NOTE: My novel "Key West" - which by the way has been selling more each month than it did the month before - will soon have company. The publisher, Wheelman Press, has requested that I write "Companion Episodes" - short novellas (60-ish pages long) which will at first be published only for Kindle, as we work to turn the whole Key West concept into an HBO-style series (are you listening HBO?)
There will be three companion episodes published later this year. The following is an abbreviated sample from the first, titled "One-Way Ticket."
If you haven't read the novel yet, what you need to know before reading this sample is that it is set in 1951, Key West, Florida. Papy is the local State Representative, and Trumbull the "Dear Cuz" columnist for the Miami Herald who is exposing all of Papy's corruption. These guys really existed. These are fictionalized adaptations of events that took place. Thanks again to Robert Silk, and now also to Tim O'hara for their research and support.
-------------
"Have you looked at the brief for Papy's case?" Davis asked, motioning toward the stack of papers on Judge McCarthur's desk.
"I have," McCarthur said. "Good read. It has a lot of plot twists."
"Have you given any thought to how it ends?"
"Davis, let's get one thing straight," said McCathur. "I don't like your boss, Bernie Papy. I think it would be poetic justice, after everything he's done, if he went down for puting a damn bill in some milk-toasts palm in the State Assembly building."
"Careful, your honor," Davis said soberly. "You're in danger of passing judgement before the trial begins."
"I'm not passing any kind of judgement. I'm sitting here having a bowl of soup, chatting informally with you. Passing judgement is what I do when I'm wearing a robe."
"Your honor," Davis said, shifting forward in his seat. "This is all a horrible misunderstanding. This trial is a sham."
"Not yet it isn't," McCarthur said. "But you'd better hope it becomes one. Judging from the mysterious disappearance of the FBI's star witness, this uh, this uh, Police Chief, Martins, it would seem maybe we are headed in that direction."
Davis was quiet for a moment, looking at the judge contemplatively.
"Dismiss the case," Davis said.
The judge did not respond right away. He picked up the bottle of wine from his desk and read the label again. "This is nice wine, Davis," he said. "I know Papy paid well for it." He set the bottle down and looked at Davis. "The case will move forward. Papy will have to make things look better than they do right now."
"Meaning what?" Davis asked.
"I want to retire well," the judge said. "Next year. Papy is guilty, sure as the nose on your face. Now I don't know what happened to this vanishing police chief. I don't want to know. What I'm saying is, Papy has to win in court, or at least appear to win in court. It has to look good."
The faintest trace of a smile played across Davis's mouth. He stood up.
"Thanks for your time, your Honor," he said.
"And don't draw attention to yourself," McCarthur said. "The last thing I need is some damn reporter letting everyone know you visited me."
----------------
Dear Cuz;
Sometimes there is a diference between what you know and what you can prove.
Papy lives somewhere in the dark corners of that difference.
I might know that Papy is as rotten as a week-old fish carcass, but if I can't prove it, Papy wins.
So, there are some things I know that I cannot say.
I would just like Papy to know that, from where I sit, the stench of rotten fish is wafting wind-ward. The fish carcass smells old, putrid, and no amount of cash, no backroom deals, no strong-arm tactics, can make a rotten fish smell sweet.
It stinks.
So far, I cannot say exactly where the rotten fish smell is coming from, but I intend to sniff it out.
-Trumbull
-Peter Wick, June 15, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
#15 - I Am Not A Bank Robber - May, 2013
It's been a few years, but for some reason I kept the three business cards in my wallet.
The business cards are; Officer Brian Thomas, Seattle Police Department; Lieutenant Peter J. Celms of the University Of Washington Police; and Patrol Seargent T. Pratt-Wieberg, also of the UW Police.
It had started like any other day. I was walking casually down Roosevelt in Seattle's University District, lost in thought (I am always lost in thought, sometimes I appear to be lost in thought when I am actually only half-awake, but the two states are similar enough that I maintain my claim that I am always lost in thought).
