ll show your ghost how a rescue’s done.”

I knew he was only trying to keep me from what he saw as suicide and smiled, “A soldier’s comforting is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It’s not done well, but you’re surprised that it’s done at all.”

I walked into the operating room quickly, scribbling on my note pad, ‘Startled by the human’s entrance, the greys fell dead from shock.’

Such is my power in the Shadowlands, the greys did just that. A hurried undoing of Alex’s restraints and putting back on of his clothes, and we were out of there.

Alex, rubbing his backside, muttered, “This is the last time I let you sucker me into Meilori’s. Do you know where those aliens were trying to insert their probes?”

Athee’s eyes flicked to where Alex was rubbing and smiled drily, “Where?”

Alex turned to her and sputtered in surprise, “Athee?”

Her eyebrow arched. “You call your butt ‘Athee’? Now, I’m insulted.”

Byron smiled wide. “I think it appropriate myself.”

Alex kept staring at Athee. “You can’t be here! You’re just a figment of my imagination.”

She scowled, “I think I prefer being called a butt.”

Byron smiled crooked, “Fine. You’re a ….”

Seeing her fingers tighten on the grip of her gun, I interrupted, “We have to save the ghost of Mark Twain.”

“Why?,” the three of them said in unison.

“Alex, do you want those greys to do to him what they tried to do to you?”

“Yes!”

Byron nodded to the pad still in my hand. “Just use that again.”

I shook my head. “My power is tied to how words work in literature. And in good novels, you can’t use the same trick twice.”

Athee looked at Byron. “Can I shoot him?”

As Alex said ‘Yes’ Byron snapped, “No!” (But he sounded disappointed.)

Before Byron changed his mind, I hurried down the hallway of the greys’ space ship to the next operating bay door. I heard Mark Twain’s raspy Missouri accent.

“Ow! You boys’ fingers are colder than Hemingway’s prose. Lots of luck with inserting that thingy there! Why I have you know the term ‘tight ass’ was coined just for me.”

Mark Twain cackled, “Why the only tighter ass was Miss Ellie Jefferson, poor old filly. She was a good soul -- had a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss Wagner, that hadn't any, to receive company in.”

Mark laughed and went on, “It warn't big enough, and when Miss Wagner warn't noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, while t' other one was looking as straight ahead as a spy-glass.”

As the aliens buzzed in frustration, Mark kept talking, “Grown people didn't mind it, but it most always made the children cry. It was sort of scary.”

Alex began twitching as Mark Twain spun his tale, “She tried packing it in raw cotton, but it wouldn't work, no how -- the cotton would get loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children couldn't stand it no way.”

Athee started looking at her gun in a way that made me antsy, while Mark drawled on, “She was always dropping it out, and turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and making them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped out, being blind on that side, you see.”

Mark cackled, “Somebody would have to hunch her way and say, ‘Your game eye has fetched loose, Miss Wagner dear’ -- and then all of them would have to sit and wait till she jammed it in again – “

I heard the aliens buzz louder as Mark laughed, “Wrong side, as a general thing, and green as a bird's egg, being a bashful cretur and easy sot back before company.”

Byron’s face began to twitch as Mark continued, “But being wrong side before warn't much difference, anyway; becuz her own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was yaller on the front side, so whichever way she turned it, it didn't match no how.”

Alex cried, “I can’t take any more!”

He grabbed Athee’s gun, but before he could race in, the ghost of Mark Twain ambled out with a sly grin. “Would you believe it? Those grubs went and killed themselves!”

“Yes!,” we all said.

There was a patter of bare furry feet behind us, and we turned. It was the Hoka now dressed as Indiana Jones.

"Did I miss all the fun?"
***
The portraits of Athee done by the incomparable Leonora Roy.
***