Trey R. Barker – Official Website and Blog

When Everything Changed….

August 28, 2010 – 10:10 pm by Trey
Category » All Things Literary

…except it hasn’t changed at all, has it?

Can it really be a change when everyone is watching for it?  Waiting for it?  If everyone – and I mean everyone except the absolute Luddites who have their heads buried in the sand – knows it’s coming…can it really be a huge change?

Yeah.

The Associated Press ran this two or three days ago, a story by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg:

Weeks after Amazon.com said that it is now selling more electronic books than hardcovers, a leading book publisher said one of its prominent new titles is generating greater e-book unit sales than hardcover unit sales during its first week on sale.

Laura Lippman’s thriller, “I’d Know You Anywhere,” went on sale Aug. 17, and in its first five days sold 4,739 e-books and 4,000 physical hardcovers, said News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers.

“This is the first book of ours of any consequence that has sold more e-books than hardcovers in the first week,” said Frank Albanese, a senior vice president at HarperCollins. “What we’re seeing now is that if a book gets a good review, it gets a faster lift on the digital side than it does on the physical side because people who have e-readers can buy and read it immediately.”

In recent weeks, a number of leading publishers have indicated that e-books today account for about 8% of total revenue, up from 3% to 5% in the same period a year ago. Some expect that e-books will account for as much as 20-25% by the end of 2012.

***

Okay, first of all, let’s talk about this dumbass at HarperCollins.  Read his quote again.  The first book of any consequence.  In other words, there were other books they published that sold more ebooks than print books but they didn’t matter…they weren’t of consequence.

What in the hell does that mean?  They’ve published books they don’t think were of any consequence?  Then why the hell publish them?  And what if you’re one of those writers?  The Great HarperCollins has published your book and the world is looking peaches and cream and then one of the senior cheeses publicly – extremely publicly – denigrates you to the world.

And I do mean to the world.  This story has gotten a ton of coverage in the last few days.  See, for those of you who aren’t total book geeks, this battle (much like the internal civil war in the Republican party between the moderates and the whacked out Tea Partiers…who want government to be juuuuusssst small enough to cut their Medicare and Social Security checks) is about the future of publishing.

There are those who believe traditional publishers (big operations that print bound books that then have to be warehoused and sold and that use lots and lots of trees) are going the way of the Edsel. What they think is that the digital book revolution is going to put them out of business.  If anyone can create their own digital book (and anyone can, by the way), then why do we need big publishers?

Then there are others who believe traditional publishers have been smart enough in the last few years to see the digital retrenchment coming and have invested wisely and therefore have already put their train wrecks on another set of tracks and it’ll be smooth sailing…to completely mangle metaphors.

I fall squarely…in the middle.  First of all, there will always be traditional publishers.  The methods they use to print the books will absolutely change, but there will always be people who want to hold a physical paper book.  Second of all, none of the big publishers has ever spent a dollar wisely in their miserable corporate lives.  They completely missed the ebook revolution and, in fact, are still missing it.

How many of you guys have read an ebook lately?  What did you see?  You saw pages on a digital screen.  You saw exactly the same thing you see in a book.

Exactly the same thing.

WTF?

It’s digital.  It’s connected to the Internet or you wouldn’t be able to buy the books.  If it’s connected, use the damned Internet.  Give me value-enhanced content.  Don’t make the ebook the exact same thing as a paper book.  Utilize the new format and give me added value.  Use the ability to glean information from all over the Internet and add it to what I’m reading.

But this is not my overall point.  My overall point is this: remember where you were when you read that a major, major writer sold more ebooks than regular books because that’s the tipping point.

That’s when regular people – like the fucking AP who’s never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity and jump on the bandwagon months after it left town – realized something new and different was going on.

Eight percent of total revenue this year?  They can’t count.  When the cookies are all added up at the end of the year, ebook revenue will turn out to be closer to 15 percent and we’ll hit 25 percent of the market by Christmas, 2011.  By the next presidential election, we’ll be hitting 35 percent, maybe higher. And that’s without any decent value added content.  That’s with just quick and dirty paper to digital conversions.

It’s a brave new world and if publishers do it right, this is gonna be fun!

So Thankful for the Rain….

