Dispatches from the Flying M

Wilderness Golf

Yesterday I saw the seasons in southeastern Arizona described as Summer, Fall, Winter, Company, and Too Damn Hot for Company.  Summer means the monsoon season, from July through September.  Fall and Winter are self-explanatory.  Company is this time of year, when the daytimes are sunny and pleasant, with temperatures in the mid-70s. Perfect outdoor weather.  Too Damn Hot will probably show up in May, when the day's heat gets oppressive and we start longing for the monsoons to cool things off.

Company is also the perfect season for wilderness golf, at least as long as the wind's not blowing.

What is wilderness golf, you may ask?  And well you might, because until I invented it, it didn't exist--at least, so far as I know.

Wilderness golf is a game one can play if one has a bunch of acres of available land with nothing on it.  The equipment used is old beat-up golf clubs (like mine) and second or third-hand balls you don't mind losing.  The idea is to pick a target--that big mesquite over there, the ring of creosote bushes, that tall yucca--and hit a gold ball toward it.  Wherever the ball ends up is where you play your next shot from.  When you reach the target, then you select another one.  The targets shouldn't be the same every time, because that interferes with the random nature of the game.  As opposed to regular golf, your lies might be in the midst of a mesquite thicket, on top of a prickly pear cactus, half-buried in a pocket gopher hole...but you can drop onto the nearest open dirt or grass, because wilderness golf isn't really about rules or keeping score.  It's about accuracy and sometimes distance--hitting a long ball and watching it soar through the air toward whatever it is you're aiming at.  Ideally not the house, because, y'know, windows.

I usually use a 4 or 7 iron (no need for putters in wilderness golf) and just play a few "holes" at a time.  Anyone in the neighborhood who'd like to give it a try is free to join me anytime.  Come on over and let's hit some golf balls!

Elevating Graveslinger

There's something in the movie biz called the "elevator pitch."  The basic idea is that you're in an elevator with a film exec, and you have until he or she gets off to pitch your project, so you have to reduce it to its barest minimum but still make it sound entertaining and worthwhile.

I just took as long to describe an elevator pitch as you get to give one.

Rob Worley has a website called Comics2Film.com that keeps track of the intersection of comics and movies better than anyone else in the business.  He's recently inaugurated a new feature called The Elevator, in which creators get to put their elevator pitches online.  Today's Elevator is about Graveslinger, and although it's written up as a Shannon Eric Denton pitch, Shannon and I collaborated on it as we do on everything Graveslinger-related.  You can see what we came up with here.

Signed books

While I usually encourage people who want signed copies of my books to visit Mysterious Galaxy, I'm also always happy to sign for other bookstores--especially independents--around the country.  It encourages them to promote and display my books, and gives readers the chance to get something they won't find at the chain stores (with few exceptions).

Recently I signed a bunch of books for Kayleighbug Books in Morristown, NY.  They're in stock now, so if you're at the store, or want to shop online, check them out.  They have copies of: Missing White Girl, The Slab, Witch Season: Spring, Witch Season: Summer, Supernatural: Witch's Canyon, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead, 30 Days of Night: Immortal Remains (and as an aside, the DVD of the 30 days of Night movie is on sale today wherever DVDs are sold!), all three Age of Conan: Marauders novels, and Angel: Close to the Ground and Angel: Endangered Species (in hardcover).

Click the link up there to go visit and fill in any holes in your collection!  And thanks, Kayleighbug!

Sayonara, Las Vegas?

For anyone who's been watching NBC's Las Vegas for the past five years, the news that the network has decided not to pick up the sixth season is very disappointing.  It means that last Friday's cliffhanger becomes the series finale, and it was by no means an ending to anything.  It leaves nothing but loose ends and one character in a terribly precarious situation.

I don't know if there's any hope, but an online Save Las Vegas campaign has launched, trying to get people to send baby booties and socks to NBC brass to let them know that we want to find out what happens to Delinda and her baby.  If you're interested in taking part, check the details here.

Last night's primary results

Another sweep for Barack Obama, who is looking more and more like the Democratic nominee--and more and more like President Obama.

Last night McCain gave one of his lackluster speeches to a crowd that looked like another 200 or so people.  Can he not fill a bigger space, or does his campaign fear that a bigger crowd will make his voice and manner seem even weaker than they do before a small group?

Meanwhile, Hillary spoke before thousands in Ohio, and Barack took the stage in a crowd of 20,000 in Texas and rocked the joint.

The combined vote for Clinton and Obama was 1,098,661.  The combined vote for McCain, Huckabee, Paul and Romney was 266,572.  Wisconsin is a state that went for Kerry and Gore by the narrowest of margins, hardly a Democratic stronghold, but more than four times as many people voted in the Democratic race.  Hillary lost with almost twice as many votes as all the Republicans combined.

You just know the Republicans will launch a vicious, vile race against whichever Democrat wins.  But the lack of enthusiasm on their side is palpable, and should be alarming to Republicans up and down the ticket.

Two-record sets

This probably isn't a big deal in the digital era of MP3s, etc., but I still listen to records on vinyl from time to time (currently playing, "Nighthawks at the Diner," a live album by Tom Waits), and am occasionally inconvenienced by one of the strange holdovers from the old days.  Two-record sets were frequently pressed with sides one and four on one disc, two and three on the other, so when you stacked them on your record changer, you could have one and two lined up, then flip them and listen to three and four.

