Deborah Grabien

Politics, politics

2008-06-26T09:25:00.001-07:00

Upfront warning: if you're reading this and are one of the legion who believe Barack Obama should not be questioned about anything, you might want to skip this one. It's likely to piss you off just about as much as everything he's touched in the past couple of weeks has pissed me off.

Starting with the FISA vote. And Oh, looky, the Democrat's Shiny New Feerliss Leedur couldn't be arsed to vote, AGAIN.

So, Obama announces that he'd support the FISA bill with the telcom immunity in place, Telcom gets immunity and a free ride, and they all fall down like little groupies.

What a shock, NOT.

Let's see what we've got here, shall we, in the way of "progressive" values on the part of Senator Jasmine (Buffy fans will know whereof I speak):

1. He thinks women should "get over it" to make his life easier, so that he can concentrate on important stuff. (memo to Barack: women think you should get a clue and figure out that we do not owe you anything, so just deal with it, already.)

2. He thinks women should have "some" autonomy over their own reproductive rights. (memo to Barack: aw, how sweet of you. Would you like me to fling thong panties at you as a gesture to express my gratitude for your magnanimity, or shall I just hold a placard and chant "chaaaaange"?)

3. He thinks that decision (reproductive rights) should be between "a woman and her pastor". (memo to Barack: sod off, you theocratic prick. I KNEW you were heading this way, all the way back in 2004. AWESOME god! BLUE states!)

4. He has no problem with the death penalty, under certain circs (memo to Barack: up until not too long ago, being black was enough of a circ in a scary number of American states. Please allow me to point you towards a book called "To Kill A Mockingbird".)

S. He couldn't be bothered - yes, AGAIN - to commit to an important piece of legislation, which is one reason Telcom gets a free pass for spying on us.

Ah, screw the parentheticals.

Memo to Barack: you are about as progressive as Ronald Reagan.

Do. Not. Want.

R&RNF stuff!

2008-06-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

First of all, here's the 3:30 minute actual video trailer for the first Kinkaid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoQtJojWTGc

Click on the "watch in high quality" icon, and, for a real WHOA moment, click the small envelope-looking icon, bottom right of the video screen. That'll give it to you full screen.

Is it not Of The Awesome?

There will be more tour dates added shortly; I'll be doing an event at Partners & Crime, with the splendid actor and writer Michael Boatman reading JP Kinkaid to my Bree, in NYC on 27 August. On 23 August, I'll be the guest on Jim Freund's splendid Hour of the Wolf radio show on WBAI.

And I am, at this moment, staring with deep love at my first actual hardback copy of Rock & Roll Never Forgets. And dear goddess, it's pretty!

STARRED review!

2008-06-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

Just discovered that the Library Journal review is starred! And with the cover nice and prominent!

Am seriously, seriously pleased with this.

Goodnight, Bo

2008-06-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Bo Diddley's gone.

He was in my head a lot while I was writing the fourth Kinkaid (Graceland); it deals with the emigration of blues, and the roots of certain musical styles. Farris "Bulldog" Moody, the octagenarian bluesman session player who is JP's idol and seminal influence, comes from a background of son and clavé, those odd rhythmic chucks from the bata drumming of Yoruban priests out of Africa, through Cuba and from there to the Delta.

Bo took that style mainstream, making that three-five chuck - BOMPdeBOMPdeBOMP beat BOMPBOM - as recognisable to listeners as any signature could ever hope to be. It's the base for "Not Fade Away", "Mona", "Who Do You Love"....

In memoriam, from Graceland, an excerpt: the scene is the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, the band is JP Kinkaid's pickup band, the Fog City Geezers, and Ches Kobel, the man talking, is a music historian:

* * *

A couple of minutes before we were ready to head back onstage, Ches leaned over toward Billy.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." Billy's fingers had been doing their thing, tapping away on the table. He's a drummer all through, Billy is; no matter what he's doing, there's always a rhythm going on in there, somewhere. "What's up?"

"That thing you're doing, with your fingers." He nodded his head at Billy's hands, which gradually stopped tapping and went quiet. "That particular beat. I'm curious - sorry, man, it's the nosy writer in me, tell me to back off if I'm getting on your nerves. But I really am curious - you must have listened to a lot of Cuban music, the old son stuff from Havana, a lot of clavé from the fifties. Right?"

"Huh?" Billy blinked; the houselights had flickered twice, which meant we were just about due back onstage for the second set. "I know what son is, vaguely, but I have no idea what that other one is. What did you call it? Klah-vay? Because whatever it is, well, no. That rhythm I was just doing? That's basic Bo Diddley."

He ran it again, his fingers tapping it out on the table: bomp ba bompa bomp, pause, babomp-BOMP. On Bree's other side, Patrick was watching Billy's fingers. He looked absolutely fascinated. So did Miranda. "You mean this, right?" Billy told Ches. "Basic Bo, dude."

"Nope. Basic clavé. Bo Diddley made it mainstream, but his stuff comes straight from the Havana beat, and that came straight from son. All from the original slave population in Cuba." Ches grinned at me. "Scary thought, isn't it, JP? The stuff all you rockers do, that three-beat thing? Sallie's great-grandfather was doing that back in Santiago de Cuba, a hundred years ago."

* * *

Damn. Good night, Bo. Go hang out with the other rockers, jamming in the ether.

Three for three for my darlin' JP, baybee!

