CALL ME TOMBS

100% of this book's profits go to the Salvation Army.

Voodoo in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania?

A mystic travel trailer that has a life of its own and takes its name too seriously?

A deadly, unbeatable worker of dark magic out to unravel the fabric of reality?

A Hellhound named Puppy?

All in a normal day for the last Lakota Heyoka, Toomey Starks.

Accompanied by Puppy and a fiery, homicidal gypsy,

the Lakota Trickster snatches magic from the air and love from the shadows to

discover his destiny,

save the world,

and survive the "help" of the Spirit of the Earth --

Like I said : just a normal day for the last Heyoka.

It's only 99 cents and the profits go to The Salvation Army. Give it a try why don't you?
***

A GHOST ADRIFT

Come. Sit with me at McCord's table. He will arrive eventually.

Who am I? Once that question would have disturbed me.

But since my friendship with McCord, I understand that the artist should have a different ambition than to be remembered.

It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history,

leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books.

I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago,

and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them.

It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too,

shall be them both: He made the books and he died.

Who am I?

I am William Faulkner,

and much of my perceptions were shaped here in McCord's legendary jazz club, Meilori's.

Meilori’s :

the center, the focus, the hub; sitting looming in the center of the French Quarter’s circumference

like a single cloud in its ring of horizon,

laying its vast shadow to the uttermost rim of horizon; musing, brooding, symbolic and imponderable,

tall as clouds, solid as rock, dominating all: protector of the weak, judge and curb of the passions and lusts, repository and guardian of the aspirations and hopes of the helpless.

Here, McCord and I would talk about everything :

How words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless,

and how terribly living goes along the earth, clinging to it,

so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other.

That sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they have forgotten the words.

The world in minuscule would be scoured by our words. The shadows themselves seemed to gather around our table to listen to us where glass and bottle clinked.

The three potted palms around us hissed like dry sand in the dark moving air.

I can hear him still :

“All life asks is to look at it and listen to it and understand it if you can. Only the understanding it isn’t really important.

The important thing is to believe in life even if you don’t understand it.”

I can hear him laugh.

“Not that you’ll ever get it quite right. But that’s all right. Because tomorrow

Life is going to be something different, something more and new to watch and listen to and try to understand …

and even if you can’t understand, believe.”

Believe.

Know.

I thought I knew what I believed in about life. Until that night when McCord asked me to his table to talk of a mysterious 75th year anniversary.

He talked of impossible things in such a way that I believed. He held his tale fixed yet vibrant so that seventy-five years later, when I, a stranger looked at it, it moved again since truth is living.

If you would be caught up in his narrative as I was caught up, read ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

If you would gaze upon the timeless beauty of Meilori, alas, you cannot. But one mortal woman comes close ...

HOW TO ENTER VICTOR'S CONTEST - HOW TO HELP VICTOR REACH HIS GOALS

FIRST MANDATORY STEP :

POST A REVIEW OF THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH or UNDER A VOODOO MOON on Amazon.

This gets you 5 entries.

MORE WAYS :
WRITE A POST ON YOUR BLOG ABOUT VICTOR OR HIS CONTEST (5 MORE ENTRIES)

GIVE LEGEND or UNDER A VOODOO MOON to a friend, sending me an email of a copy of the receipt.

(This gets you another entry and helps Victor's sales ranking on Amazon. The closer to #100 he gets, the more prizes I give away.)

Right now, there are only 7 reviews on LEGEND, hence only 7 people are entered.

WHEN I REACH 16 REVIEWS ...

I DRAW FOR A CLINT EASTWOOD OR CHARLES SCHULTZ AUTOGRAPH. THE WINNER CHOOSES WHICH ONE SHE WANTS. 1 IN 16 ODDS. HOW GREAT IS THAT?

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Post a review now to get a chance to win it!

***

KINDLE FIRE - VICTIM OF SMEAR JOB!

Remember the first two DIE HARD's?