August 24, 2010 – 6:06 pm by Trey
Category » Random Thoughts

…because if it hadn’t been for the rain….

The gig was supposed to be July 7 and constant readers will remember I whined like a baby when the thing got rained out.  The rain that night was horrible and cold.  I was wet and miserable, my back hurt, and the idiots around me (who couldn’t figure out that when the instruments are still covered, the band is not about to magically appear and play…dumbasses….) had gotten on my nerves.

Here is a pic from that nightmarish evening…just as a little reminder.

It was a horrible night. But the rescheduled show was last night.

And it couldn’t have been any more different.  The weather was beautiful, the crowd was fantastic, the venue was perfect (and let’s remember, were it not for Chicago Mayor Daley unethically, if not actually illegally, tearing apart Meigs Field a few years ago during the dead of the night when no one was watching, then this venue wouldn’t actually even exist!).

Now, I’ve seen Rush about 40-gabillion times, and they’re always a great band live.  But the point of this gig was the album ‘Moving Pictures.’  It was the first Rush album I bought and the first serious record to which I tried to learn the drum parts.  It is as near and dear to my heart as damn near anything.

But I did not see the ‘Moving Pictures’ Tour so I missed out on some of the songs.  ‘Tom Sawyer,’ ‘Red Barchetta,’ ‘YYZ,’ and ‘Limelight’ I’ve heard in concert before.  But never the second half, ‘The Camera Eye,’ ‘Witch Hunt,’ nor ‘Vital Signs.’

This was not only those songs but in order.  It was the centerpiece of the show.  As long as I hear that, it didn’t really matter was else they played.  That’s how much of a nerd I am.

Well, let me just tell you something, those boys really know how to play.

In all the times I’ve heard them, I have never heard them this crisp.  Last night, they were as tight as any band I ever heard.  Normally, I like a loose sound.  Music should be loose and allowed to breathe, but prog rock can’t be.  It’s intricate and complex and it has to be tight.

Their standard comedic videos opened Act I and II, and closed the show (the last video always being designed to keep the audience in their chairs while the band slips away, that way they don’t get caught in the traffic, sneaky bastards!).  They were funny, and wildly racially offensive, delving into Irish and Jewish stereotypes.

The set list from Act I, for those of you nerdy enough to care was: The Spirit of Radio, Time Stand Still, Presto, Stick It Out, Workin’ Them Angels, Leave That Thing Alone, Faithless, BU2B, Freewill, Marathon, and Subdivisions.

Act II was: Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ, Limelight, The Camera Eye, Witch Hunt, Vital Signs, Caravan, Drum Solo, Closer to the Heart (with a great acoustic intro by Alex), 2112 Overture/Temples of Syrinx, and Far Cry.

The encore was: La Villa Strangiato, and Working Man.

Most of those songs I’ve heard live but there were surprises such as Faithless, Presto, Marathon, and Far Cry.  BU2B and Caravan are new and rocked my little johnnies like mad.

The big spiritual surprise of the night was 2112 Overture and Temples of Syrinx.  I’ve never heard any of the 2112 Suite before and so that was very cool.

And let’s not forget.  Working Man, a Zepplin-esque stomper was actually done – at least the first half of it – as an upbeat Calypso/reggae thing.  Very odd, but oddly cool.

The lighting tech was brilliant, as it always is.  The sound was crystal clear if a tiny bit bass heavy sometimes.  The sight lines were great and the constant billow of smoke (meant to fill the upper strata of the venue so the lights would look more cool) wasn’t a problem at all.

The only problem I had with tech was the pyro.  There were only three instances of pyro and they all seemed completely random.  I know there were connections to the songs and that’s great, but the execution sometimes puzzled me.  I realize you’re not going to get Kiss-sized pyro at a Rush show, but I think it would have been just fine to leave them out all together.

During intermission, some local radio yahoo came out and announced that, because they band was so thankful everyone came back after the rain-out, everyone in the audience was getting a free tour cap.  It’s their standard merchandise cap, but it had been printed with ‘Chicago Rain Date, 2010′ on the back.

No where else on tour.  Can’t buy ‘em (except now there are problem some on eBay).  It was, I thought, a very cool gesture by a very cool band that – ticket price not withstanding – generally treats its audiences and fans well.