As I walked into the Fedex Kinko's on 45th I noticed a Police car pulling up behind me. Then another Police car. Then two more.
An officer pushed the Kinko's door open and said, "Excuse me, sir, please step outside."
Unsure who they were talking to, I paid no attention and stepped up to a self-serve copy machine.
"Sir! You! Please step outside now!"
I looked in the direction of the voice and realized that several cops were staring directly at me. I twisted my face sideways, trying to process what was happening, and stepped toward them.
"Hands out of your pockets!" The Officer yelled. "What's in your pocket? Remove your hand slowly!"
"Yeah," I said, sarcasm creeping into my voice. "It's papers. I don't think they're loaded."
None of the cops seemed to appreciate my sarcasm. This was difficult to accept. As a sometimes-stand-up-comedian, I am always reading those around me to see whether something is going over well. This wasn't going over well.
At this point in the story I should point out - for those who don't really know me - that I can be a little, well, let's call it "mouthy," at times. I can talk my way into trouble. Sometimes words, attitude, just sort of slip out.
"What did I do?" I asked, innocently enough, until I followed it with, "Was it something cool? I'd like to know."
"We'll be asking the questions," the lead officer said."
"No," I said, "Actually I'll be asking lots of questions, too."
"Up against the wall!"
The officer began patting me down, and asked me to empty my pockets slowly. It was at this point that I noticed that several of the officers were UW Police, a band of sorry misfits, in training with the County Sherrif's Department. I tried to hold back the comment, but I couldn't. It spilled out of my mouth before I could catch it.
"Oh my god," I said, "You're not even a real cop!"
A moment of what you can only call "tension" followed, as several offices battled the urge to attack me.
Finally the lead officer (a 'real' cop) got off his walkie talkie and apologized to me. I did not match the description of the bank robber as closely as first thought.
The officer explained that they were looking for a man with brown hair, blue jeans, and a white jacket.
"Hey, maybe you shouldn't have wasted all your time on a guy with blond hair, sweats, and a grey jacket," I said.
An awkward silence followed.
I looked at the army of police cars circling me, and the ten or so officers.
"Maybe some of you should have gone up these alleys looking for the guy," I said. "He's probably gotten away by now."
And as the officers surrounding me fought mightily with their own urges to pummel me into small pieces, I realized that now might be a good time to stop talking.
If I had said anything more, a crime would have happened that day, and the person who committed the crime might have gotten away with it, because those with him would have backed him up. Of course I would never know the outcome of the case. I would have been beaten senseless by fake officers coming at me from all directions
.
-Peter Wick
May 15, 2013
The business cards are; Officer Brian Thomas, Seattle Police Department; Lieutenant Peter J. Celms of the University Of Washington Police; and Patrol Seargent T. Pratt-Wieberg, also of the UW Police.
It had started like any other day. I was walking casually down Roosevelt in Seattle's University District, lost in thought (I am always lost in thought, sometimes I appear to be lost in thought when I am actually only half-awake, but the two states are similar enough that I maintain my claim that I am always lost in thought).
As I walked into the Fedex Kinko's on 45th I noticed a Police car pulling up behind me. Then another Police car. Then two more.
An officer pushed the Kinko's door open and said, "Excuse me, sir, please step outside."
Unsure who they were talking to, I paid no attention and stepped up to a self-serve copy machine.
"Sir! You! Please step outside now!"
I looked in the direction of the voice and realized that several cops were staring directly at me. I twisted my face sideways, trying to process what was happening, and stepped toward them.
"Hands out of your pockets!" The Officer yelled. "What's in your pocket? Remove your hand slowly!"
"Yeah," I said, sarcasm creeping into my voice. "It's papers. I don't think they're loaded."
None of the cops seemed to appreciate my sarcasm. This was difficult to accept. As a sometimes-stand-up-comedian, I am always reading those around me to see whether something is going over well. This wasn't going over well.