The red-headed reporter who couldn't be bothered with silly things like facts?

Apparently the KINDLE FIRE has taken the place of Bruce Willis :

A widely circulated story in Sunday's New York Times questioned

whether or not Amazon's Kindle Fire would become, as the article's URL had it, "the Edsel of tablets."

Well, NEW YORK TIMES ... Yippie Ki Yay, Mo ... Ouch! Alice just kicked me.

Sorry. I get carried away when newspapers get carried away FROM THE FACTS.

The Kindle Fire is neither a bomb nor a failure precisely because there is no data -- as the article painfully demonstrates --

to suggest that either sales of the Kindle Fire have been disappointing or that Americans who have so far bought a Kindle Fire have, in fact,

regretted or been meaningfully frustrated with their purchase in significant or aberrational numbers.

From the Times:

A few of [users'] many complaints:
there is no external volume control.
The off switch is easy to hit by accident.
Web pages take a long time to load.
There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing.
The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky.

Oh, you want to nit-pick TIMES?

Here are some complaints for the iPad 2, which almost everyone agrees is the best tablet on the market:

There are no HDMI, USB or SD Card slots.
It is impossible to view your content on a television screen unless you also buy an Apple TV or special cord.
The cameras are mediocre, as is battery life with iOS 5
(which is also plagued by an unimpressive Notifications Center).
Many users have complained about patchy Wi-Fi connectivity.
Also, the most disgruntled users are packing the device up
and firing it back to the retailer.

This from THE TIMES :
All this would be enough to send some products directly to the graveyard where the Apple Newton, the Edsel, New Coke and McDonald's Arch Deluxe languish.

Really?
The Edsel sold a dismally low 84,000 models in its THREE YEARS on car lots in the late 1950s;

one estimate has Apple investing $1 billion in the Newton and recouping about $250 million in sales.

Meanwhile, the Kindle Fire is on track to sell between three and FIVE MILLION units in its first THREE MONTHS (per the Times, which would easily make it the second best-selling tablet of all time!!

Given that non-iPad tablet sales combined in the U.S. from January to October were 1.2 million).

So YIPPIE KI YAY that, Times!

One analyst even has projected that Amazon will sell six million Fires, which, as John Paczkowski of All Things Digital notes, would "surpass the iPad's domestic sales in its first December quarter in 2010!"


So why bring up the Arch Deluxe or the Apple Newton or the Edsel --

since none are apt comparisons -- if not just to smear the Kindle Fire by associating it with notable failures?

The modern Press saddens me. How about you?

{Many thanks to Jason Gilbert for the facts :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-gilbert/kindle-fire-not-a-bust_b_1147438.html
***

LOVE'S LIGHT IS A PYRE_Sparkles Friday Romantic Post

CONTEST UPDATE :

DINA HOWELL just won ALEXANDER SKARSGARD (ERIC NORTHMAN)'S AUTOGRAPH!

DONNA HOLE just won a photograph AUTOGRAPHED by ANGELINA JOLIE!

REVIEW THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH and enter now to get in on all the other prizes yet to be given!

The icy mists flow like lost love's seeking echoes across the bayou bordering my apartment.

SPARKLES is the prompt for this Friday Romantic Challenge.

Sometimes the magic seems to slip away in the rush of plucking fingers of Christmas obligations and demands.

Fallen, the last fae,

she of the woodfire heart and storm lightning thoughts,

whispers,

"Souls move slowly to their journey's end;

destinations are where we begin again.

Like ships sailing far across endless seas,

trust in starlight to lead the way."

So here is my SPARKLES post from BLACK ROSES IN AVALON

http://www.amazon.com/BLACK-ROSES-IN-AVALON-ebook/dp/B005GQN03C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323803244&sr=1-1

where Blake Adamson and Fallen, the last fae, find themselves deep in a dangerous, mystic forest deep within fabled Avalon :

Fallen reached out and grabbed my hand. "Somehow, I feel as if not all the powers of Darkness can separate us now."