It was an incredible show that meant much more to me than just another concert by a favorite group.  ‘Moving Pictures’ was absolutely foundational to my drumming.  It was the first time I realized that even rock drummers could stretch.  They didn’t have to play just back beats.

Neil Peart proved to me, at age 13, I could play anything I wanted as long as it fit the song and kept that beat driving forward. Peart led me to Simon Phillips and Alan White and Bill Bruford and Billy Cobham and all those drummers who guided me through high school through their own music.

But he also showed me that drummers aren’t just drummers, they can be – and should be – percussionists.  Well-rounded, able to add anything to the mix sonically.  Listen to ‘Closer to the Heart.’  Hear those bells?  Hear the chimes?  Orchestral instruments played by a drummer.

And listen to the time signatures.  4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8.  Sometimes within the same damn song!

It was an incredible evening and one – as cheesy as it sounds – I won’t soon forget.  Was it too expensive?  Yes.  Was it too far away?  Yes.  Was it a nightmare getting into and out of Chicago?  Yes.

But was it worth it?  Abso – fucking – lutely.

And that’s all I have to say about it.  However, I have quite a few more crappy and semi-crappy pictures from my cell phone.  So enjoy as well as you can.

Of Killers in Nashville

August 23, 2010 – 3:20 pm by Trey
Category » All Things Literary

I expected writers, discussion of books and the philosophy of literature….

I got bottles of whiskey, reproductions of ancient Greek temples, and Japanese World War II rifles.

Welcome to Nashville, baby!

I’ve been to 24 or 25 convention and yet had never been to Killer Nashville.  Seeing as how we have friends in Nashville who I hadn’t seen in ten years, we decided to go.  After all, it would be a nice, easy seven hour drive through beautiful country.

Uh…no.

The drive down was a disaster.  First of all, I have back problems and as I get older, they get worse.  So the fabulous little Mustang with bucket seats…that rides like a fabulous little Mustang with bucket seats…kills me worse every long trip I take in it.

And then, along a particular stretch of interstate in southern Illinois, the Illinois State Police had gone berserk.  In a twenty or thirty mile stretch, they were stopping everything.  Hmmm, we were close to Kentucky, the capital of the meth world?  Uh…yeah.

Once we got through that, we hit the worst construction in the history of man.  We were stopped more than not and crawling when not.  It was the worst I’d ever been in and I lived in Denver for ten years so that’s quite a feat.

But…we also got to see the cross.

I’m not really sure what it is, or why it’s there, but it’s big.  You can see it for miles.  We didn’t have a place to pull over so I could get my gear out so I snapped a few with the phone.

Eventually, we made it to the hotel, got checked in, and realized we were starving.   When we went food-trolling, we immediately came across a Famous Dave’s.  Yes, it’s a chain, but it’s not bad and I had no clue where there might be any nearby Mom and Pop barbeque.

So we did that.  But during the weekend we also had some great Mexican, Sonic burgers, and Schlotski’s sandwiches.  Food-wise, the weekend rocked my black little heart.

Friday afternoon I gave my cold case presentation and it went swimmingly well.  The audience, made up of writers, wannabe writers, and cops, were mostly three steps ahead of me the entire afternoon.  Lots of questions, lots of interaction.  It was great.

But we did have to start late so I filled the time with cop jokes.  The writers tittered nervously while the cops laughed their asses off.

Friday night we went to see some dear friends, Randy and Stephanie Fox.  Randy is one of the greatest writers in the history of…well, certainly Nashville, maybe all of Tennessee…(who doesn’t write enough fiction!) and we hadn’t seen them in ten years.

And, fabulously, it started as a meeting of whiskey.  Randy works for Jack Daniel’s and I’d asked him to pick up a bottle of something for a friend’s birthday, and another pint of something for a friend who drinks Jameson’s because ‘merican hooch is too rough.

He’d brought those but also brought me a bottle of high-dollar Woodford Reserve.

Ahh…writers, barbeque, and lots of whiskey.  So far so good.

After dinner, we went to Casa Fox to hang.  During the hanging, Randy showed me his collection of World War II rifles.  It was sort of odd to sight in a Japanese rifle that still had the chrysanthemum stamped on the barrel, but sort of cool, too.