At this point in the story I should point out - for those who don't really know me - that I can be a little, well, let's call it "mouthy," at times. I can talk my way into trouble. Sometimes words, attitude, just sort of slip out.
"What did I do?" I asked, innocently enough, until I followed it with, "Was it something cool? I'd like to know."
"We'll be asking the questions," the lead officer said."
"No," I said, "Actually I'll be asking lots of questions, too."
"Up against the wall!"
The officer began patting me down, and asked me to empty my pockets slowly. It was at this point that I noticed that several of the officers were UW Police, a band of sorry misfits, in training with the County Sherrif's Department. I tried to hold back the comment, but I couldn't. It spilled out of my mouth before I could catch it.
"Oh my god," I said, "You're not even a real cop!"
A moment of what you can only call "tension" followed, as several offices battled the urge to attack me.
Finally the lead officer (a 'real' cop) got off his walkie talkie and apologized to me. I did not match the description of the bank robber as closely as first thought.
The officer explained that they were looking for a man with brown hair, blue jeans, and a white jacket.
"Hey, maybe you shouldn't have wasted all your time on a guy with blond hair, sweats, and a grey jacket," I said.
An awkward silence followed.
I looked at the army of police cars circling me, and the ten or so officers.
"Maybe some of you should have gone up these alleys looking for the guy," I said. "He's probably gotten away by now."
And as the officers surrounding me fought mightily with their own urges to pummel me into small pieces, I realized that now might be a good time to stop talking.
If I had said anything more, a crime would have happened that day, and the person who committed the crime might have gotten away with it, because those with him would have backed him up. Of course I would never know the outcome of the case. I would have been beaten senseless by fake officers coming at me from all directions
.
-Peter Wick
May 15, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
14. To Brit Or Not To Brit - April, 2013
For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with conflicting emotions about the British DNA coursing through my blood.
Through different branches of my Mother's ancestry, my family is from two different parts of England; Dover in the south, and York, in the middle.
Battling these ancestral branches are a Scottish branch and German one. Come to think of it, maybe it was the Scots and the Germans who separately moved from their own countries to York. Anyway, they all eventually left England for America, and here we are.
On my Father's side was his Father, a seafairing Norwegian who, by himself at 18, took a ship from Norway to Liverpool, England, another ship across the ocean to Montreal, a train across the American continent to Seattle, and within a couple months was in Alaska on a fishing boat.
My Father's Mother was also from Norway, but when she researched her own ancestry, became ebarrassingly distraught to discover a Jewish branch of the family.
For the record I want to reconcile my Grandmother's WASP and Jewish mixture. I embrace it...Mazel Tov!
The reason I am writing this, though, is to try to put my maternal British heritage into some sort of perspective.
As someone prone toward the creative arts, I have sometimes felt a strong identification with my British DNA.
Shakespeare wrote my favorite piece of writing. Charlie Dickens knocked off a few good yarns. And I would rather watch a British detecetive show than an American one any day of the week.
These pro-Brit feelings are on one side of the coin. On the other side - and this is where the problems arise - must be the Scottish part of me, unable to shake the "Trainspotting" line about Brits being 'wankers.'
Or maybe it is just my rebellious American side.
Several years ago, when my sister was studying at Leeds University in England, we began corresponding about the discovery that we apparently qualified for a British Coat-of-Arms.
It was fun for a while. we brainstormed and discussed Coat-of-Arms themes (a family of teachers, writers, and amateur athletes ought to inspire some interesting design ideas).
then something happened inside of me. Deep in the middle of this process of pursuing a British Coat-of-Arms, I woke up one morning and said, "You know what, screw the British! Screw their pretentious Coat-of-Arms bull----" (ryhmes with baseball mitt). And the idea died as quickly as it had been born.
