A brief history of Bubba

I was being interviewed the other day about the new Bubba Mabry novella, PARTY DOLL, when I realized I've known Bubba for more than 20 years now.

Bubba was the star of my first published novel, LONELY STREET, and we've been together through six more novels, two novellas and a movie. I've published 14 other books during that time as well, but I keep coming back to Bubba.

All the Bubba stories remain in print via Kindle and Smashwords for $1.99 or less, and most are still readily available in paper as well. For those who've come to the series recently, I thought you could use a quick history of Bubba.

I wrote LONELY STREET in 1991, but it was 1994 before it was published by Pocket Books. In LONELY STREET, the bumbling private eye is hired by what appears to be the living Elvis. A reporter is trying to expose that The King faked his own death years before, and Bubba's hired to tail him.

Partly because of that rock 'n' roll connection, LONELY STREET remains my best all-time seller, and it was made into a Hollywood comedy that came out a couple of years ago. Here's the trailer:

That's the ever-hilarious Jay Mohr as Bubba. Underneath that incredible makeup is Robert Patrick as Elvis. Other faces you probably recognized are Joe Mantegna, Katt Williams and Mike Starr. The film was directed by Peter Ettinger.

The second Bubba book was BABY FACE. In that one, Bubba and his girlfriend, newspaper reporter Felicia Quattlebaum, take on the Religious Right, politicians, hookers and a vicious pimp named Sultan Sweeney.

Next came WITCHY WOMAN, in which Bubba goes to Taos, NM, to try to wrest a rich heiress away from an all-female cult. Things get weird when Felicia goes undercover by pretending to join the cult.

In SHAKY GROUND, Bubba and Felicia get married, but their wedding is almost ruined by Bubba's investigation into the killing of a biologist in the desert west of Albuquerque.

DIRTY POOL came next. Bubba goes head-to-head with a Texas private eye named William Pool as they both search for a young skinhead who's faked his own kidnapping. Whoever finds him first gets to keep whatever ransom is recovered.

In CRAZY LOVE, Bubba goes to work for a jealous widower who believes his wife had an affair before she died.

MONKEY MAN takes place mostly at the Albuquerque zoo. It opens with the shooting of a whistleblower zoo employee by a man wearing a gorilla suit. Things only get weirder from there.

I got invited to write a Christmas novella for an anthology, and the result was SANITY CLAUSE. In that story, Bubba is working as security at a mall at Christmastime, and somebody bumps off one of the guys who plays Santa.

That brings us to the new novella, PARTY DOLL, in which Bubba is hired to locate a missing stripper who goes by the stage name Joy Forever.

I don't have immediate plans to write another Bubba story; I've started working on a standalone about bank robbers. But I'm sure Bubba will return before long. He and I go way back.

Check out this Q&A

Author and book blogger Sean Patrick Reardon has discovered my crime novels, and he really likes them. He wrote about them on his blog recently, and today he features a Q&A with me. He asked good questions, and the answers are full of information about my latest books and upcoming projects.

Click here to read it.

Thanks, Sean!

A career "Boost"

The paperwork isn't wrapped up yet, so I can't reveal details, but I can say that my 2004 crime novel "Boost" has just been optioned by Hollywood for possible film/TV production.

"Boost" is the story of Sam Hill, a professional car thief who gets set up by a drug dealer. Sam sorts that out, then it's payback time.

Speck Press, which published the hardcover and trade paperback, has also made "Boost" available as an e-book via Nook, etc., for $9.99.

Thanks to everyone who's purchased my new e-book thriller, "Firepower," or one of the backlist books I've made available as e-books. They've been quite the success so far. More e-books from the Bubba Mabry series are coming soon.

Thrill killer

So, I was watching the Kate Beckinsale thriller "Whiteout" while sweating away on the Dreadmill, and I found myself reaching for the fast-forward button, which is never a good sign.

Why? Because filmmakers think the audience is stupid. They drag out every minor revelation so the slow students in the back of the class will have time to slap their foreheads and say, "Oh, something's hidden inside those corpses! Duh!"

Here's a fast-forward moment: U.S. Marshal Kate going from room to dark room at the Anarctica research station, flashlight and gun at the ready while searching for the killer, when it's clear the electricity still works, and there's no reason not to just flip on the lights.

Stupidest moment of all: Two cops attached to a rope to keep them from blowing away in a whiteout storm. At least one has a gun. They see the bad guy hurrying toward the research station and Kate says, "He's going to lock us out!" So they scurry faster along the rope. I am a full-grown adult, yet I found myself muttering at the screen, "Shoot him, you idiot. Just shoot him."