I caught Epona, Queen of Unicorns, sharing a haunted look with her mate. Fallen hadn't noticed. And I was glad. She looked so happy that I wanted it to last as long for her as possible.

Something like a premonition, but more certain, swept over me.

And deep down, I knew that this was our first, our last, night. Something terrible was about to happen. So terrible that it would shake the Sidhe nation to its core.

So terrible that it would permanently scar Fallen ... and be the end of me. The Darkness was falling, and I would never see the light again.

I looked up into the twinkling stars peering down on us from between the branches of the ancient oaks above us. 'Oh, Father, may you light the way for Fallen when I can't be there for her, please.'

I waited for an answer of some kind but only got aching silence. I sighed. Maybe that was a kind of answer in itself.

I jerked as Fallen, caught up in her happiness, started to sing. It was ethereal, haunting, yet filled with love and passion and hope. I looked back up into the endless depths of the stars.

Maybe this was the only real answer, to cling to love while it was ours and let the future stay in the wings until it came shambling out onto the stage to reach out for us.

"All time and space are one to hearts in love," sang Fallen, her eyes locked on me.

"Death, pain, darkness but phantoms to be overcome," she trilled, reaching out and squeezing my hand gently as if reading my mind.

Her voice rose, twirled, and caressed me. As her words went from Sidhe to Angelus to some tongue so old that even Solomon's gift didn't translate it.

Then, I realized the tune had changed to the melody Fallen had identified as the lullaby sung to her by her unknown mother.

And the breath caught in my throat as I saw long, delicate wings of ethereal energy fluttering from between her shoulder blades.

Epona's eyes widened as she spotted them at the same time that I did. Azure shivered between my legs as he, too, saw Fallen's sparkling wings of fae magic tremble and beat to the rhythm of her song.

And for a moment, the unicorns slowed their movement to stare at my love just as bewitched as I was by the haunting beauty of her singing. It seemed that the four of us had walked into a medieval tapestry or painting :

A faerie princess, her mortal lover, riding the King and Queen of all unicorns ensnared by the cascading notes sung by Love which cannot truly die.
***

ATTACK OF THE PROLOGUE

So there I was, long ago, minding my own business.

Ah, all right, I was dozing in my chair before my laptop. There. Happy? Hey, I'm a weary blood courier.

And I dreamed. Of William Faulkner. I know. I wanted Megan Fox or Marlene Dietrich.

But I got a grizzled William Faulkner in search of the innocence of his lost youth in New Orleans.

New Orleans. Yes, you've already guessed it. In my dreams strolled that lean wolf of an undead Texas Ranger, Samuel McCord.

And there in misty scenes unfolded a prologue to my RITES OF PASSAGE set in 1853.

http://www.amazon.com/RITES-OF-PASSAGE-ebook/dp/B004XQVPYM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323818833&sr=1-1

It was eerie, haunting, and full of yearning regret. I awoke slowly, my mind reluctant to let those words and images go.

Marlene Dietrich then appeared in the ghost chair next to mine. "Use it, Liebling."

"What? Everybody skips prologues."

She tapped my nose with her empty cigarette holder. "And everybody is usually wrong, liebling, and you know that."

She gazed half-lidded at me. "You have a good mind, Schatzi . Use it and tell me why a prologue could be good."

"Well, I guess a prologue could spotlight a time not covered in the novel."

"As does yours. Think, silly. Your novel happens in the far past. Starting with a more modern scene would help slip your readers more easily into your story."

"You seem to have a pretty good grasp of story telling."

She smirked like an evil cat. "The best screen writers and directors of Hollywood often had a pretty good grasp of this ..."

She gestured to her body now leaning against mine. "I learned to tell a good script from a bad one. My career depended on it."

"I don't know. Bad prologues can kill a novel."

Her eyebrow arched. "I do not sit on the lap of bad writers."

"Well, now I have incentive."