2008-05-30T09:38:00.001-07:00

The Library Journal review, out 1 June:

When pseudobiographer Perry Dillon begins an unauthorized biography of the British rock group Blacklight, JP Kinkaid, who is the band's guitarist, fears that all of his and life partner Bree Godwin's secrets will be exposed. Then, during the opening of their American tour at Madison Square Garden, Dillon is murdered in Kinkaid's dressing room, and Bree becomes the first person of interest.

While illustrating the behind-the-scenes business of a rock band in this series opener, musician/writer/cook Grabien, who also pens the "Haunted Ballad" series (Cruel Sister ), offers a window into the life and health of a person with multiple sclerosis (read: Kinkaid). Even better, the author shows the humanity, team work, and loyalty that keep a supermusical phenomenon together. For all mystery readers who love rock'n'roll.

[election] Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

2008-05-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

So, Edwards and NARAL both threw in the towel and endorsed Obama. No surprise there; both candidates were pro-choice, so NARAL literally could have tossed a coin. I suspect they want this over.

I posted about it elsewhere. My hands hurt like whoa, and it was a very comprehensive post that perfectly summed up my stance, so what the hell, will just repost. Anyone wants to argue or debate or discuss, that's cool - but if you offer me a bright shiny glass of hope and tell me I'm all wrong, the discussion is at an end, period. I have a lot of unanswered questions. If this is your guy - and he is not and almost certainly never will be mine - you should have some actual answers ready, because I'm not the only one asking them; the press certainly will. I am supremely uninterested in anyone's definition of hope, not when it comes to someone asking me to make them the most powerful human being on earth.

So. Questions.

Obama voted for the Dodd amendment. I saw a lot of "WOW, guess who's getting MY vote because he did that!" posts, but there's a small problem, you see, and question number one: he didn't bother showing up to vote for the bill the amendment was attached to, thereby making it a "look see I did the Right Thing!" for-show-only vote. From where I'm sitting, that looks like a cold-blooded political move whose only driving ethic is the desire to look good and a desire for power, while avoiding changing anything or committing to anything. So. Why is that a point in his favour? Anyone? Clinton didn't vote for the bill or the amendment, a fact that a lot of undecideds held against her. Um - question? Why is voting to amend a bill you don't actually vote on preferable?

Obama didn't bother signing the bipartisan-coauthored Reading is Fundamental request to the funding committee (the request letter, from Elizabeth Dole and Debbie Stabenow, was to the committee chairpeople; it was a request that funds be kept in place for one of America's most valuable early education programs, gutted by our so-called president, known around here as El Commandante Fuckwit). He didn't do it when it first circulated through the Senate - ok, middle of an election campaign, maybe he missed it. I could totally see that happening.

Six weeks later, though? Not so much; the excuse wears pretty threadbare by then. The final letter - with the signatures of 48 senators - went to the committee chairs, without Obama's signature. I've yet to receive so much as the glimmer of an answer as to his motivations. I find it inexcusable. The nearest thing to a reply I've had from his supporters is that the Wright thing (which, as it happens, I don't give a damn about and don't hold against him at all) broke, and he had to deal with that. Excuse me?

He ran a thunderous, really excellent oratory on why NAFTA must! be! radically! altered! Which is fine, except for that whole "pssst, ignore that, we won't really, it's just campaign rhetoric" to the Canadian government who, not unnaturally, were a skosh concerned. When called on it in the media, the Obama campaign denied it. The Canadian PM held up the memo. Again, a cold-blooded political ploy whose only driving motivation was power lust.

He apparently has no compunction saying one thing out the side of his mouth to unemployed garment workers, and something else entirely to the government next door, not if it makes him look good. So, tell me: why should I believe him on choice? On healthcare? On the economy? On education? On anything at all?

Here's the thing. None of that would bother me half so much if he were running as what he is: a politician who wants my vote to make him the most powerful man in the world. But he isn't. He's running as Saint Barack, the Great Hope of the Future. And the problem is, he hasn't done anything to make me buy it, and not all the subtle Martin Luther King voice-cadencing tricks on earth change that. My ears have had forty years to train for that one; I was around for the original, you know? And MLK was not asking for me to mandate him as the most powerful man on earth. Him, I'd have voted for.

Those are a few of the reasons I can't give Barack Obama my support. But hell, holding my nose and voting against Someone Even Worse is nothing new. With the exception of Bill Clinton, it's pretty much busines as usual. I'll just be holding my nose a lot harder this time, and hoping it's obvious that he's won early enough so that California, all the way west, won't matter. That way, I can vote for my state and local issues, and not try to make my hand fill in the two ends of the arrow next to Senator Obama's name.

I really hoped I'd have a president who, you know, actually represented me this time around, especially since I doubt I'll get another shot in this lifetime. The Old Boy Network, whatever colour you like, will certainly not be willing to relinquish its hold on the party's short and curlies anytime soon.

If he beats McCain - and I'm not even close to thinking he can, or will - one of two things will happen. He'll do a great job, which would, of course, be nice in the short term but would have the longterm effect of the Boyz using that as an excuse to make sure another woman never comes near the job. Or he'll do a crap job, and we go down in complete flames.

Either way, I lose. But again, not being represented in US government is nothing new. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

And yeah, same testosterone count. I could care less about his skin colour.

Whoohoo! Rock & Roll Never Forgets reviews!