Now I'm going to go work on my novel, and take out all the parts that might resemble the above crap.

Everybody awake? How about now?

Regular readers may recall that I like to watch DVDs while walking on the Dreadmill in my garage, but this activity is not without its hazards.

Because I'm trying to hear the movie over the thumping Dreadmill, I keep the volume up high, even though I work out in the cool of the morning. My neighbors have been very understanding.

But this week I plugged in the DVD of a movie called "Surveillance," a strange crime drama directed by Jennifer Lynch. The movie opens with an extremely violent attack on a couple in bed; the woman gets away and runs off down the highway, only to be chased by a pickup. The whole time, this woman screams at the top of her lungs.

I'm sure my neighbors thought someone was being slaughtered at the Brewers' house. Again.

After I fumbled for the remote control and got it pointed the right way and the audio turned down, I could only wonder: What was that movie moment like in a theater, in Dolby SurroundSound? Did viewers flee screaming with their hands over their ears?

'Lonely Street' news and reviews

The movie of my book "Lonely Street" comes out on DVD on Aug. 11, and reviews are starting to pop up around the Internet. The film's getting good initial ratings on the various rental/sales/mailing services.

To read a nice review by our pals over at CrimeSpree Cinema, click here.

Sedentary Man gets a hobby

I often josh about being hobby-free, which leads people to think I am uninteresting and lazy.

Allow me to rebut: I am not uninteresting.

But I don’t do much in the way of traditional hobbies. I don’t fish or bowl or knit or play a musical instrument or collect stuff.

I watch a lot of sports on TV. I spend way too much time on the computer. I read newspapers, magazines and books, books, books. These are all “pastimes,” in that time passes while I do them, but they’re not real hobbies.

This raises two problems. One, because I am Sedentary Man, my physique is becoming more and more like a bowling pin. Two, I don’t have a ready answer when asked, “What are your hobbies?”

Until now.

I’ve decided that watching movies can be a hobby. Yes, it’s more sedentary activity, but it keeps me fascinated and it costs money and time. I believe those are the official requirements for a “hobby.”

I love the movies. Always have. I love getting lost in the story on the screen. I love the shared experience of laughing along with my fellow viewers, thrilling to the action, secretly choking up over the weepy parts. I really, really love popcorn.

I can remember my very first big-screen movie. When I was 6 years old, my family went to see “How the West Was Won” at the Pines Drive-In in Pine Bluff, AR. (Guess what kind of tree grows in that area.) I was blown away, particularly by the moment when a fleeing pioneer catches a flying ax in the back. Nightmares for a week, but I was hooked on movies.

My mother regularly dropped me off at the Saturday matinee at the Sanger Theater, where several hundred children squealed so loud that it’s a wonder any of our eardrums survived.

I took my first date to a movie. Unfortunately, it was a horrendous horror film called “Last House on the Left” (the first one) that left us both shaken rather than stirred. That’s when I learned to check out reviews BEFORE seeing a movie.

My senior prom included a middle-of-the-night movie (that romantic classic “Young Frankenstein”), so we all had a chance to sit still for a couple of hours and sober up.

I took film classes in college, and have even taught some at the university level. Any excuse to watch movies.

Movie-going changed over the years. Drive-ins mostly vanished and indoor theaters went multi-screen. After the advent of the VCR, people started watching movies in their living rooms and many forgot how to behave in a theater.

Mostly, I watch DVDs at home like everyone else. We subscribe to one of those services that deliver DVDs by mail, and I watch the movies on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn, or while sweating on a treadmill in the garage so I can stay in shape (“bowling pin” being a shape).

I spend many hours arranging and rearranging my “queue” of hundreds of upcoming films so I get the right blend of serious films and comedies and action movies I’ll be able to hear over the whirring treadmill. Monitoring this flow of movies has become my obsession.

I’m collecting a lifetime of movie experiences. And that qualifies as a hobby.

Pass the popcorn.

Big fun on "Lonely Street"

I've posted a column all about our trip to the Newport Beach Film Festival over at the Corner Booth. Click here to read it.

It was thrilling to see the movie made from my first novel. Saw a lot of friends, too. A wonderful trip.

Lights, camera . . . inaction

We're back from the Newport Beach Film Festival, where we saw a screening of "Lonely Street," the movie based on my first Bubba Mabry novel. Had a great time, but I'm way too tired tonight to send details. Will post more tomorrow.

Holy Bluetooth, Batman!