She mussed my hair with ghost fingers, thumping on the top of my head as if it were a door. "You have more than that. You have a brain. And talent."

She whispered in my ear. "And in your prologue, you have your protagonist shown in the future, haunted and sad for his lost love. Everyone loves a sad love story."

She stretched in her chair like a lazy cat, letting the slit in her long gown show her long legs. "These legs are not so beautiful. I just know what to do with them. As you must know what to do with your words."

She stroked my cheek. "Without tenderness a man is uninteresting. Your prologue shows McCord's tender side. And it shows it from another's perspective. It adds a touch of the real to your undead Ranger."

She fluffed her long blonde hair. "I never dressed for myself, for fashion, for women. No, I dressed for the image. And you must write this prologue for the impression it will make on the reader."

"You might be right."

"Of course I am right. Glamour, allure, mystery, these are my stock in trade."

She tweaked my nose. "Think of me as your make-up artist. And the relationship between the make-up man and the performer is that of accomplices in crime."

Her lips curved in a way that would have made Mona Lisa jealous. "You make me feel dangerous again."

I figured having a ghost look at me like that could be dangerous in itself. "Ah, I guess I could make it a mini short story with a hook of its own to draw the reader in."

Her head cocked. "You remind me of Jimmy Stewart. You and he are the only ones who could blush without blushing."

She suddenly smiled wide. "Do you know how I know your prologue is right for your novel?"

"No. How?"

"It is not necessary for the main story. If it were, then you would need to re-write the first chapter. Your prologue lends perspective and depth, like the beginning of DUEL IN THE SUN."

She looked past me into the shadows. "Affection, companionship are the most necessary food for the soul. More important than the living realize or want to realize."

She gazed deep into my eyes. "Your McCord makes his family with the hurting, the lost, and the defenseless. Your prologue shows this."

She sighed, and it was more open wound than sound. "Write your prologue. I will be watching from the shadows."

And with that she was gone. Her perfume lingered ... as did her haunting eyes. I straightened with a jerk. I had a ghost to make smile again. I set to typing.

Above me I heard her murmur, "Ah, a knight errant. A species that sadly is all but extinct. And remember when you write your prologue : the best measure of your love is sacrifice."

And here is what I typed :

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
- William Faulkner

One day during the time while McCord and I walked and talked in New Orleans – or I talked and he listened - I found him sitting on a bench in Jackson Square, laughing to himself. I got the impression that he had been there like that for some time, just sitting alone on the bench laughing to himself.

This was not our usual meeting place. We had none. He lived in his French Quarter night club, Meilori's. And without any special prearrangement, we would meet somewhere between his club and the Square after I had something to eat at noon.

I would walk in the direction of his club. And if I did not meet him already strolling or sitting in the Square, I would simply sit down on a bench where I could see his doorway and wait until he came out. I can see him still –

A ramrod straight man in his late forties, clad entirely in black : black broadcloth jacket, shirt, tie, and slacks. His boots were black, as well, and polished so that the sun struck fire from them. Even his Stetson was black.

All of which made the silver star on his jacket stand out like a campfire in the night. It was said he had once been a Texas Ranger. He never talked to me of those days - at least not before that afternoon.

This time he was already sitting on the bench, laughing. I sat down beside him and asked what was so funny. He looked at me for a long moment.

"I am," he said.

And that was the great tragedy of his character, for he meant it. He expected people to mock and ridicule him. He expected people nowhere near his equal in stature or accomplishment or wit or anything else, to hold him in scorn and derision.

Until the Darkness came for them. Then, they scurried to his club, praying that the rumors were true : that he, indeed, was an undead champion for those who could not fight for themselves.

Perhaps that was why he worked so earnestly and hard at helping each wounded soul he met. It was as if he said to himself : 'They will not hurt as I have hurt. I will show them that they matter because their pain matters to me.'

"Why do you speak of yourself like that?," I asked.

"Today marks the seventy-five year anniversary," he said.