2008-05-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

From Publishers Weekly (they spelled Kinkaid wrong, and have been contacted about fixing that):

Grabien (New-Slain Knight) builds the rocking first of a new series around guitarist John “JP” Kincaid, a member of Blacklight, a legendary British rock group on a par with the Rolling Stones. In New York City, where Blacklight has come to perform, sleazy celebrity journalist Perry Dillon interviews a reluctant JP for an unauthorized tell-all bio of the band. When Perry turns up dead in JP's dressing room, JP's longtime girlfriend, Bree Godwin, becomes the prime suspect. Perry had found some skeletons in JP's past about Bree, not to mention JP's estranged wife, Cilla, and drug-related issues. The investigation by NYPD Lt. Patrick Ormand inspires JP to rethink the last 25 years—a rollercoaster ride of sold-out concerts, drug rehab and enduring love. JP decides it takes more than just “sitting on my bum” to find the real killer. Grabien has created a down-to-earth hero who delivers a brisk upbeat message. (July)

From Kirkus (who have the rep for basically hating everything:

An aging rock star and his live-in lady become involved in a murder.

John “JP” Kinkaid plays the guitar in Blacklight, a wildly successful British rock band with more than a passing resemblance to the Rolling Stones. Although still married to drug-addicted Cilla, he’s lived for 25 years with Bree Godwin, a very private person who’s supported him through drug and alcoholic addiction and a diagnosis of MS. Their good life in San Francisco is shaken up by unauthorized biographer Perry Dillon. Since Blacklight has limited Dillon’s access, band members are doubly shocked when he’s found murdered backstage at Madison Square Garden.

Bree, who rarely goes on tours, is a person of interest to NYPD Homicide Detective Patrick Ormand because she discovered the body. The crisis forces JP to take a long look at the life he’s been leading, and he doesn’t like what he sees. He realizes that Bree has always supported him while he took her for granted, even returning to Cilla several times for short periods when she begged for his help. Something in the background of the other equally impure band members may be the motive for Dillon’s murder.

The author of the Haunted Ballad series (New-Slain Knight, 2007, etc.) comes up with something worlds apart but equally pleasing: a deft mystery nicely integrated with a fascinating backstage look at a rock star’s life.

* * *

You know what I really love (beside the fact that both reviews are essentially raves)? That they get it. The Chronicles were a what-if look at a happy ending that didn't happen, and came out of asking myself "Ok, what would we have been like thirty years later had things gone differently?"

And both reviewers got the "coming of age in your fifties" thing.

I seem to have written it right.

Busy busy busy, now with non-fiction!

2008-05-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

I've got three - yep, three - non-fiction music-related pieces up at the brand new shiny spanking issue of Green Man Review.

Love and Crit and the Whole Damned Thing is a rumination on the differences between cerebral and visceral absorption of music. It's centered around a nifty conversation with David Smay, author of Swordfishtrombones, his look at the Tom Waits album of the same name.

I review two CDs, both of them projects helmed by Danny Carnahan (his Celtic Grateful Dead tribute band, Wake the Dead, and his combo Camogie):

And, finally, I review a sampler by the band Silverwheel.

* * *

In the fiction realm, I have two pieces of short fiction, both inspired (memo: I really dislike that word, but I'm damned if I can think of a synonym at the moment) by Richard Thompson songs. One, The Ties That Bind, I may have already linked to; it's an O Henryish look at poverty in America and what it does to relationships. The second, Sunrise, is a look at a selkie who has done his time on land, and is heading back to the water.

Update on Kinkaid 6, aka Uncle John's Band: we've reached the projected 2/3 point in the book (61,000 words and change! 67%! YAY!) and we're heading for the straightaway (should I do a Kinkaid with The Race Is On as the title? Hmmm). And the Shiny New Project, a not-Kinkaid called These Dreams, has its prologue done. Need to be switching back and forth between the two books, and it's likely to be insanity-inducing. I'm just lucky I've got sixteen wonderful WIP readers for that new one...

Anyway. Back to work.

Why yes, Virginia, Reading really IS Fundamental

2008-05-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

OK. Unless I'm missing something here - and if I am, for heaven's sake please tell me, because I can assure you this is not something I want to be disillusioned about - the final list of legislators who signed the RiF letter is out. By my count, forty-eight senators signed it.

I asked my friends and flist in the Obama camp for an explanation as to why he hadn't signed, about a week after the news that President Satan's Cockpuppet had slashed funds for Reading is Fundamental. This is a no-brainer. This is Reading is Fundamental, dudes. Hello?

Of the three candidates for president, one candidate signed it: Hillary Clinton. For the record, she was among the earliest people to put her name to the letter - this was not jump on the bandwagon decision. And right now, for this particular issue, I'd be fine with a cold-blooded political motive. Go ahead, guys - jump on the bandwagon. Getting RiF kept in place is the bottom line. It's what matters, here.

John McCain didn't sign it. Neither did Barack Obama.

Now, I wouldn't expect The Esteemed Toadstool from Arizona to sign it. OMG, spend money on eddicayshun? That's Soshulismistical! My core constituency would hate me! Nuh-UH! Do not want! This is because John McCain is a wanker and a waste of protoplasm.

But it never occurred to me that Barack Obama wouldn't be arsed to put his name on this letter. WTF?

I am seriously pissed off, over here. I've been urged to go read all his speeches. I've been urged to read his book. He wants my vote. He wants change! Our Time Is Now!

Not if our kids can't READ, honey. Go sign the letter, then we'll talk, maybe.