So, now I ask myself, what's it going to be? Do I embrace the legacy of literature, theater, and culture? Or do I reject the questionble legacy of Empire, exploitation, and unintended political comedy? (And someone please tell me - what is the point of a 'royal family' in the 21st century?)
The only British politicians I have ever had any respect for were characters portrayed by Monty Python.
So, if someone can tell me who is currently the head of the Ministry Of Silly Walks, then maybe we have something to talk about.
Peter Wick
April 13, 2013
Through different branches of my Mother's ancestry, my family is from two different parts of England; Dover in the south, and York, in the middle.
Battling these ancestral branches are a Scottish branch and German one. Come to think of it, maybe it was the Scots and the Germans who separately moved from their own countries to York. Anyway, they all eventually left England for America, and here we are.
On my Father's side was his Father, a seafairing Norwegian who, by himself at 18, took a ship from Norway to Liverpool, England, another ship across the ocean to Montreal, a train across the American continent to Seattle, and within a couple months was in Alaska on a fishing boat.
My Father's Mother was also from Norway, but when she researched her own ancestry, became ebarrassingly distraught to discover a Jewish branch of the family.
For the record I want to reconcile my Grandmother's WASP and Jewish mixture. I embrace it...Mazel Tov!
The reason I am writing this, though, is to try to put my maternal British heritage into some sort of perspective.
As someone prone toward the creative arts, I have sometimes felt a strong identification with my British DNA.
Shakespeare wrote my favorite piece of writing. Charlie Dickens knocked off a few good yarns. And I would rather watch a British detecetive show than an American one any day of the week.
These pro-Brit feelings are on one side of the coin. On the other side - and this is where the problems arise - must be the Scottish part of me, unable to shake the "Trainspotting" line about Brits being 'wankers.'
Or maybe it is just my rebellious American side.
Several years ago, when my sister was studying at Leeds University in England, we began corresponding about the discovery that we apparently qualified for a British Coat-of-Arms.
It was fun for a while. we brainstormed and discussed Coat-of-Arms themes (a family of teachers, writers, and amateur athletes ought to inspire some interesting design ideas).
then something happened inside of me. Deep in the middle of this process of pursuing a British Coat-of-Arms, I woke up one morning and said, "You know what, screw the British! Screw their pretentious Coat-of-Arms bull----" (ryhmes with baseball mitt). And the idea died as quickly as it had been born.
So, now I ask myself, what's it going to be? Do I embrace the legacy of literature, theater, and culture? Or do I reject the questionble legacy of Empire, exploitation, and unintended political comedy? (And someone please tell me - what is the point of a 'royal family' in the 21st century?)
The only British politicians I have ever had any respect for were characters portrayed by Monty Python.
So, if someone can tell me who is currently the head of the Ministry Of Silly Walks, then maybe we have something to talk about.
Peter Wick
April 13, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
13. Bob Dylan's Dentist - March, 2013
Living in Los Angeles comes with its own unique brand of surprises.
You never know where the latest bizarre celebrity story is going to come from.
I was sitting in a dentist chair recently, leaning back the way only a dentist chair can force you to lean back. I was looking up at the ceiling waiting for the dentist to begin poking around in my mouth, when I overheard a conversation about Bob Dylan's teeth.
The two dentists in the office were ignoring me. They were talking about their favorite music. They seemd to agree on classic rock. I felt a strong impulse to jump into the conversation and suggest that classic rock is great, but try giving something more recent a fighting chance; the grunge era perhaps, or hip hop from ten years ago (pre-Jimmy-Fallon era Roots, Talib Kweli, Jurassic 5). I stayed silent, though.
As I listened, I realized that dentists have a different take, even on music, than the rest of us.
One of the dentists, it turn out, has a colleague in town who pokes around inside Bob Dylan's mouth.
"Oh, the stories," the first dentist said.
"Yeah?"