At a theater recently, as the lights dimmed and the movie began, I was distracted by a flash of blue light.

Saw it out of the corner of my eye. A blink of bright blue. Hmm.

I focused on the screen. Things were starting to happen there, and I needed to pay attention and, there it went again. Flash of blue.

What the heck? Now, I’m completely distracted. I stare across the dark theater, waiting for the flash. There it is. A guy sitting on the aisle has one of those Bluetooth gizmos screwed into his ear. Every few seconds, its little blue light flashes.

Once I recognized the source, it was all I could see. The movie was forgotten.

FLASH. Son of a gun. How does he not sense that the light’s flashing, right there on the side of his head?

FLASH. What about his wife, on the other side of him? Can’t she see that her husband’s creating a disturbance--

FLASH. What kind of blinking moron goes into a movie, wearing one of those things and--

FLASH. Who needs a phone in a movie anyway? Unless he’s a surgeon, on call for an emergency, he can manage without a phone. And if he is a surgeon expecting an emergency, what’s he doing at the matinee?

FLASH. Grrrr.

As I was weighing whether to just go ahead and kill him, his wife snapped to the problem and gave him a sharp elbow. The guy snatched the thing out of his ear and stuffed it in his shirt pocket, thereby forcing me to spare his life. I can only hope he missed a really important call.

Am I the only one who’s sick of self-important gearheads walking around with gizmos in their ears as if they’re characters in “Star Trek: The Cellular Generation?” Isn’t it bad enough that they treat the rest of us to their loud, inane conversations? Now they have to FLASH, too?

Hands-free phoning is a good idea if you’re driving (though NOT talking on the phone while you’re driving is an even better idea), but it’s inappropriate in most other places.

I saw a young guy with a phone device in his ear at an outdoor concert. The music was so loud, you couldn’t hear yourself think, much less carry on a telephone conversation. Plus, wasn’t hearing the music the whole point of being there? If he wanted to talk on the phone, he could’ve stayed in his car, driving badly, like everyone else.

I suppose it’s some kind of status symbol to be plugged in at all times. It makes the statement: I’m really important and must be in constant contact with my office because I have big international deals brewing and/or transplant surgery to perform.

But that’s not the message I receive. I see a guy with electronic doodads in his ears and more gear on his belt than Batman, and I think: Here’s a nerd who’s addicted to all the latest toys. Someone who’s so insecure, he has to show off his toys to everyone he meets.

The really cool/rich/important people don’t go around with phones hanging off them like leashes. They have assistants who handle their communications. They have big deals brewing, sure, but on their terms and on their timelines. You don’t call them; they call you.

They recognize that blue flashes are not a fashion statement unless you’re a police car.

For sure, they’re not wasting their afternoons in matinees like some of us.

Flash on that.

Matinee getaway

One of the best things about being my own boss is that I can occasionally take the afternoon off and go to the movies.

Sure, people who have regular jobs can sneak away for matinees, too, but there’s always the risk they’ll get caught and reprimanded. Those of us who are self-employed can skip all that anxiety, as long as we recognize that we’re blowing deadlines in favor of "Spider-Man: The Sequel Redux VI." I’m usually fine with that.

The joy of a weekday matinee is the sensation that it’s a private screening. Most people are at work or in school, so I sometimes have the theater all to myself. At worst, there’ll be only a few of us unemployed idlers scattered around the dark theater, losing ourselves in the big-screen experience.

Going to the matinee alone is a deliciously selfish indulgence:

--No compromising with the spouse about which movie to see. I don’t have to suffer through a "chick flick" with lavish costumes and good acting and a plot and stuff. I can go to a "guy movie," which means all explosions, all the time.

--No dragging the kids along. As delightful as it might be to share the experience of watching "Shrek XXII" with enthusiastic children, it’s even better to go without them. And you don’t have to worry about getting "gummy worms" stuck to your clothing.

--No catering to others’ seating needs. When I go alone, I can sit squarely in the middle if I like, or on the end of a row, so I don’t have to step over people when I go for seconds on popcorn. I can even change seats, without worrying that I’ve lost my children in the dark.

--No sharing the popcorn. Concessions are where movie theaters make their money, so I always feel compelled to help out by buying the "Gigantic Buick-Sized Bucket O’ Corn." But that still doesn’t mean there’s enough to go around.

(An aside: Try this experiment. When the pimply kid behind the counter asks if you want "butter flavoring" on your popcorn, tell him "just a tiny bit," and see what you get. Eight squirts of the mysterious yellow oil. On another trip, say, "A lot." Eight squirts. Say "none at all," and he’ll sneak in eight squirts when you’re not looking.)