Late Friday night I spent hanging in the hotel bar where a ton of people who’d seen the presentation bought me drinks and gave me their theories. And a bunch of people who hadn’t seen the presentation bought me drinks, asked me about it, and then gave me their theories.

But I also drank with young writers who believed I knew something about everything because I know people.  It’s great to be a bit older and have met just about everyone in the industry.  See, the young kids who don’t know any better think I actually know these people.  That I call them and hang out and eat at their million dollar houses.  Shhhh…don’t tell them otherwise….

Saturday dawned as a day of no panels and no requirements.  Good thing, too, because LuAnn ended up quite ill.  She wouldn’t have been able to make it through any panels.  (though how hilarious would it have been for me to make a statement and LuAnn vomit at exactly that moment…sort of metaphoric and gastric all at the same time!)

Saturday afternoon I spent with Bill and Lisa Garramone’s house.  Bill I’ve known since the 5^th grade and his wife Lisa for about five weeks.  My dear friend Brad was there from Atlanta, too.  Sadly, my schedule had changed at the convention so I didn’t get as much time for them as I’d wanted.

But the time we did have was great.  I walked in the damned door and Bill – who’d played for the opposing high school’s drum line when we were in school – cranked up two videos of their line at contests from 1983 and 1984.  And yeah, both were tapes of contests THEY won, not us so that was nice for the old ego.  Thanks, Bill!

And while I watched, his wife tried to get me drunk on vodka punch.  She’s a beautiful woman no doubt, and normally I’d love a big, Amazonian blonde getting me drunk, but I just kept thinking about how to get my current high school line to play like the Midland High School line circa 1983.

Hehehe…how’s that for priorities?

After the video, Bill said, “Let’s go to the Parthenon.”

Seeing as how he’s a professional musician who’s played everywhere and knows everyone, I figured it was a recording studio or a club.

No, it’s the Parthenon.

You know…Greece?  Big building, mostly fallen over?  Foundation of western civilization blah blah blah?

Yeah, Nashville has one.

Why?  Who the hell knows.  It was built in 1893 or some shit, out of chicken wire and plaster of Paris for some low-rent World’s Fair or something, alongside a reproduction of a pyramid.  For whatever reason, Nashville decided to rebuild it in stone.  But they let the pyramid go because that would have been to gauche or something.

But this thing is absolutely incredible!

The scale is 1:1.  That is, it is exactly the size of the broken-down old one in Greece.  Let me tell you, standing next to the outside columns was delightfully humbling.

Much like my ego, this thing is gynormous!  And when you walk in, you come around a corner and see a 41 foot tall statue of Athena.  And doors that weigh about 3.75 tons each.

But the experience was marred, as so many of my experiences are, by the cops.  There was a moment when I thought we’d get arrested (and how come I always assume I’m going to get arrested when I’m hanging with Brad?).

There’s no photography or cell phone usage in one particular part of the museum, see, and Brad yanked his phone out.  Lisa had called him, see, to talk to Bill…who’d left his phone at home.  I assume he did that so he wouldn’t have to talk to Lisa.  But see, she was smart enough to call Brad and demand he give the phone to Bill.

At which point a security guard strolled by.  I think she was swinging her baton like an old beat cop and she might have growled deep in her throat once or twice.   Brad’s eyes swelled up like he’d been punched and we all started digging through our pockets for bail money.

But rather than hauling us in, she snapped a finger toward the exit.  While we didn’t speed out, we certainly moved quickly.

Though the building was amazing, every once in a while I’d laugh because come on…in Nashville?  Just randomly?  There is one exact replica of this thing in the world and it’s Nashville?  The absurdity of that just makes me laugh.

After, we went back to their place and I don’t think Bill or Lisa were particularly pleased with my instructions to their 2-year old daughter on how – exactly – to best dance a pole…you know, should she ever need to.

I had to leave to go check on LuAnn and her condition made it such that I couldn’t get back to them, which left me sad.  But for the few hours I had, they were great fun, which is exactly how I remember Bill.

Sunday morning was my panel with other cops.  It was great, except for one little problem that needed tweaking.  And no, I won’t mention that tweak publicly, but if you buy me a beer or a shot in San Francisco, I’ll tell you all about it.