"Bob Dylan comes in wih his 'handler,' head down. He never looks you in the eye. Apparently he is completely unable to communicate on any kind of normal level."
"Really! huh," said the second dentist
I lost interest when they started talking about Bob Dylan's periodontal issues.
I wish I had not overheard the story.
On one level I am always aware that celebrities are real, living breathing people, with the same physical limitations as the rest of us, but somehow it feels slightly wrong to listen to, say, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," and suddenly become overwelmed with concern about the man's gums.
I suppose that's better than listening to the cover version by Guns And Roses, though.
Somehow I just assume Axel Rose's mouth is a disaster area.
Next up? I have to schedule an eye appointment. I don't have a regular eye Doctor in Los Angeles, so I'm free to try somewhere new.
Where will I likely hear stories about Johnny Depp? I just have a feeling that guy's as blind as a bat.
-Peter Wick
March 13, 2013
You never know where the latest bizarre celebrity story is going to come from.
I was sitting in a dentist chair recently, leaning back the way only a dentist chair can force you to lean back. I was looking up at the ceiling waiting for the dentist to begin poking around in my mouth, when I overheard a conversation about Bob Dylan's teeth.
The two dentists in the office were ignoring me. They were talking about their favorite music. They seemd to agree on classic rock. I felt a strong impulse to jump into the conversation and suggest that classic rock is great, but try giving something more recent a fighting chance; the grunge era perhaps, or hip hop from ten years ago (pre-Jimmy-Fallon era Roots, Talib Kweli, Jurassic 5). I stayed silent, though.
As I listened, I realized that dentists have a different take, even on music, than the rest of us.
One of the dentists, it turn out, has a colleague in town who pokes around inside Bob Dylan's mouth.
"Oh, the stories," the first dentist said.
"Yeah?"
"Bob Dylan comes in wih his 'handler,' head down. He never looks you in the eye. Apparently he is completely unable to communicate on any kind of normal level."
"Really! huh," said the second dentist
I lost interest when they started talking about Bob Dylan's periodontal issues.
I wish I had not overheard the story.
On one level I am always aware that celebrities are real, living breathing people, with the same physical limitations as the rest of us, but somehow it feels slightly wrong to listen to, say, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," and suddenly become overwelmed with concern about the man's gums.
I suppose that's better than listening to the cover version by Guns And Roses, though.
Somehow I just assume Axel Rose's mouth is a disaster area.
Next up? I have to schedule an eye appointment. I don't have a regular eye Doctor in Los Angeles, so I'm free to try somewhere new.
Where will I likely hear stories about Johnny Depp? I just have a feeling that guy's as blind as a bat.
-Peter Wick
March 13, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
12. Facebook, pt. 2, or Life in the Woods - February, 2013
"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." -Henry David Thoreau
A little more than a year ago, in the first installment of Simple Displeasures, I compared dropping off of Facebook to Thoreau's move to Walden Pond in the 1840's. He lived alone, grew his own food, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of solitude.
Thoreau stayed at Walden Pond for two years before moving back in with civilization.
The book Walden is his permanent record of those two years.
I stayed off Facebook for one year.
I wonder if Thoreau felt the same sense of guilt that I feel; a need to justify my return to civilization, a slight embarrassment when explaining it to my other anti-Facebook friends.
I will admit that I enjoy being in touch with friends who I don't see in person, but I still distrust the Facebook Corporation every bit as much as Thoreau distrusted 1840's civilization.
I have also been surprised to discover that a growing number of my real friends have also been turning against Facebook. Several of them have either deactivated their Facebook accounts or they simply don't log in anymore.
Before you gang up on me and call out my comparison, I am aware that on the surface, dropping off of Facebook seems nothing at all like moving to the woods.
In fact, I also have a deep secretive impulse to someday ACTUALLY move to the woods, without a computer, cell phone, car, television, radio, ipad, or any other gadget invented since 1850. All I would need are a collection of books (you remenmber those things? those bulky contraptions made of paper?) It's true. I might do it.
