I've spent much of the past two days getting this new computer up and running. Much of that time was devoted to getting the darn thing to hook up with the router downstairs. I've just finished installing the printer/scanner/ fax, and that was another hair-pulling treat. With luck I'm over the worst of the problems and can get back to some more entertaining blogging. I still need to give Robert Horton and Ward Bond eyeballs, and I have some other Marx character figures to show you.

Today also marks the end of a ten-day hiatus from work. Getting up early will be hard, come morning.

Classes start today for my two college girls. I wish them luck and good grades. 

I've been reading a lot of Trailsman books lately. These are entertaining, well-written, breezy stories about Skye Fargo, a leather-clad stud who travels the Old West busting baddies and bedding babes. Just the ticket if you don't want to get bogged down with dense, ponderous tomes.

One Moment, Please

I've been trying to get my new computer set up and as feared I'm having trouble getting the darn thing to pick up the router signal, so I can't get on line with it. Two trips to my server's HQ netted me nothing, but they have been very helpful. Tomorrow I'm taking the tower, which is about the size of the UN building, to Net Venture's shop and see what they can do. The problem seems to be that the unit is so new they don't have any references for it. I'm using Kristine's computer for now, but it doesn't have all my bookmarks and handy widgets. I don't even know if this will post.

I can use the computer for other things, f course. I've watched a movie, listened to music, worked on my OWLHOOT zine, and played a lot of games. I haven't played chess in decades, but I regularly beat the computer. Obviously it wa not programmed by Mr. Spock.

Went to the casino today and bet 75 cents on a slot machine spin. I had five Scatters pop up and won $150. Hee-Haw!

Sunrise, Sunset

This morning we drove the baby to Seattle, where she will start college. What an empty home this is now. Seems like only last week she was starting pre-school. Here are photos of Kristine at 22 months and 18 years. Where did the time go?

The Story With No Name, Part 8

There's a round robin story wending its way through various blogs and I foolishly agreed to take a turn. You can see the other seven parts by looking at Dave Lewis's excellent blog: Here's my shot:

Marshal Heck Stryker grunted.


“I’ll get rich charging folks four bits a head to watch you hang.”

“Chicken feed,” Walt said. “I’m talking about millions in Spanish gold. You’ll live like the Duke of Prussia.”

“Who?”

Arnside sighed. “No matter. What matters is I can find that treasure ship. Throw in with me and you share the bounty.”

Stryker screwed his face into a contemplative mask, which made him look dumber than usual.

“If you’re worried about Zack Roden,” Walt said, “we can sneak away tonight. By the time he learns we’re gone he’ll be picking breakfast from his teeth. Besides, he won’t know where we’re headed.”

Stryker smiled like a bullfrog who’d speared a fly. “It’s a deal, but heed me. I’ll tote your gun. If you even think about crossing me I’ll sink you with your own lead.”

“Done. Now, loose me from this stink hole.”



Stryker led Walt to the rear of Choo How’s Mortuary, cutting through back alleys in order not to be seen. They entered the unlocked rear entrance. Choo was in the room where he built caskets, laughing .

“Evening, Choo,” the burly marshal said.

Choo jumped up. The laughter ceased. An expression of wide-eyed shock replaced his normally inscrutable countenance. Choo quickly pasted on a smile and kowtowed to the occidentals.

“Ah, marshal, you scare Choo.”

Walt stepped forward. “Where’s the body of Silas Bartlett. He was killed in the attack on the train, burned up pretty bad.”

Choo’s smile widened. “Poor man. Back side all black. Front not so bad.”

“Where’s is he?” Stryker demanded.

Choo indicated a plank coffin, nothing like the opulence Bartlett enjoyed in life. Stryker and Arnside pried the lid off. Bartlett was sunk deeply into rough batting obviously arranged to hide charred flesh. He wore a broadcloth suit, white shirt with celluloid collar, and red vest. Shined boots covered his feet.

Stryker rifled Bartlett’s pockets. Nothing.

“Where’s his goods, Choo?”

Choo fetched a small wooden box.

Walt went through this. Empty wallet, turnip watch, insignificant papers.

“Something wrong?” Stryker asked.

“There’s no map.”