Great questions and the audience seemed very hip to learning about law enforcement.  It was a great panel, too, because the other guys were retired and had worked different areas of large departments.  I was active duty and with a small department so the audience go a great breadth of experience.

Overall, it was a great convention.  Sold a few books, met a few fans, made a few more.  And met some very hip writers and people.  Gina Shade and Matthew Funk, Jessica and Lee Verday.  Gary Jones.  Ernie Lancaster.  It was a good weekend, just what I needed.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot.  I also saw a lady who’s fast becoming one of my dearest friends.  Margery Flax, the biggest of the big wheels with MWA.  It was great seeing her.  And while she did kiss my cheek at one point, she also knocked me up for a hundred bucks.

Man, with friends like these….

“I’m Spartacus.” “I’m Spartacus.” “I am Spartacus.”

August 23, 2010 – 11:28 am by Trey
Category » Random Thoughts

The ten highest paid authors in the world.

(hint, together, they made $270 million in twelve months…or $2.25 million PER MONTH…each….)

10)       J.K Rowling, $10 million

9)         Nicholas Sparks, $14 million

8)         John Grisham, $15 million

7)         Janet Evanovich, $16 million

6)         Dean Koontz, $18 million

5)         Ken Follett, $20 million

4)         Danielle Steele, $32 million

3)         Stephen King, $34 million

2)         Stephanie Meyer, $40 million

1)         James Patterson, $70 million

Patterson’s latest contract, which he signed last fall, has him delivering 17 books by the end of 2012.  And for that unbelievable feat – because gosh, how can someone who writes longhand write 17 novels in two years? – he’ll be paid $100 million.

And here’s what he had to say to The Guardian (UK) a couple years ago: “I’m certainly not a world-class stylist. But the storytelling is pretty cool….”

The storytelling is pretty cool.

That is a top-shelf wordsmith right there, baby, top-shelf.

How, you might wonder, does he write so many books?

He doesn’t.  Sorry to burst the bubble of any fans who read both him and me (and I suspect there are damn few of those, but you never know….)  Mr. Patterson pens nearly none of the words in his books.

Don’t believe?

He laid it out for The Guardian.  He told them he works with “…collaborators in a back-and-forth process whereby he supplies detailed plot outlines, then edits drafts written by others.”

In other words, “Here’s my idea, you write it, I’ll change a word or two, put my name on it, and cash the check.”

And so all of the collaborators get to be, fleetingly, James Patterson.

This shit makes me crazy.  I have never read an interview with him or article about him or summary of a speech he’s given in which he talks about craft (and please correct me if I’m wrong…cuz I’d surely love to hear his philosophy of literature). Not a word about craft or style, just about – and I kid you not on this – market penetration and display advantage.

And you want a lesson in no press is bad press?  That everything is usable somehow?  There was a review in the Chicago Sun-Times that included this: “James Patterson has mastered the art (if you can call it that) of writing mindless, page-turning bestsellers that sell millions of copies, then disappear as quickly as last night’s fast-food meal.”

Here is the quote as it (still) appears in his promotional material: “Patterson has mastered the art of writing page-turning bestsellers – Chicago Sun-Times.”

This man is ruining publishing.  Not literature because there will always be actual writers, people who give a shit about the written word and don’t spend every waking moment figuring out how to commodify literature and then wring every possible cent out of it, but publishing.  He’s leading publishers down a path whereby they expect every writer to be James Patterson.

Luckily, most of us aren’t that fucking idiotic.

CopStories: Skid Marks and Laughter

August 18, 2010 – 7:13 pm by Trey
Category » CopStories

She was there.  Instantly.

I yelped.

There had been nothing.  As I crested the hill on one of our back roads, the road had been empty.

It’s a long road, eight or nine miles with no turns and no stop signs.  Lots of hills and a good speed can give the sensation of a roller coaster.

I was patrolling.  Listening to tunes, windows open, fresh air, my arm hanging out the window.

On those back roads, I tend to stay all the way right.  I assume, especially during this time of year, there will be some farmer’s big-ass tractor coming up the other side.  I’ve worked too many wrecks and the car always loses.