Unless someone can give me a damned good reason why he abstained, he's added yet another level of difficulty in trusting this man enough to add my vote to his column if he gets the nomination. I could give a crap about pretty speeches and heavily edited books. I want ACTIONS.

Someone out there in Obama's camp, talk to me. Why did he not sign the RiF support letter?

Where I got my titles, and why

2008-04-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

All my more recent (post-2002) fiction titles, and either what they mean or why I chose them, or both.

1. The Haunted Ballads: The Weaver & the Factory Maid, The Famous Flower of Serving Men, Matty Groves, Cruel Sister, New-Slain Knight. Nothing hidden about those five title choices; each is a classic Child ballad. The twist came in retelling the story behind the song.

2. The Kinkaid Chronicles: A bit more complex.

a. Rock & Roll Never Forgets. This fit the establishing theme. JP Kinkaid is in his fifties when he begins narrating the series, a muffled pampered enabled rockstar who is kicked by circumstances into growing the hell up, finally. And it applies to his younger (but still middle-aged) sweetie, as well. "Come back baby, rock and roll never forgets..."

b. While My Guitar Gently Weeps. This one's deep into the reality of session work, tailoring your style to fit whoever's hiring you. Guitars - two custom axes, one gorgeous PRS Private Stock blue waterfall custom, and a $100K Zemaitis named Big Mama Pearl - play a big part in the plot. "I look at the world and I notice it's turning while my guitar gently weeps/With every mistake we must surely be learning, still my guitar gently weeps..."

c. London Calling. I knew I wanted this third one to deal with racism, and how music does and doesn't confront and deal with it. So the Clash title was just right. A lot of this one takes place in the south of France, which is seriously racist and where the Le Pen faction (ugly, horrible nationalist wingnuts) are deeply entrenched. "London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared and battle come down..."

d. Graceland. This one began as Cleveland Rocks. It deals with JP inducting his idol and major musical influence, an octagenarian blues sessions guy in the South, into the R&R Hall of Fame. Halfway through it, as I realised it was becoming an intimate, wrenching little thing about family and owning your own history, the title began to jar against my nerves. In a way, it's about attaining a kind of grace, and a kind of peace. "I've reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland..."

e. Book of Days. The only Kinkaid with a fictional musical title instead of a real one: it's the name of the double Blacklight CD that hits a universal nerve and goes mega on them and necessitates a 2.5 year tour that has some major consequences. I wrote all the song lyrics on this one.

f. Uncle John's Band. JP's full name is John Peter Kinkaid. Still alive after the near-disaster at the end of the Book of Days tour, he's playing local shows with his longtime Bay Area band, the Fog City Geezers. A book about pitfalls, and silence, and people not knowing each other past the surface. The original Uncle John's Band, of course, was the Dead; Jerry Garcia - Jerome John Garcia - was the Uncle John of the song. The book takes place mostly in Marin County, which was the Dead's stomping ground (and mine) back in the day, so it fit beautifully. "Come hear Uncle John's Band by the riverside, got some things to talk about here beside the rising tide..."

g. Restless. This one's a short story, which will likely be the first of a collection put together over time. It's Kinkaids, but not JP; this is narrated by the series' detective, former DEA, NYPD and SFPD Homicide detective Patrick Ormand. He drives me nuts (I want to smack him) but he isn't boring. "Restless" is the perfect one-word description of him. The story - which links up to the third Kinkaid, "London Calling" - explains why he's so damned restless, what happened to make him that way.

Short story, non Kinkaid:

Ghost, in the Key of B: A woman, a dead musician, a history. She's either being haunted and complicit in that haunting, or she's bonkers with grief, or both.

The Ties That Bind: A vignette, in the O Henry vein, about what poverty does to a relationship in modern America. A twist on a beautiful Richard Thompson song, "Oh I Swear": Cruel poverty is the tie that binds/but we'll get by.

You know that whole post about the thankful/gratitude because things aren't worse?

2008-04-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

For the record: yes, it's very nice that I'm not dying of Ebola somewhere. Yes, it's very nice that I'm not holding out a tin cup, begging for alms because I have leprosy. Yes, it's very nice that I'm not a quadruple amputee. Yes, I'm pleased that, so far as I know at this particular moment in time, I don't have cancer.

I am not remotely thankful or grateful that I have multiple sclerosis.

Okay? Just to be clear: there is not one single thing about this disease that inspires any desire to thank anyone or anything. It sucks like a Hoover on speedballs. It hurts. It's unpredictable. It causes depression. The treatments, such as they are, are expensive or painful or both, and ALL the damned treatments, painful or not, also cause depression.

So: not remotely thankful to have this disease.

I am not remotely thankful for the raft of health issues currently making my life miserable, any more than I've ever been inclined toward gratitude for the health issues that have dogged me from birth. Little things, little indignities. My friends who live with serious illness - CP, ongoing crippling migraines, CFS, cancer, you name it - will know what I'm talking about.

I am not remotely thankful for having so many damned things messed up in my autoimmune system that none of my doctors can figure out what's happening where.

I'm not thankful for my life-threatening allergies.

I'm not thankful for whatever's causing me to produce so much saliva that I can't even swallow it all. Yes, the claritin - after four days - has stopped working. We're back to square one. And they still aren't sure what's causing it.

I'm not thankful for the second instance in a month of having my right leg go into simultaneous episodes of myokemia and ataxia (if you don't know what they are, and want to, please google them; my hands hurt and I've got a lot of typing to do this morning).

I have no sense of gratitude whatsoever for the shakes in my hands.