I won't last two years, like Thoreau did, but two months like that sounds deliciously quiet and peaceful to me.
This is the sad state of anti-social behavior in the 21st century; two months without social media is an eternity.
And even the guy who threatens to drop everything and move to the woods is now back on Facebook.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau
Peter Wick
February 14, 2013
A little more than a year ago, in the first installment of Simple Displeasures, I compared dropping off of Facebook to Thoreau's move to Walden Pond in the 1840's. He lived alone, grew his own food, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of solitude.
Thoreau stayed at Walden Pond for two years before moving back in with civilization.
The book Walden is his permanent record of those two years.
I stayed off Facebook for one year.
I wonder if Thoreau felt the same sense of guilt that I feel; a need to justify my return to civilization, a slight embarrassment when explaining it to my other anti-Facebook friends.
I will admit that I enjoy being in touch with friends who I don't see in person, but I still distrust the Facebook Corporation every bit as much as Thoreau distrusted 1840's civilization.
I have also been surprised to discover that a growing number of my real friends have also been turning against Facebook. Several of them have either deactivated their Facebook accounts or they simply don't log in anymore.
Before you gang up on me and call out my comparison, I am aware that on the surface, dropping off of Facebook seems nothing at all like moving to the woods.
In fact, I also have a deep secretive impulse to someday ACTUALLY move to the woods, without a computer, cell phone, car, television, radio, ipad, or any other gadget invented since 1850. All I would need are a collection of books (you remenmber those things? those bulky contraptions made of paper?) It's true. I might do it.
I won't last two years, like Thoreau did, but two months like that sounds deliciously quiet and peaceful to me.
This is the sad state of anti-social behavior in the 21st century; two months without social media is an eternity.
And even the guy who threatens to drop everything and move to the woods is now back on Facebook.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau
Peter Wick
February 14, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
11. Preview of "Key West" - The novel - January, 2013
In early 2007 my frend Robby - Robert Silk - sent me a magazine article he wrote titled, "Wanna Bet?" It explored the history of illegal gambling in Key West Florida. I liked the article, and began talking to Robby about expanding the idea further. Before I knew it Robby was sending me additional research, and a whole world of 1950 guys-wearing-hats began grabbing ahold of me.
Stephen Trumbull and Bernie Papy were real people, a journalist and a corrupt politician, repsectively. Papy was a State Representative, but he ran Key West the way Al Capone ran Chicago two decades earlier. Trumbull wrote a column for the Miami Herald. They didn't like each other much.
Finally I have written the story up as a novel, and below is an excerpt from it. It begins with "Dear Cuz." That was Trumbull's column. He always began with, "Dear Cuz."
"Dear Cuz;
When a sharp blade cuts into you, it is quick, cold. You barely realize what is happening at first. It cuts clean, surgically. The pain almost begins with a question mark.
When a dull blade cuts into you, like the one Papy's goons used on me, it saws into you like a rusty kitchen knife. There is no question what is happening, because the pain is crude and dirty."
Trumbull was groaning and writhing on Eva's bed. She was wrapping a large bandage around his naked torso.
It was the next morning. He didn't remember coming inside, but he remembered the last few minutes before passing out.
"Hold still. You're making it bleed more," Eva said.
"Don't tell me to hold still," he said nastily.
She wasn't going to complain about his mood. "Lay back," she said.
"Don't - Aaaagh!" He dropped his head as she pressed the bandage onto the wound.
"Lie down. Relax. I have to clean the wound."
"Alright, alright," he said. He leaned back in fits and starts, stopping with each shot of pain, and moving again when it was tolerable.
Eva dabbed his wound like a professional. She had seen blood before. She didn't like it, but they both knew Trumbull was in good hands. "You're lucky," she said. "They didn't cut too deep."
"Lucky!?"
"You're alive. That's lucky."