(It’s the Lug Nut Rule: the driver with the most lug nuts always win the smash up.)

Then, as I crested, suddenly, explosively, there she was.

I yanked the wheel right, my throat suddenly as dry as my beloved west Texas desert.  I jerked my left hand back inside, convinced I was going to lose it.

My squad went into the grass while the other car somehow slid past me without taking my mirror or grabbing bumper.

I don’t know, even now, how fast they were going.  At the time, the machine was more bullet than car.  A smear of dark metal that growled and winked as it passed.

It laughed, too.

Yeah, it might have been tires on hot asphalt or the wind, but it damn sure sounded like a laugh.

And it kept laughing.  The car disappeared over the hill, down the far side, into the distance, and still it fucking laughed.

It still laughs sometimes.  Late at night sometimes.  Sometimes when I’m coming over another hill.

Even dreamed about it once.

Laughing and laughing and all I want to do is shoot that fucking car until it’s not just dead but completely dead.

I cranked my ass over that hill and I was so angry.  I yelled and screamed in my squad car.  It drowned out my tunes – and that’s going some volume, let me tell you – because the driver had scared me so badly.

I’ve discovered, in this job, I don’t do well when I get scared.  Maybe it’s my need to be in control.  Maybe it’s my need to feel in control if not actually be in control.  But when something scares me, and it happens less and less the more experience I get under my Bat Belt, I get angry.

My reaction is to lash out.

Not violently.  Not even verbally too often.  But in my head and heart.  In my soul.

In the reactions I want to give, rather than the reactions I do give.

So I came over the hill, ready to yank a traffic stop and write her some tickets.

But the road – for at least the mile I could see – was completely, utterly empty.

“Son of a bitch.”

Either the car was going much faster than I’d realized or it had ducked into a driveway to hide.

But what about those skid marks?

The road was a riot of skid marks.

They traveled from deep in the right side ditch, across the road with four distinct marks visible (means the car was yawing sideways in a broad slide) and into the ditch on the left.

And through the ditch into the tress and bushes.

Which were torn to pieces.

My heart sank.  I’ve worked those kinds of wrecks before and if they don’t end by calling the coroner, they damn sure end with gouts of blood and ambulances flying to the nearest hospital and ashen-faced doctors.

The car was deep off the road.

Totaled.

And upside down.

I slid to a stop and jumped on the radio.

“Dispatch, I was almost head-on’d.  The car’s in the ditch.  Roll-over, dispatch, roll over.  Send me everything.”

“BU 30, repeat your traffic?”

“I got a roll-over, dispatch.  Send me everything.  Ambo and fire.  Now!”

I had no idea what was what, who was dead or not, who was injured or not.

Except these kids were getting out of the car.

I was stunned.

One kid.  Two kids.  Walking around, obviously freaked out.  But walking away from that mangled car.

Three kids.

I jumped out of my squad and ran to them, yelling at them to get out.  The day before I’d had a teen-ager kit a utility pole and her car exploded.  She’d barely gotten out before it was an inferno.  I was scared I’d see another car fire and it wouldn’t end as well.

Four kids.

“Out out,” I yelled at the fifth kid.  She was crawling around inside the car.

“I’m getting my cell phone,” she said.

“The hell you are.  Get out.  Right now.”

Then I grabbed her and half-dragged her out.  When I got her standing, she was covered in blood.  Her entire face, hairline to neck.  Blood everywhere.

Blood that smelled like…strawberries.

“Where are you hurt?”  I started checking her for injuries.

“It’s soda,” her boyfriend said, a hysterical laugh bubbling out of his throat.  “She was drinking soda.”

None of them, five kids, were hurt.  Three ambulances showed up and all the kids – or their parents – refused treatment.  Other than one minor cut, there were no injuries at all.

WTF?

None?  That might have freaked me out even more than the near accident itself.  I had expected, if not five bodies, then certainly five transports to hospitals.

By this time, I was getting myself under control.  It was like I’d compartmentalized the two incidents.  One was the near-miss involving me.  The second was their accident.  Didn’t matter that their accident was because of their near-miss.

The accident happened because they were going too fast and were so inexperienced that they overcorrected and went too far right, then overcorrected against and slid across the road into the trees, which then flipped the car over.