"Of what?"

"Drop by my table at the club this evening, and I will tell you."

And that evening I did just that. We sat, with a bottle now, and we talked. At first he did not mention the anniversary. It was as if he was slowly working himself up to something long avoided.

We talked of everything it seemed. How a mule would work ten years for you willingly and patiently just for the privilege of kicking you once. How clocks kill time, that only when the clocks stop does time come to life. And how given a choice between grief and nothing, he would choose grief.

When he had said those last words, McCord met my eyes with his own deep ones and said, "Let me tell you a story."

And I listened.

It hit me as McCord talked that Man would not merely endure as he had not merely endured. No, like McCord, Man would prevail. Man is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice. But because he has a soul, a spirit capable of endurance, love, and sacrifice.

And so now I give you McCord's words as he gave them to me. Make of them what you will. For myself, I never know what I think about something until after I've read what I've written on it. So read along with me, and we both will come to our own conclusions.
- William Faulkner, August 1923.
*************************************
And so that is my prologue. It follows my three personal rules for prologues. 1) It should be compelling. 2) It should be short. 3) And it should be removed from the body of the novel by time or space.
******************************************
Next is another music video by Thea Gilmore. Whenever I've heard this song, I've seen the image of Sam McCord on the decks of the Demeter, a Colt in each hand, facing overwhelming odds in his last great battle.

WHAT DO OUR EYES TEACH US?

Autonomy.

A "headache word" I used to call it whenever my mother used it as she took me out on our walks through the park near our basement apartment.

In the same manner her Lakota grandmother taught her, she taught me -- with common sights.

The lesson of the rooster weathervane. "Poor Mr. Rooster," she would cluck her tongue, "slave to whatever winds blow, never able to stand his ground.

"Wise Mrs. Willow Tree who sinks her roots deep in good soil, standing her ground, yet bending with the wind and not snapping in two like proud and foolish Mr. Pine."


She would ruffle my hair and say, "From the willow tree you must learn autonomy." I pressed my lips together hard.

I couldn't even say that "headache word," much less know what it meant. But if you wanted an untweaked nose, there were just some things better left unsaid.

We writers many times are like mimes playing to a world of the blind. Not that we are in any way better because we see beneath the surface and many others do not.

We were taught to do so, by mentors or by example. But the fate of the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind is usually not a happy one.

The wiser of us know that going in. The more foolish of us learn it eventually. The fate is the same.

Yet, it is the journey we must savor as artists.

Enjoy telling the tale for the thrill of reaching even one soul with our efforts. Push back the darkness, if only for the moment. Touch that one hurting heart.

As in that Zen teaching tale :

should we find ourselves clinging to a cliff face, bandits above shooting arrows at us, a hungry tiger waiting to feast on us should we fall,

take in the crisp Spring breeze. Watch the grace of a swooping eagle in the bright blue sky.

And should there be a strawberry bush growing on that cliff face, reach out and taste a strawberry, savoring its flavor with our last breaths.

I wrote THE BEAR WITH 2 SHADOWS in tribute to my mother's stories.

http://www.amazon.com/BEAR-TWO-SHADOWS-ebook/dp/B004MDLWD0/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1

Tales told me as I lay coughing in our basement apartment without power during that terrible winter blackout that lasted for days.

In it is a story of Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, when he was but a cub. And it relates to what I've been saying :


It was the "Warming Season When The Geese Returns" in the Valley of the Shadow. Sometimes Estanatlehi would walk beside him, sometimes not.

Even as a young bear, Hibbs had known that The Turquoise Woman ranged the whole wide world. But in this season of her second coming, she always returned in the flesh.

It was something that Hibbs had thought would last forever. Such was the foolishness of young bears.

One morning, he had emerged from his comfortable den and wandered to the edge of the Snaking River. Sitting by its edge, he had looked down into its sparkling blue surface. He hushed in a breath.