I'm not planning on offering up gratitude for the slow disintegration of my spine, or for the bulging disc in my neck at C-spine C3-C4 that I can't afford the time or the money to get fixed right now. The neck hurts all the time; I do my best to ignore it. The spine is more ominous: little electric shocks and pain. Move a certain way, freeze in place, grind the teeth, wait for it to stop. Whom shall I thank for that?

I am undelighted about an upcoming replay of the mangled biopsy. This one is likely to suck not much less than the mangling did.

I'm not thankful for the throat that keeps wanting to swell shut, or the fact that I keep losing my voice.

And I am REALLY not offering any thanks for the little white lesions on my brain.

I'm tired of physical pain. I'm tired of watching my body disintegrate. I want my health back. I'll take any part of it back.

Give me back my health. I'm not asking for a fountain of youth, I just want my health back. I'm 53, not 83. This is ridiculous.

Give me back some health, and we'll talk about thanks and gratitude and discuss half-full glasses. Right now, the glass is perilously close to empty.

Ruminations on gratitude and friendship

2008-04-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

This is all about getting or not getting what you earn, and the essential unfairness and imbalance of being expected to be thankful.

See, here's the thing. I'm seriously fierce when it comes to friendship. If you call yourself my friend, I'm going to assume there's a reason you want to do that. It doesn't have to be object- or logic- or even action-based, but I don't think I've ever heard "I don't know, I just like you and consider myself your friend" from anyone.

So I assume that, if you use the word "friend" in connection with me, you have a damned strong reason to do so. I am a pisspoor choice as a "casual" friend. I'm a pisspoor choice for a "casual" anything.

YMMV, of course, but despite my occasionally authoritative tone, I never - EVER - speak for anyone but myself. Any lurkers who support me in email stay in email. I speak for no one but myself.

Let's look at it from the other side of the fence, which would be me, considering myself your friend. It is likely that, in that case, I will defend you, cover your back, cook for you, worry about you, cheer for you when things go well, mobilise as many people as I can to succour you in an emergency.

Why?

Well - because I define friendship that way. Just as importantly, though, because you've earned it. You've earned my care and my attention and my loyalty by being who you are. You may have made me laugh when I needed it. You may have done something I consider wonderful, usually a something that has nothing to do with me. You may be warm or kind or silly or damaged or genuine or interesting or any number of things. This is my definition of "earning my friendship": I will cover your back and take care of you when needed in any way I can because you are who and what you are.

I don't expect that level of support from my friends - everyone is going to have their own definition of the word, and it's hardly fair to expect mine to fit anyone else. My own expectations from my friends are fairly simple: don't backstab me, don't try to play god in my life, and don't betray or abuse my hospitality or my trust.

So here's the inverse. Why do you consider me your friend, assuming you aren't using that word as a casual catchall? My point (there is one, I swear there is!) is that I belive that, if I have your friendship, I've earned it.

Several people on my friendslist do the "daily thankfulness" thing. It's a nice thing, good to read - but I tend to associate "thankfulness" with "giving thanks", and there's my question: giving thanks to who?

I can be damned happy that I have my friends, and hoo boy, trust me, I am. I can be grateful to my friends, for what they do for me - I never expect it, it's always wonderful, it always blindsides me.

But, on some level, I believe we've all earned our friends. That state, friendship and mutual love and respect, is the result of who we are and what we do.

CW Nevius, today in the San Francisco Chronicle

2008-04-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Remember the whole schemozzle with the coyotes in Golden Gate Park? The schemozzle that led me to write Dark in the Park which, entre nous, my excellent agent adores and will be getting off on editorial submission momentarily?

I had a very nice telephone interview with CW Nevius, San Francisco Chronicle columnist extraordinaire, this past Friday. He was doing a follow-up op-ed piece on the coyote story.

Here's the piece in question. I'm first up.

It's a very good piece indeed. I'd make one correction, one addition, and one observation:

1. The correction: The two coyotes that were shot last year weren't randomly aggressive. They didn't attack a poor helpless little doggy for fun. They came out of their lair to defend their pups (there were two; one was hit by a car, trying to fend for itself after its parents were killed).

And by the way, the dog, which got too close to their lair, was off-leash. Why this dog's owner wasn't cited and fined, I'll never know. If you own a dog, and you take it out of doors in a city with leash laws, keep it on a damned leash. Your dog does not have more rights than the human beings - or the coyotes, or the cats, or the raccoons, or anything else - around it. (And if the Animal Rights types don't like it, tough crap. It's the law, and the way it is.)

2. The addition: The mini-pack we saw crossing JFK Drive weren't just crossing the road. They hit the raceway next to the garage entrance at 10th Avenue and headed out across Fulton Street (four lanes of traffic), and into the avenues. They were streaking for the neighbourhoods, the backyards.

3. The observation: Two opposing comments from the people concerned:

"So, you say, maybe they could trap it. Maybe you'd like to try, they reply."

and a bit later on,

"Ask him what's next, and Merkle begins tap dancing. He says GGNRA authorities are "kind of at a decision point" and "kind of on the fence" but admits they "might have to take an action to remove an animal."

Um, guys? One of these things is not like the other. What's with the extremes? There's a middle ground, called TNR. In the case of the coyotes, The "T" in "trap, neuter, release" would stand for "tranquilise" instead.

Between trying to trap a large, fierce, smart predator in a state of full awareness and putting a bullet in that same animal's head, there's another option: knock it out, spay it, release it. Control the population that way. It works for feral cats.