Ultimately, I called a supervisor, who came out and then called the accident reconstructionist.  I didn’t handle the accident (duh…conflict of interest, anyone?) but I did look at the skid marks and the hot tar we’d both driven through.

That soft tar laid it all out.  She was nearly a foot over centerline, though the tar hadn’t a clue how fast she’d been going.  The sheer amount of skid marks proved to the driver’s mother she’d been going entirely too fast.

But I’d have done the same thing.  Being 17, a car full of friends, listening to tunes, talking and laughing, I’d have been driving too fast, too.  And I’d probably have been too far over the center line.

How neither of us ended up dead or in a coma is still beyond me.

And though I’m over it now, there are still days when I hear that car’s fucking laugh.

…uh…what?

August 13, 2010 – 7:07 pm by Trey
Category » ...uh...what?

Okay, so this was a third person, said to a second person, about something the first person (me) had been involved in.

“If they’re still holding the menu, leave them the fuck alone.”

Hehehehe…there was a whole dust-up on Facebook about my bitching about a crappy waitress I had in Peo – oops – in another town recently.  I mentioned how bad she was and a friend went off the deep end defending wait staff of all kinds, not just shitty ones.  Then some other people said something and then I said something and then it was a whole ‘poopy-storm.’

Thus Spake The Queens (…uh…what?)

August 8, 2010 – 7:17 pm by Trey
Category » ...uh...what?

I love when friends send me great material.  I didn’t hear these, but apparently they were said not only in public, but in answer to questions asked by judges.

Question: “What book are you reading right now?”

Answer: “I’m reading the book…called…um…I forgot what it’s called.  Sorry.”

Question: “If you could be anyone for a day, who would you be and why?”

Answer: “If I could be anyone for a day I would be Adam Sandler, because his movies are hilarious so he has to have a funny life.”

Question: “If you were a spokesperson for any product what would it be?”

Answer: “High heel.  Because I love them and am enjoying wearing them right now.”

Question: “If this pageant required you to have a platform, which would you choose?”

Answer: “The one in the middle so I wouldn’t be too far up or down.”

On The Road: Monday…Day Seven…mile after mile after mile….

July 31, 2010 – 6:13 pm by Trey
Category » Random Thoughts

Tulsa, OK to Princeton, IL: 620 miles

Music for this leg: again, Brad and I wouldn’t shut up long enough to listen to music.

What I read before bed that night: nothing.  I was too exhausted from driving.

Up early Monday morning and off we went.  I was so full of sunshine and good cheer.  I could hear the birds singing and the frogs a’froggin’.  The sun was up and so was I and it was going to be a great day.

Twenty minutes after I got in the car, I was thinking about the Seventh Circle of Hell.  And that circle, we all remember from English Lit, is about violence.

Thinking about violence cause I wanted to blow my brains out.

By Monday morning, I was the road.  I was permanently transfixed by the passing yellow lines, by the passing mile markers.  And I sure as hell felt like the car had driven over me about a hundred times.

(sort of like that video of ten or fifteen years ago where the woman in Houston repeatedly ran over her husband in the hotel parking lot?  yeah…here’s a tip…don’t commit murder on video tape!  Takes all the fun out of investigating it)

It was a great trip, don’t get me wrong, but my ass was permanently shaped to that bucket seat.  I’ll take the shaping because it was such a good weekend, with great friends, lots of sales, but enough was enough.

There was nothing interesting on the Tulsa to Princeton leg.  It was nothing but miles and miles and then more miles.

Well, except for the donkey.

Not a real donkey, mind you.  A picture of a donkey.

A crime donkey.

Brad and I stopped for lunch at a Jack in the Box in the middle of nowhere.  That wasn’t so interesting because Jack in the Box isn’t so interesting.  In fact, this one was naaaassssty.  Way nastier than the West Wind in Midland.

But it had this picture of Larry the Crime Donkey.

At the time, I had absolutely no context.   It was a picture on the wall.

Ah, but through the miracle of the Intertubes (for that reference, see Senator Ted Stevens, once from Alaska, now mostly a joke) I now see Larry the Crime Donkey was an actual ad.

Wow.  Good one.