Stryker turned on Choo. “Well, Chinaman?”

“Choo no see.”

Stryker grabbed Choo’s left hand and bent the pinkie finger back. A sharp snap brought an agonized scream from the smaller man.

“The map?”

Give Choo credit, he didn’t surrender the map easily. Stryker broke three of Choo’s fingers and a thumb first.



Outside, Stryker and Arnside made their way to the livery stable. The dead drunk hostler was deaf to the sounds of the men saddling their horses.

“We’ll tie the horses behind the jail. I got supplies in there I keep handy,” Stryker said.

Ten minutes later, with a sack of provisions tied to Walt’s saddle, Stryker turned to his new partner and smiled his ugly smile. “No use waiting,” he said. “Time to dissolve the partnership.”

Walt looked at the .44 aimed at his gut. “Knew you’d show your colors, just didn’t expect it so soon. Go ahead and shoot. Wake Roden.”

Stryker held the revolver steady as he slid a Green River knife from a sheath on his belt.

“Reckon this’ll take you out quieter.”

He took a step towards Walt. The leering lawman’s advance stopped when he heard a wet splat. Then he felt what caused it. His knees buckled and a moment later he was face down in the dust.

Walt looked at the marshal’s recumbent form, then beyond it. There stood Lola, a length of lumber in her hands dripping goo.

“Okay, cowboy, let’s ride.”

Walt gathered Stryker’s weapons and mounted up. Lola climbed aboard Stryker’s horse.

“Like you said, lady, let’s ride.”

    

    

Here"s the cover for my next book, due out next March. Start saving your dimes.

PUH-LEEESE!

An Experiment

These are lead copies of the Marx Flint McCullough and Major Seth Adams figures from the Wagon Train playset, painted by YHOS. If you look closely you can see that I left the eyes unfinished. That's because I bought some eye decals way back when I did this but never applied them. We shall see how they work out when I apply them and run the new, improved figures Real Soon Now.
Wagon Train aired from Sep 1957 to Sep 1965; on NBC until 1962, and ABC the remaining three years. In my mind the best years were the ones that featured Maj. Adams (Ward Bond) and McCullough (Robert Horton). Bond died in 1961 and was replaced by John McIntire, Horton left in 1962 and both Scott Miller and Robert Fuller took over his scouting chores. Regulars who remained throughout the series were Frank McGrath as Charlie Wooster the cook, and Terry Wilson as Bill Hawks.
One of the show's execs was Gene Roddenberry. When he went to pitch a new s-f show to producers, Star Trek, he called it "Wagon Train in space."
The first time I noticed an appaloosa horse was the one Horton rode on Wagon Train. I thought it was the strangest horse I ever saw. Years later, when I became acquainted with appies, I knew for certain they are strange. It seems every one of them has some quirk or another. I've grown to like their looks, though.

Dale X 2 and a Bullet

And now, here on our stage...Dale Evans and Bullet. The Dale on the left is Marx's 54mm figure. The one on the right is Dale in 60mm. Bullet is made to go with the 60mm pose. There were a number of Roy and/or Dale Marx playsets. I owned a Roy Rogers Rodeo set, which was the first Marx playset I ever had (and I can't recall having any character figures in it). According to one source there were two Roy Rogers Double R Bar Ranch sets, one RR Mineral City set, three RR Ranch sets, four RR Rodeo sets, five RR Rodeo Ranch sets, and four RR Western Town sets. Roy and Dale (and Pat Brady at times) showed up in more Marx playsets than any other celebrities. Personally, I think the 60mm Dale looks pretty saucy.

El Zorro

We saw the other five character figures from the Zorro playset, now we have El Zorro himself. Since he's mounted on a black horse it must be Tornado. In the show he also rode a white horse named Phantom. Zorro, of course, was played by Guy Williams. Like most kids of that time I watched the show faithfully and was badly disappointed when it was canceled. Many years later, when I learned that the cancellation was due to a dispute between Disney and ABC, I was irate.

More Zorro Figures

On the left is El Commandante ( Captain Monastario, played by Britt Lomand) and on the right Sergeant Garcia (played by Disney stalwart Henry Calvin).