And I maintain, loud and clear, that if some yippekayay cowboy can point a rifle at an animal's head, he can damned well point a tranq gun at its flank instead.

Cryptic letter to a beloved old friend, who may read this

2008-04-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing.

There have never been revolving doors in my life. It's been a hard policy: walk out of my life, the deadbolt snaps shut. Heart and sanity were happier and safer that way.

I made an exception a couple of years ago because the time, what was happening, demanded it. A crack had opened in my life, a hole full of forgotten things, moments, events. I needed to get them back, and see them.

You - above anyone - helped with that. You made it easier than I had any right to expect.

I place a high premium on friendship, and a high premium on loyalty. I work at it. I don't tear my friends down behind their backs, I don't play stupid high school clique tricks, I don't play games. Hell, I didn't even do that in high school; I'm certainly not going to start now.

I have abandonment issues, something you know and know well. So the current situation is a mystery to me, but you know what, you are one of the people I love best and I refuse to make your world harder by nagging.

I won't chase you, though. If we have to be passive-aggressive (and yes, this letter is precisely that - it's what I'm being given to work with, and who am I to blow against the wind?), then at least that much should be clear.

Don't know what the story is, don't know why the current behaviour is happening, but in the end, it doesn't matter. We all do what we need to do.

I'll always be there to cover your back, but the doorbell may need a good hard ring, because the mechanism in the revolving door is about to be disabled, for my own heart, my own sanity.

You, my friend, I will defend
And if we change, well, I'll love you anyway

Here if needed. Peace out.

WHEEE! Jacket copy, and a road trip!

2008-03-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

Got the full final jacket copy for Rock & Roll Never Forgets in email this morning. Thusly:

One legendary band on a sold-out American tour. One sleazy biographer digging up old secrets and opening old wounds. One ageing guitarist, with a crippling illness and a twisted past. One woman who will do anything to keep her hold over him, and another who will do anything to protect him.

The last thing the members of Hall of Fame rock & roll band Blacklight need to hear is that ruthless tabloid biographer Perry Dillon is planning a tell-all history of their group. The issue hits hardest for English ex-pat guitarist JP Kinkaid; with his history of heroin addiction and deportation, his estranged wife, and his long-term relationship with a girl he met when she was a teenager, JP has the most to lose. Dealing with his multiple sclerosis doesn't make things any easier.

When he sits down with Dillon, JP's main concern is preserving both his own privacy and that of Bree Godwin, his fiercely protective longtime girlfriend. But it's obvious from the first question that Dillon is digging deep. And he's not planning to stop until he hits rock bottom.

Dillon's looking for trouble, the kind of trouble that garners publicity and sells books. What he finds is the kind of trouble someone will go to any length to cover up, and that includes murder.

Opening night at Madison Square Garden encores with a corpse in JP's dressing room, leaving Blacklight in the middle of a media frenzy--and Bree as Homicide Lieutenant Patrick Ormand's prime suspect.

Rock & Roll Never Forgets, the first JP Kinkaid mystery, offers an all-access backstage pass to how musicians work, live, and love.

Deborah Grabien is a cook, guitar player, cat rescuer, traveler, and all-around rocker chick. She also writes a little: she's the author of the Haunted Ballad series and five standalone novels. Additionally, numerous short pieces of both her fiction and commentary have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Deborah lives in San Francisco, heads back to London and Paris whenever she can, and honestly believes you're never too old to rock and roll.

Visit her Web site at www.deborahgrabien.com.

Advance Praise for Rock & Roll Never Forgets

"Deborah Grabien adds murder and mystery to the sex, drugs and rock and roll equation."--Simon Wood, author of We All Fall Down

"Rock & Roll Never Forgets provides ‘you had to be there’ insight into the hearts and minds of aging rockers with engaging storytelling and grungy charm. Here’s your all-access pass to a full-tilt, fun read—Rock on, Deborah Grabien!”--Kathi Kamen Goldmark, author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You

Praise for Deborah Grabien’s Previous Novels

“The appealing characters and musical background keep the stories fresh and engaging.”—Denver Post on New-Slain Knight

“Her most chillingly effective performance to date….Grabien ratchets up the suspense steadily and implacably, and the resolution is deeply satisfying.”--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Matty Groves

Not too shabby. And, I'm heading to LA next Thursday, as part of a panel of editors and writers on publishing (big and small press), at the Abbot-Kinney Library in Venice. I believe the event is open to the public, so come on by, have a listen, and take part in the Q&A, if you're so inclined.

Tenterhooks, thy name is Kinkaid

2008-03-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

So, the first galleys for Rock & Roll Never Forgets are landing on reviewers' desks. I'll just be over in the corner, feasting on my own fingernails, or maybe hyperventilating.

Normally, I shrug off reviews. It doesn't hurt that I usually get very good ones; Publishers Weekly and Library Journal have starred my books in the past, newspapers like me, it's all good. The occasional bad one stings for a bit, but that doesn't last. I read the stinger, see what they have to say, and if it's valid, I'm glad for the input and I try to implement.

On the Kinkaid Chronicles, though, I'm a bit more - I don't know. Vulnerable? Edgy? Maybe I just care more?

Oy. Going to be a long couple of months. I expect to have no fingernails left come June.

When is a memoir not a memoir...?

2008-03-04T13:18:00.000-08:00

...when it's fiction, yo.