Not being much of a Jack in the Box fan, I guess I missed the whole “Let’s parody McGruff the Crime Dog ‘cause that’ll sell hamburgers” bit.  Too bad for me.

After lunch, Brad and drove.  Mile after mile after mile…until we finally reached Illinois.  It was sort of a celebration because we were now at least within shouting distance of Princeton.  So in celebration, Brad snapped a quick pic of the Arch.

And no, I didn’t stop because that would have kept us on the road longer.  I told that boy, “Shoot it while we drive, bitch, I ain’t stopping for nothing.  I’m a mad man with nothing to lose.”

Or words to that effect.

I love the abandoned parking garage as a foreground visual.  Not sure why.

…and then more and more and more driving and finally…ultimately, we were in Princeton.

So this nightmarish drive, during which I had such a ball and so many laughs, was how many miles total?

Two-thousand, five hundred…and four.

What?  I can’t even get my head around a number that big.  No wonder my back and my ass were broken.

But it had been a great trip.  Set aside all the books I sold, and that I discovered a type of reading and signing that I like much better than bookstores, and I have just the friends.  It was incredible to rediscover them all.  To walk where I’d once walked and see if my feet still fit in those footprints.

Mostly they did.

I was sad to see the state of my town, but excited to see the state of my people who still lived in that town.  They were vibrant and alive and exciting.  They were exactly who they’d been lo those many years ago.

So I want to offer a giant thanks, as I wrap this up, to Chris and Lori, to Grandmother Smith, to Sassy and my mother Alison, to Bryan and Rachel and Cary and Nicole, and to the gang in Midland.  I’ve written about them so much you’re probably sick of them, but they are me and every once in a while, I think I should remember that.

Brad, Amy, Debbie, and the Federale Harvey Bangwaller.  You guys are why my trip was so great.

I’ve not read much Thomas Wolfe, but his 1940 novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, is quoted (and misquoted and misapplied by miscreants) all the time.  Let’s look at the actual realization George Webber has at the end of the book, shall we?

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”

George Webber looks back in bitter disappointment and I understand that.  There are slices of the past which leave me bitter, too.  But as I get older, I’m learning to leave those things by the side of the road (under the heels of a Texas DPS Trooper no doubt) and get the fuck on with life.  I’ve had a heart attack.  I’ve had cancer.  I’ve got a bad back.  Life is too frappin’ short to worry about something I might have done to someone 35 years ago.  Apologize for it in your heart, promise to treat people better from here on out, and move on, bitch.

And while this trip left me melancholoy at the changes in Midland’s face, it left me revitalized at the stableness of those in Midland I love.  Yes, time has stomped on down the road, but memories of my people, and our collective expectation of what each of us can and should accomplish, filled the well of my soul.

Maybe Wolfe is right.  Maybe you can’t go home again, but you sure as shit can go whizzing past at 79 miles an hour and get an eyeful!

I took Brad to the airport in Chicago and then I was back at work.  Rested.  Recharged.  Ready to face humanity.

And then?

My first speeder of the week.

“Ma’am, is there any reason you were driving 91 miles an hour in a 55 mile an hour zone?”

“I had a leg cramp.”

It was all I could do to not laugh myself into a coma.

I was home.  And I was off and running!

CopStories: Reason #267 Why I was Speeding….

July 31, 2010 – 7:42 am by Trey
Category » CopStories

“I had a leg cramp.”

“Really?  Must have been a bad one.”

“What?”

“Well, you were going 91 miles an hour.”

“Oh.”

“In a 55.”

“Oh.”

“And I’ve been chasing you for nearly six miles.”

“That’s bad.”

“With lights and siren.”

“That’s pretty bad.”

“Yes, ma’am.  Sign right here.”

…uh…what?

July 31, 2010 – 7:39 am by Trey
Category » ...uh...what?

“It feels funny to hug you when you have all this stuff on.  You’re just so hard, and everywhere I move my hands there’s something sticking up.”

Said to me by a friend who was trying to give me a quick hug when I got back in town, but while I was on duty (thus wearing a vest with a hard breastplate and my belt chock full-o-police goodies).  About halfway through the comment, she went bright red and her voice sort of faded away.  I’m pretty sure I thought it was funnier than she did.