Zorro aired from Oct 1957 to Sep 1959 on ABC at 8 o'clock. One of the best marketing tie-ins, after the playset, was the Zorro sword. A piece of chalk could be inserted into the tip so the kids could carve a Z with their blades. I had a Zorro board game. If I'd had a sword I would have put my eye out.

The de la Vega Household

From Louis Marx & Co comes this set of character figures from their Zorro playset, based on the Disney TV show. From left to right we have Bernardo, Don Diego, and Don Alejandro de la Vega. I have a partial set. My tin litho hacienda is missing the plastic stairs and patio, and I don't have the cuartel. Next up: El Commandante and Sgt. Garcia.

New Heading

How do you like the new heading? Thanks to Dave "Evan" Lewis for creating it. It'll probably rotate with a Western-themed one as the months go by.

Yo, Rinty!

Toymaker Louis Marx & Co. made a lot of Fort Apache playsets, issuing one annually for 20 years. One of the best was the Rin Tin Tin Fort Apache playset. I got one for Christmas around 1958. It contained 60mm figures as opposed to the usual 54mm in other Western sets, and some of the poses were outstanding. Also included were characters from the TV show The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, 1954-1959.

The show featured an orphan, Rusty B. Company (Lee Aaker) and his German shepherd, Rin Tin Tin, both of whom had been adopted as mascots for B Troop, Fort Apache. Despite the fact that the real Fort Apache didn't have stockade walls or a totem pole and that the Indians in the set didn't look like Apaches, it was still a swell playset.

Pictured are the character figures from the set (l-r): Lt. Rip Masters (James Brown), Rinty, and Rusty. No, not the King of Soul James Brown. In some areas of the country Rusty was released without the rifle. I always thought Marx missed the boat by omitting Sgt. Biff O'Hara as a character figure, but I suppose they couldn't get them all. The other regular on the series was Trooper Boone, played by Rand Brooks.

Rinty was portrayed by three different dogs over the course of the show, two of which were descendants of the original Rin Tin Tin, whose movie career was launched in 1922.

More trivia: Lee Aaker was one of the campers in the original Spin & Marty series. The same dog figure was used as Roy Rogers' pet, Bullet, in the Roy Rogers playsets.

Wyatt Earp in 54mm

I'm horning in on Dave Lewis's idea of running pictures of Marx playset character figures. I'm even stealing his first presentation, Wyatt Earp. But I'm carrying it one step further. The unpainted photo is Dave's, showing Wyatt as he was created about half a century ago. The second is a lead casting of Wyatt made from the same figure and painted by yours truly. Dave reports the Earp figure's value at $40. I think it might be twice that but with collector markets you never know.

Buzz

Forgot to mention the two biggest buzz words at WWC: platform and monetize.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I left New York before it happened, but I probably wouldn't have gone anyway. I remember the first time I saw the movie, however. I brought Anne M and wore my flower-print pants, which I still have. Waist size 29". The theater complex was next to the Winchester Mystery House in California. I was blown away by the performances, especially Joe Cocker, The Who, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. And Country Joe and the Fish, and Ten Years After, and Sha Na Na, and Jimi Hendrix, and Richie Havens, and all the others. Even Joan Baez and her bullshit tribute to David, the guy she later divorced.

WWC

I spent last weekend in Portland at the Willamette Writer's Conference. Thanks to the machinations of Dave "Evan" Lewis, noted short story writer, I was able to finesse a job in the Pitch Practice room, helping people fine tune their pitches. These people would later pitch their book/screenplay/TV show to an agent. They paid $20 for a 10-minute session with an agent and most of them didn't know what a pitch was. I heard lots of synopses, many of which were very skillfully and carefully prepared, but not many true pitches. It was my job to advise them of the difference. I wasn't paid.

Among the more memorable people I saw were: Debbie, who wrote a Hollywood tell-all about her days working parties dressed as Snow White and other characters; Marni, a 19-year-old writer; Chandara, an adorable 23-year-old with a mystery movie based on the characters in Alice in Wonderland; and Amy, who wrote a young adult fantasy. In fact, a lot of people wanted to pitch YA fantasies, no doubt hoping the Harry Potter lightning would strike twice. Three times if you count the scar on his forehead. There was Bradford, whose YA fantasy was 55,000 words too long and a very obvious Harry Potter knockoff. Blythe, Cindy, and John also had books in this vein.