A face appeared below him. A look of shock was on its furry face. He frowned. It frowned back.

He snarled at being mocked. It snarled back.

He sat back on his haunches and laughed.

The face was but a reflection of his own. He laughed again and looked down. His river-face laughed back. He stuck out a tongue. And a tongue snaked out from his reflected face. Hibbs amused himself with this game all morning.

Hibbs had finally wandered off for more exploring. But the next morning found him at the river's edge again.

The wind of an approaching storm ruffled the image of himself so that he could not see it clear. His mood darkened along with the skies, and Hibbs had been in a foul mood the rest of the day.

The weather of the third morning was still bruised and dark from the storm of the day before. Hibbs' mood was equally sour. It worsened when he found his reflection was merely a shadow.

The day had been ruined, along with the young cub's spirits.

The fourth day found dark clouds over Hibbs' head, but they were no darker than the cub's mood. The river-face below him was dim and angry. In a fit of temper, Hibbs hit the offending reflection with his open paw. Cold water splashed him back in the face. It was the last straw.

"Oooh, River-Face," he growled. "You're going to get yours!"

Like a rippling brook given life, icy laughter sounded behind the young cub, "Oh, Little One, you are a walking parable."

Hibbs turned around so swiftly, the water was slung from the fur of his face in a tiny rain. "GrandMother!"

The happy discovery of Estanatlehi's return masked her words from his understanding. The meaning of her words arrived a moment later, like thunder rolling after the flash of lightning.

Or rather their almost-meaning. Hibbs frowned. He scratched his head.


"A walking what?"

Estanatlehi's face suddenly saddened. "A way of teaching, Hibbs."

"D-Did I just make you sad?"

Hair of living lightning became a shaking display of Northern Lights. "No, Little One. The race called Whyte did that long, long ago when they killed one who meant much to me. He loved to use parables."

"GrandMother, I - I don't understand."

Estanatlehi ruffled the soft hair atop his head gently. "You will. All too soon, you will."

She forced a smile. "But for now ... these different reflections of you that are such a torment ...."

She hesitated, and Hibbs whispered, "Yes?"

Turquoise eyes peered into his questioning brown ones, and a ripple of true happiness swam beneath the pain.

"They are only different because of the wind, the rain, and the storm clouds. They are only fluff, mere changes in the external. The internal is eternal."

"I - I do not understand."

She tweaked his wrinkling nose. "You must try very, very hard to do so."

Hibbs earnestly nodded his head like a bobbing apple. "I will try. I promise."

At the sight, Estanatlehi sniffed back her tears and hugged him. "I know you will. I will help."

She stepped back, caressing his left cheek. "Reflections are but that. Reflections."

Hibbs had nodded as if he understood, which, of course, he did not. "Reflections. Yes."

Estanatlehi looked as if her heart were breaking. "Little One, did you feel pain when you slapped your river-face?"

"N-No."

"That is because it was not you, merely a reflection. And reflections of you will change as you meet one being after another. Reflections that change because of their surface, not your core self."

"Core?"

A smile born of pain and love murmured the words, "As apples have cores, so do Two-Leggeds, the seeds of who they truly are."

"S-So I have a core?"

His wrinkling nose was tweaked again.

"Yes, Little One. You have a core. And if you know who you are, you will know your core. But if you do not, you will know only the reflection of yourself that others will give you. And as they change swiftly from one to the other, you will feel all the frustration and anger you just felt at your river-faces."

"So if I know who I am, I can laugh at all the not-core reflections others reflect to me, right?"

Estanatlehi's face looked near to tears as she hugged Hibbs' tiny head. "It always comes back to laughter with you, doesn't it, Little One?"

"It has to come back to something, doesn't it, GrandMother? Why not laughter?"

Estanatlehi wet eyes squinted as if she were looking far into the distance as she murmured, "I do not have the heart to answer, Little One."
**********************
I am giving 100% of the profits for ALL MY BOOKS to the SALVATION ARMY :