Solo movie-going means ultimate flexibility. You don’t need a plan. You don’t even need to know what’s playing. You can show up at a workday matinee at the very last minute and still have your choice of seats. You can enter the theater after the previews are under way and not worry about walking up your spouse’s back in the dark.

Regular movie-goers know that home DVD viewing has ruined theater behavior. Some morons sit in the theater and talk out loud, as if they’re in their own living rooms. When you’re at the movies alone, in an uncrowded theater, you can simply heft your popcorn and move away from the gabbers. This can help you avoid those pesky manslaughter charges.

I know some people have given up on the movie theater experience altogether, turned off by the expense and the sticky floors and the bad manners of the public. It’s easier and certainly cheaper to watch DVDs at home. But it’s not the same. Watching a movie at home when you’re supposed to be working just feels lazy. Escaping to a matinee feels like playing hooky.

And that’s worth the price of admission.

Paying Mom what she's worth

Once, at a matinee of "Mission Impossible XXVI," we were agog as a swoopy drone aircraft fired missiles, blowing up a whole smoking causeway full of vehicles, trying to hit tiny Tom Cruise.

(They're CRUISE missiles! Get it? Huh? Here, America, let us hit you over the head with our collective wit.)

One of those strange hiccups of silence breached the Dolby SurroundSound just as an older lady behind us wearily said: "Right, and who's going to clean up that mess?"

Spoken like a veteran mom. One who's mopped up too many spills for one lifetime. One who's scolded so many sloppy teen-agers, she's tired of the sound of her own voice. A frazzled woman just happy to sit-still-for-a-change in an air-conditioned theater.

She couldn't quite relax into the moment. Actions still have consequences. Somebody's still got to clean up every mess. And, like many of us, she's worn out by the real world. One telecast disaster after another, all the bombings and tsunamis and hurricanes. And you just know, her tone said, that our tax dollars will be wasted, rebuilding the causeway that Tom Cruise blew up.

Which brings us to the cost of things.

Salary.com added up the top 10 jobs that make a mom's job description (janitor, cook, psychologist), put value to them and came up with this: Stay-at-home moms are worth $134,121 a year. Working moms would earn $85,876 for the "mom job" portion of their work, in addition to their actual salaries.

(OK, whoa, that's enough. If you are a mother, you need to stop waving this article in the faces of your loved ones. Right now. Yes, you've been telling them, all these years, how hard you work, but they're not going to start listening now. Someone could get a paper cut.)

And that's just the work that can be calculated. No one can measure all the sleepless nights and harried days of the average mom. The level of everyday worry that could take a woman to a place where she experiences automatic thoughts about the clean-up costs of computer-generated special effects at the movies.

The study didn't say anything about working dads' housework contributions or work-at-home dads or stay-at-home dads. We'll assume we dads would make a lot less if our at-home contributions were calculated. Some men do absolutely nothing (and you know who you are), and blow the curve for the rest. Even those of us who do the lion's share of the housework don't put the same amount of time and care into it that your average mom does. We tend to compact all our efforts into those frantic few moments before our wives get home.

Still, we'd be worth something. We could pro-rate it to hours spent per week on household chores (minus time spent on burrito breaks, wandering off and scratching), and come up with a pretend salary for all of us, too.

The comparisons might be embarrassing for the men. Mom's worth $85,876, on top of what she's drawing down at the rendering plant? And Dad's annual housework contribution is worth how much? Seventeen dollars?

Isn't mom in danger of pricing herself out of the imaginary market here? I mean, come on, $134,121? Who does she think she is, Halliburton?

One thing's for certain: At those prices, we can't afford to hire moms for the job of picking up after Tom Cruise. No matter how much they volunteer.

My book, the movie

Marshal Zeringue, who gave us the Page 69 Test and other book-related blogs, does one called "My Book, the Movie," where authors talk about which actors they'd cast if their books were made into films. I'm featured there today.

Since my first book, "Lonely Street," has been made into a movie, I wrote about who actually was cast vs. the way I'd pictured the characters when I wrote the book. You can read it here.

Also, if you haven't already, go look at the "Lonely Street" clip on YouTube. It's here.

'Lonely Street' trailer

A promotional trailer for the movie based on my book "Lonely Street" has hit YouTube, and the Crimespree Cinema website has it here.

The movie screens in early November for American Film Market in Los Angeles. AFM is the place where distributors, both foreign and domestic, see what's available among independent films. Fingers crossed.

I like the trailer a lot. Hope you do, too.