I heard only one I thought was a dud. A woman pitched an HBO series about Catholic school girls (yeah, that part sounds okay), but had no real continuity and spent more time telling about budgets and camera techniques than the idea.

I attended five panels, nearly falling asleep in four of them. Not because I was bored, just tired. They were uniformly well-done and I enjoyed them. The subjects were promotion (parts one and two), creating characters, 101 Tips to Make Your Novel More Publishable (excellent handout), and one about grammar and usage (another good handout).

I had to pay $27/day for food--breakfast and lunch. It wasn't bad, but I could have eaten a lot better on that money elsewhere. Not that I'm complaiming. It was a good conference and I had fun as a pitch helper. A number of people thanked me later for my advice and it was good to hear that they'd crossed their first hurtle to publication--when an agent asks for more.

A Little Bit of Evan

Portland's Dave Lewis, who writes as Evan Lewis, just sold a short story to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It's slated to appear in the Feb 2010 issue. Way to go, Ev.

The Cost of Inoffensiveness

I was shopping yesterday and thought I should get a new deodorant as mine is running low. I use a stick type. The first thing I noticed was that all the deodorants were more expensive than when I bought my last one. So I started checking the unit price--in this case the cost-per-pound of each brand. I was astonished to see that the cheapest one was over $14/lb and one was over $100/lb. Meat is cheaper. You can buy a human being for less. This puts me on the horns of a dilemma. Should I eat fine steaks served by a gorgeous slave girl or slather some hexachlorophene in my armpits every morning?

Oh, and I decided to wait for a sale on B.O. juice since I still have some left. That'll give me time to cogitate on the matter.

July Continues

July 15. Happy Birthday to my older
sister, Wendy.

July 18. We kick off the rodeo at work. Not a western rodeo, but a competition between aircraft, crews, and ground equipment. Included was a crew from "Isreal," according to whoever made up the map of C-130 parking spots.

July 23. As part of the rodeo three survivors of the famous Doolittle Raid (see the movie 30 Seconds Over Tokyo if that name means nothing to you) were in attendance. I was thrilled to death to see these brave men and sneaked away for a few minutes to get an autograph. The card on this pages gives an historical and graphic outline of the raid. If you can't read the names they're R.E. Cole, Tom Griffin, and Ed Saylor.

July 18-today and beyond. Hot as hell and busy. Still getting rid of materiel other bases left behind.

July 24. Paid off second mortgage.

July 25. No hot water. Cool bath is not fun even in this weather. On same day installed faucet in the kitchen sink at my older girl's house. Took me hours to get over the vertigo I suffer from working on things above me--physically, not skill level.

July 25. Went to used book store to buy 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, On the Road, and The Day of the Locust. Used up so many brain cells remembering who wrote the latter I forgot 30 Seconds.

July 26. Got scalped at the casino. Linda won.

July 27. Plumber fixes water heater. Two thermostats and heating elements. Tells me what a great unit I have. Yeah, that's why it didn't last 10 years. Good-bye $608.93.

Three days left in the month. I hope the M's remember how to play baseball and the weather cools off. If I wanted this kind of misery I'd live in Arizona.

Tough Jim Gaston

Tough Jim Gaston, alias Brian Trainer, recently returned from Europe, where he played before the crowned heads of many nations. Well, heads of some type. Tough Jim is a dynamite guitarist who plays lead for top Northwest underground group The Moops as well as Portland band Rock Residue. He just had heart surgery and we here at Chez Cap'n wish him a full and speedy recovery.



The Moops: (l-r) Cap'n Bob Napier, Dave Lewis,
Tough Jim Gaston.

Opie's Pals

Yesterday I saw an early episode of The Andy Griffith Show. A group of Opie's friends were featured and among the gang were Rusty Stevens and Keith Thibidouix (which might be misspelled). If the names mean nothing to you, note that Rusty played Larry Mondello on Leave It to Beaver and Keith was Little Ricky on I Love Lucy.

I love catching moments like this.