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Wednesday, May 16, 2018

The Writer's Life 5/16 - Keeps on Trucking

Born in 1939, Fred Willard has had a long career in Hollywood. There are 305 titles listed under his name at IMDb, an astonishing number in any age, especially this one. And that total doesn't tell the whole story, as he has made multiple appearances on TV series, which, if added to the number, would boost it to the neighborhood of 500. He made 65 appearances on Fernwood Tonight alone, another 37 on America 2-night. He was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno 80 times. As a young man, he worked one year with Chicago's famed 2nd City comedy troupe and was a founding member of another, the Ace Trucking Company. He has worked steadily since 1966, acting on the big and small screen or doing voice-overs for animated series. Along the way he wrote scripts for two TV movies and also had two crime novels published. His first, Down on Ponce, issued in 1997, has gone through at least five printings. A copy came my way via a donation to the floating book shop. It has a terrific beginning: a career criminal is paid $30,000 to kill a man's wife. Instead of carrying out the hit, he tells the woman to vamoose and runs off with the money. This sets off a series of deadly events. He falls in with a group of three thieves and hatches a plan to rip off drug money launderers. First the protagonist must bust a friend out of the loony bin. The characterizations are colorful. Each member of the crew had a horrific childhood, which explains the extreme cynicism. While none of the novel's complete cast of characters is portrayed in a good light, Republicans are especially drawn as hypocritical and evil. I became less and less engrossed throughout the narrative. Fortunately, it is only 279 pages and reads like considerably less. Set in Atlanta, the title refers to a street in a seedy section. Although not averse to killing, the protagonist is not completely devoid of conscience. At one point he muses: "... small payment on my karmic debt. I don't know if I will ever get off the hook." Later, he considers writing a self-help book and comes up with four rules. Here are parts of three: "1. ... by choosing the profession of Criminal, you are following in the proud tradition of the buccaneers, highwaymen, gunslingers, and robber barons who have made our country the interesting place it is... 2. If you find yourself the object of frequent probes, investigations or arrests, perhaps your crimes aren't big enough or your friends aren't important enough... 4. If they want you to talk, they don't have a case." I wish there'd been more stuff like that. Fans of action and high body counts would likely be pleased. Those, such as me, who only occasionally dabble in such fare will realize why they don't do so more often. Surprisingly, only 15 readers have rated the book at Amazon, forging to a consensus of 3.6 on a scale of five. I rate it 2.75. It is still selling modestly. Anyone squeamish about bloodletting should pass. Down on Ponce seems like a perfect vehicle for Quentin Tarantino to adapt to the screen. Here's a pic of the author back in the day:


So Dear Leader is threatening to pull out of the summit with the President. Is this an attempt at leverage? Maybe he's been studying Trump's The Art of the Deal.

The scaffold again enabled the floating book shop to open for business, keeping out the light rain. And once again the fact that the weather has nothing to do with sales was corroborated. The crates were on a lot lighter when I lugged them back to the car. My thanks to professor/author Barry Spunt, who bought They Thought for Themselves: Ten Amazing Jews by Sid Roth and Miss America by Howard Stern, and to Ira, who bought a hardcover on true ghost stories; and to the gentleman who selected a handsome art pictorial in Russian; to Michael, who took home three paperback romances; to the gentleman who bought Stephen King's The Shining; and to the young man who purchased the huge Nat-Geo pictorial.

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