Charlie's Books

Charlie's Books
Buon Giorno, Amici!

Our motto ...

Leave the (political) party. Take the cannoli.

"It always seems impossible until it's done." Nelson Mandela

Right now 6 Stella crime novels are available on Kindle for just $.99 ... Eddie's World has been reprinted and is also available from Stark House Press (Gat Books).

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Last Good Kiss ... More Joe Morello ... HBO’s Lombardi ... Just say NO MORE!

Amici:

The Last Good Kiss happens to be my first James Crumley novel ... most of yous know how behind I am in most things, but this one was a crime. I was asked to read and review a Crumley short story not long ago and had been warned by several people I implicitly trust that Crumley was good for two books (at best) and some say one. Dancing Bear seems to be the other favorite (alongside Last Good Kiss), but I’m going to have to read one or two others to be convinced this guy didn’t maintain what he’d started. I’m not a big PI reader and often place huge reality based hurtles in front of such stories, but Last Good Kiss was so well written it was easy to ignore everything else. Then again, Last Good Kiss is probably a lot more true to the test than most PI novels. I know DOC will love Crumley (for breaking on Volvo owners if nothing else) but it was a genuine pleasure for me to see his reference to Deep Throat early on in the book. A great hardboiled read that makes it pretty easy to see why it’s a classic. His opening line to the novel is considered THE opening line every crime novel aspires to:

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”

The fact Crumley didn’t do as well here in the states as he did in Europe is a crime in itself, but there’s no denying the overwhelming talent in this man’s writing. It’s a shame he’s gone.

Joe Morella getting even fancier with Take Five ... these guys must’ve played this tune 100,000 x’s and that’s the beauty of jazz ... each time it was different. That’s Joe on DW’s above ... and Joe showing his speed below ...



Joe giving lessons ...



Okay, by now Doc’s drinking double handed from the drumming videos, so it’s time to move on to his favorite topic ... Lombardi?

Casa Stella was silent last night at 8:00 p.m. when HBO aired its special on the Italian fella from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn for whom the NFL’s World Championship trophy is named. I suspect I’ll be re-watching that one ON DEMAND as often as I re-watch anything about The Fight I or The Thriller in Manilla (I re-watched Thrilla yesterday afternoon when taking a break from playwriting). I’m a huge Joe Frazier fan and believe Muhammed Ali isn’t one billionth the radical saint he’s been made out to be.

A Times article on the piece, how it came about , etc., right here.

Lombardi experienced some anti-Italian prejudice on his road to being a head football coach post-high school sports. Think he made them pay for it? The world championship now ends in a vowel ...


Just say NO MORE ... One more for Doc ... but no, it’s not opera ... it’s time to pick on his party of no again. They’re threatening to suspend unemployment benefits unless they’re rich friends (including corporations) get yet another “tax break”?

President Obama can make believe he’s Harry Truman (and grow a pair) and then run a patriotic American flag up the poles in front of every corporation in the country and seize their assets. Next he can have the CEO’s and Board of Directors of the same corporations and all Republican Party representatives in the House and Senate marched up to the roofs of their buildings (or borrow one if the building is less than 20 stories tall) and one by one ask them the following: “You’re either with me ... or off the motherfucking roof. You have ten seconds to answer. What’ll it be, Hojo?”

Unemployment gets suspended so these jerkoffs can get an even bigger slice of the pie?

The sad reality is that’s what’ll happen (they'll get their "tax break") and the suddenly quiet liberal wing of the democratic party (too embarrassed at the Republican Party’s now more than obvious victories in 2008) will get back in line and follow their feckless leaders until the other Republican Party wins in 2012 (at which point they’ll grow their mostly "for show" balls back and start rifling off one one-liner after another about how the neo-fascists, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, are ruining their country, etc., etc., etc. ...

And they claimed I’m a broken record?

Someone say lemmings?

They were right.

And ... finally ... how could I not?



—Knucks