You'd have thought James Frey cutting Oprah down to size (for about a jillionth of a nanosecond) would have been enough for the PTB of the publishing industry, but no, here they go again. Two more "memoirs" have revealed to be complete fabrications. Misha Defonseca (Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust years) turns out to come from a nice settled Belgian family, and - good heavens - didn't actually spend the Second World War roaming Europe as a small Jewish girl in the company of wolves. And Margaret B. Jones, who wrote Love and Consequences, a memoir of being a mixed-race teenager running drugs in South Central, turns out to actually be Margaret Seltzer, a nice white girl from Sherman Oaks.

Part of me wants to smack both these women with a big hairy cluestick: Jesus h. wept, what were you thinking, you had these stories in your head, why in hell didn't you just write them as fiction? That's what they are. But it seems that the sure way to get an idiot publisher to buy the pretty story in your head is to call it memoir. That somehow makes it Cult of Personality, which Americans are apparently complete suckers for.

So - who to smack?

Here's the thing. I'm a novelist. I write fiction. My PR stuff makes that very clear. It's especially true of the current series, my "midlife crisis reclaim some of my own history" books, the Kinkaids: they are simply not memoirs. Hell, they aren't even roman a clef category.

Fiction, people. Fiction, fiction, fiction.

Do they incorporate incidents from my own life? Of course they do. That's true of everything I've written. Is JP Kinkaid a real person? No. His voice was very much the voice of someone I knew and loved dearly, but they think differently, they react differently, they even look differently. When I close my eyes and think John Peter Kinkaid, the man I see in my mind's eye is not the man I knew.

Fiction. Say it as often as is needed: fiction.

If I were laying blame for the rash of fake memoirs out there, I'd be laying it first and foremost (and most heavily) on publishing. You guys like to say you're simply reacting to market demand. That's bollocks. You're creating the damned market, and you're the ones pushing the Cult of Personality crap. Spread your attention around a little bit, level your playing field, start worrying about (dare I say it?) good reads, instead of the author's personality status. You might be surprised. I sure as hell would be.

So, saying it loud and proud: don't expect to see me on Oprah, claiming the Kinkaids are fact. They're not.

They are, however, really, REALLY good fiction.

Health, writing, and a poignant date in my world

2008-02-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

First off, I hate this disease. I purely hate it.

Last night, I came out of the bathroom, made it three feet, started to say something, and sat down on the floor. I spent about fifteen minutes propped against the dining room door jamb; left side was gone for the duration. No sensation, hand flopping uselessly, leg not holding me, no sensation in the left side of my face; I was talking to my husband out the right side, as he stayed celestially calm.

No left side. Nothing. It eased up and backed off, finally - just a residual stabby numbness. Today is back to what passes for normal with relapsing/remitting MS: basic detente between my copingness and the pain and imbalance.

Problem is, I don't have the energy to fight it. No reserves. I'm worn too thin.

So I'll monitor this, and see if it does it again. Nothing else to be done. Maybe someday, idiots like Patricia Heaton and James Caveziel won't make television ads telling the voters out there that God! Loves! Stem! Cells!, and therefore, every autoimmune disease in the world should be left to devour whoever they hit. Maybe if some of these god-botherers out there get hit with MS or Crohns or Parkinsons or Alzheimers, they'll shut the hell up? Because, you know, a stem cell is not a human being.

Writing: Can anyone tell me what on earth I was thinking, when I sat down and began this bloody short story? I don't write science fiction, and yet, here it is, making demands of me, that include, well, science. And I can't write it as anything other than science fiction, at which I suspect I suck, not considering the subject matter.

Last night, I watched the slideshow of every image on the Golden Record - on my PC, on software that didn't exist when Voyager was launched. That, alone, boggles me.

The story - which is still tentatively titled Our Lady of Red Dust, with Fig: 1: Possible Statue of Woman as its alternate - is being done in tiny bites, very different from my usual Mach 4 writing speed. My red dust woman is just shaking some of her dust, shaping it into organs and ears, the better to absorb the information on the Record with. She's got Louis Armstrong on there, and Blind Willie Dixon. And of course, Chuck Berry.

And finally, an enigmatic closer: Happy 64th birthday, N. I wish you were alive to see it.

the Golden Record

2008-02-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

First thing first: I'm taking the rest of the election off.

Screw it. I despise the candidates, I remember Thatcher and Reagan and Nader, and it doesn't appear that people ever learn, so screw it. Someone will get elected, we'll all have to pay this bill no matter who it is, the money people will move numbers around, there will be fingerpointing and cheering and people will die over it.

There is not one single damned thing I can do about any of it, so it can go to hell. Someone tell me who wins. Officially out of this election. Have at it, species. I'll be over here, writing.

There. Done with that.

Writing....yes. I'm actually working on a short story, science fiction of all things (working title is "Our Lady of Red Dust", but that may change). The spur was the recent kerfuffle about the "statue" on Mars; lady or rock?

Researching what I wanted to know, I found myself wandering through the Voyager Golden Record information website, and manoman, it kicks ass. The thing that really got me was the one piece of rock and roll included: "Johnny B. Goode", Chuck Berry's own version.

I'm having serious fun with this stuff in the context of the short story.

Genug, damn it

2008-02-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

See update. Since I look to be completely unrepresented in this election, I'm done investing time in it.

This one's for Patry Francis

2008-01-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

Patry Francis, an excellent writer and a co-member of several of the same forae I belong to, wrote a wonderful novel called The Liar's Diary.