I've always had a turntable, but I haven't had a record changer since...well, I don't know.  The early 70s, I guess.  So for the sake of convenience, I usually listen to sides one and four, then two and three.  Which bugs me, because I generally figure any artist worth listening to arranged the songs in a particular order for a reason, and I like to listen to them in that order, just like I prefer to read the pages of a book in their suggested order instead of skipping around randomly.

There you have it--one of the weird tiny frustrations that make up a life.

Tonight's moon

Tonight is the Full Snow Moon (not so much snow here, though).  Depending on where you live, you might be able to see a total lunar eclipse.  Here in the west we're only supposed to be able to see the penumbral phase, which is not so dramatic, but in the eastern and central parts of the U.S. you should be able to see the whole thing--total at 10:51 EST.

Other notable facts about today--we can celebrate the births of two very different but brilliantly talented individuals, Ansel Adams (1902--I attended his 80th birthday celebration in Carmel and found him to be a charming, engaging gnome of a man) and Richard Matheson (1926).

Article

This morning, when I should have been crunching away on Spider-Man: Requiem, I instead wrote a quick little masterpiece about writing cross-genre works.  It's probably nothing new to regular readers of this blog, who've been exposed to my thoughts on process and genre more than once or twice, but you might find it of interest, and it doesn't take much longer to read than it did to write...

Find it on Authors Den (I don't know if you have to register to read it--if so, and you don't want to, let me know.  They don't hold any rights to it and I can reprint it here if necessary).

Now, back to my regularly scheduled Spidey pages...

McCain't's Veep

I watched Meet the Press this morning, on which Tim Russert hosted a reunion of CNN's old Capital Gang.  And when I say "old," I mean it.  My math might be a little off, but I calculated the average age in that room at 124, not counting the camera operators, paramedics standing by in case someone keeled over, and the handlers who boosted Bob Novak up whenever the camera was off him, lest he slouch too deeply into the stew of his own bitterness and soggy Depends.

One of the questions they addressed was who presumptive Republican nominee John McCain't will choose as his running mate.  The most common suggestion made was that he would have to choose someone younger than himself--the name of Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty came up several times.

I think they're wrong.  McCain't is 71 and increasingly feeble.  He doesn't need someone standing beside him on the podium who's going to make it look like the president will be napping in a back room while the young and vital vice president runs things.  Anyway, while McCain't is running hard to the right for the nomination, in the general election he's going to have to win independents and moderates while not disappointing the conservatives so much that they just stay home. It's a delicate balancing act, and requires just the right choice.

While I would never claim that my powers of reasoning are better than those of the aged American punditocracy, I think I've got the best choices for McCain't, if he wants to win. These are both men who can help win the conservative Southern vote, crucial to any Republican victory, and who will make McCain't look positively youthful.

I'm referring, of course, to  the late Strom Thurmond, and the late Lester Maddox.  It doesn't really matter which he chooses, as the two are essentially interchangeable (Maddox might have a slight edge--as a governor, he has that outside-the-Beltway cachet that could help the long-time senator's ticket).   

McCain't is a snooze of a public speaker, but honestly--who could fall asleep when Thurmond or Maddox were on the dias--just in case one of them came to life and started hunting for human brains?  Personally, I think it's a dream ticket either way.

Winter Storm

I feel like I've been in my share of deep snow.  Growing up in Illinois, Europe, and Virginia, there were plenty of snowy days and I've shoveled plenty of it.  One year when I delivered the Washington Post, it snowed so much between the time the papers were dropped off and the time I got outside to deliver therm that they had vanished underneath it--the delivery truck couldn't make it all the way to the usual drop-off point--and I didn't find them for days, when it finally melted.

I've lived my entire adult life in California (the Bay Area and San Diego) and southeastern Arizona, neither place notable for heavy snowfalls.  That was my choice--places with snow have many other advantages, but they couldn't beat the beaches and deserts, as far as I was concerned.  So I've never been tempted to return to the snow.

Not that I object to it in small doses.  I wouldn't even mind if it stuck around a while, in limited amounts (the two-hour snow event of a week or two ago was a bit too short), as long as it's not overly inconvenient.

Yesterday we were under "winter storm warnings" all day, with snowfall predicted above 4,000 feet.  We're just barely over 4,000 feet, and all we got was rain, hail, and a few random flakes.  The hills around us were dusted with snow, but it didn't last long once it stopped falling.

This is looking north from our place, where the Swisshelm Mountains jut into the valley like the prow of a ship cutting water.  This was from Friday afternoon's powdering. Behind these mountains are the much higher Chiricahuas, which got a heavier covering. 

The other pictures here are from this morning.  If you're a regular reader you might recall the story of the very young calf who got separated from his mother in our back pasture, and who I had to herd to the gate, being kicked all the way.

Last night we heard cows in the pasture again, but far enough away that with a strong flashlight all I could see were their eyes reflecting back at me.  They spent the night there, as new snowfall (the snow level dropped to 3000 feet overnight) came down around them.  And one of them, I'm pretty sure, is "my" calf, a teenager now but still hanging with Mom.

"My" calf, with Mom behind him.

    Here's local landmark Castle Dome in the background, black cow in the foreground.   

Another random member of the visiting herd.

This snowfall is already melting too, and is unlikely to be replenished today.  By tomorrow it's supposed to start warming up, so another fleeting snow will come and go in almost no time at all.

But at least there's no shoveling required.