Patry is recovering from major surgery for very aggressive cancer. She's not long out of hospital, and today is the day her book is released in paperback.

A few hundred writers - yes, I said hundred - are doing our small bit to help her promote her book release. She can't get up and do it herself. As a cancer survivor myself, I'm proud to be part of the effort.

Go, buy, read. It's a very good book!

Wheee! Green Man Review!

2008-01-27T11:26:00.000-08:00

I have four - yep, count 'em, four! - pieces in the brand new, out-today, bright shiny edition of Green Man Review:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/oneoffs/best2007music.html

First up: the short continuity piece, The Boys in the Barroom, (with a tip of the hat to Bob Hunter for the title) has my two fictional leading men/musicians, Ringan Laine and JP Kinkaid, having a conversation at the Green Man's virtual pub, while the lady author gets quietly sozzled and wonders what in hell else she doesn't know about her characters' history. There's also a jam session at the end.

Next up: Musings on three Richard Thompson shows in three months: "Dear Richard, Will You Please Play...?"

http://www.greenmanreview.com/cd//grabien_thompsonconcert.html

After that, my wrapup on 2007 music; this is a very visceral look back at how the serpent swallows its own tail. From the Summer of Love through today, how things came full circle for me, musically. It's called Talkin' About That Unbroken Circle:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/cd//grabien_onmusic.html

And last (but hoo, mama, so very NOT least) is a juicy excerpt from the first Kinkaid Chronicle, Rock & Roll Never Forgets, being released this July by St. Martin's Minotaur:

http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/excerpt_grabien_kinkaid1.html

Free! Go, read, enjoy, and comments are welcome.

A rare non-writing post, on politics

2008-01-26T17:31:00.001-08:00

I seriously, seriously do not like Barack Obama. I haven't, for a good long time. But it took awhile to really see what was causing the dislike.

Why I think the Sainted Obama is, essentially, Reagan Lite for the disenchanted 21st Century Democrat.

You can't tell me I'm wroooooooooooooong! wrongwrongwrong neener! over at livejournal unless you have an account there - I disabled anonymous posting over there years ago. But you can comment here, if you want to.

Open to all writers, published or not

2008-01-23T15:27:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from the incredibly happy-making current WIP, and I found myself looking through old (5 years old, nearly) emails.

One of them, from my editor at St. Martin's, was talking about the first Haunted Ballad, The Weaver & The Factory Maid. She was talking about wanting the modern characters to be 100% of the focus, and why she thought having them discover the solution to these historical crimes would work better than giving the dead people page time through any other medium than Penny/Ringan/et al doing the research.

A minor thing popped out from one of her emails. She's talking about the modern characters, and she uses the phrase "the surprising Albert Wychsale."

Now, Albert - Baron Boult of Glastonbury, sweet elderly man, with a warm heart, a hard head, and a certain kind of courage - was a secondary character, at least when I wrote him in the first book. In fact, even after I'd begun the second book, I wasn't sure we'd see more of him. But Ruth Cavin wanted more of him: he'd surprised her.

Okay. Jump ahead a few years, and here's me, having completed Rock & Roll Never Forgets and jumped right into the muddy waters of the second Kinkaid, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. About a third of the way through, I realised that I - and the story - both wanted Blacklight's frontman, Malcolm "Mac" Sharpe, in this story, along with his (Jamaican and female) bodyguard, Domitra Calley.

So I wrote him in.

As Joe Walsh puts it, "POW! Right between the eyes/oh, how nature loves her little surprises!"

Seriously. I'd seen the character of Mac, in the first book, as a goodnatured horndog whose only three passions were sex, humanist politics, and rock and roll. Not a lot of hidden personality for me to run with; he struck me as very "what you see is what you get". One of those laaaaaaaarge types, and me, I prefer the sidemen, the session players.

Yeah, well, the character looked me in the eye, smiled sweetly, and said "Sod off, lady, I'm going THIS way and you're free to come along, but we're not arguing over it."

Not being - as JP Kinkaid would say - completely dim, I undug my heels and let him pull me down the road. And I got one of my favourite characters out of it. Mac, in his own way, is a masterpiece of a human being. He's funny, smart, warm-hearted, a natural frontman who can hold a crowd in the palm of his hand and still make someone at the back of Wembley Stadium think he's singing directly at her. The scene in Book of Days in which he "accidentally" films a Blacklight video for "Liplock", a song about oral sex, and seduces an evening entertainment talk show hostess on camera in the process, makes me cackle every time I read it or think of it. It's also emblematic of Mac.

So, writers, talk to me.

Who are your surprising characters, and why? How did they surprise you? Come on, people! Dish!

(and if you want to see what other writers have to say about it, this is crossposted with my livejournal, as well, right here. You won't be able to comment unless you have a livejournal account - I don't allow anonymous posting - but you can read.

cue Barenaked Ladies...

2008-01-20T21:34:00.001-08:00

"It's been, ONE WEEK..." Oh, wait, wrong song.

I began the sixth Kinkaid, Uncle John's Band, last Saturday. I had to take most of a day away from writing time for the anthology event at Keplers in Menlo Park, a big chunk of a day to do what are close to the final edits the editor asked for on the new essay for the new anthology (that essay is called My Favorite Mistake and I'll talk about it when the nice editor says it's okay), and yet another chunk of time to get the taxes done.

"It's been, ONE WEEK..."

Man, I love writing this series.