Trumbull looked at her. "They chose to let me live," he said. "They wanted to prove something. They were just making a point - Aaagh!"
"Relax," she said, folding blood stained bandages. She put the bandages in a pile at the foot of the bed.
Trumbull's head was on the pillow now, and he spoke while looking straight overhead at the ceiling. "They figured I'd be a walking message, bandaged up, scared."
"Are you scared?" Eva asked.
"Are you?"
"Yes," she said.
The novel "Key West" will be available, first as an E-Book at Amazon.com by January 20th, 2013, (probably a couple days before, actually) and then in paperback a week and a half after that.
I want to thank Wheelman Press for publishing it, and Integrity Artists Management for arranging the details.
Enjoy.
-Peter Wick
January 12, 2013
Stephen Trumbull and Bernie Papy were real people, a journalist and a corrupt politician, repsectively. Papy was a State Representative, but he ran Key West the way Al Capone ran Chicago two decades earlier. Trumbull wrote a column for the Miami Herald. They didn't like each other much.
Finally I have written the story up as a novel, and below is an excerpt from it. It begins with "Dear Cuz." That was Trumbull's column. He always began with, "Dear Cuz."
"Dear Cuz;
When a sharp blade cuts into you, it is quick, cold. You barely realize what is happening at first. It cuts clean, surgically. The pain almost begins with a question mark.
When a dull blade cuts into you, like the one Papy's goons used on me, it saws into you like a rusty kitchen knife. There is no question what is happening, because the pain is crude and dirty."
Trumbull was groaning and writhing on Eva's bed. She was wrapping a large bandage around his naked torso.
It was the next morning. He didn't remember coming inside, but he remembered the last few minutes before passing out.
"Hold still. You're making it bleed more," Eva said.
"Don't tell me to hold still," he said nastily.
She wasn't going to complain about his mood. "Lay back," she said.
"Don't - Aaaagh!" He dropped his head as she pressed the bandage onto the wound.
"Lie down. Relax. I have to clean the wound."
"Alright, alright," he said. He leaned back in fits and starts, stopping with each shot of pain, and moving again when it was tolerable.
Eva dabbed his wound like a professional. She had seen blood before. She didn't like it, but they both knew Trumbull was in good hands. "You're lucky," she said. "They didn't cut too deep."
"Lucky!?"
"You're alive. That's lucky."
Trumbull looked at her. "They chose to let me live," he said. "They wanted to prove something. They were just making a point - Aaagh!"
"Relax," she said, folding blood stained bandages. She put the bandages in a pile at the foot of the bed.
Trumbull's head was on the pillow now, and he spoke while looking straight overhead at the ceiling. "They figured I'd be a walking message, bandaged up, scared."
"Are you scared?" Eva asked.
"Are you?"
"Yes," she said.
The novel "Key West" will be available, first as an E-Book at Amazon.com by January 20th, 2013, (probably a couple days before, actually) and then in paperback a week and a half after that.
I want to thank Wheelman Press for publishing it, and Integrity Artists Management for arranging the details.
Enjoy.
-Peter Wick
January 12, 2013
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
10. Free 'Pussy Riot' - Nov, 2012
According to several aging Russian hippies, bootlegged copies of The Beatles music had as much to do with the downfall of the Soviet Union as any politician or political movement.
The songs of the Beatles - banned by the Soviet leadership in the 1960's - permeated an underground Russian youth culture so thoroughly, that by the time that generation reached maturity in the 1980's, a majority of Russian society had little or no stomach left for Soviet ideology.
They were over it. Art - in the form of music - had enlightened them in ways beyond what even John, Paul, George, or Ringo could have intended.
Art and creativity can do that. It can change the way entire generations think.
'The Soviet Union' is a historical relic now. In its place are Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and several other smaller independent countries.
Russia is currrently ruled by one Vladimir Putin, and his hold on power is so absolute that you can be arrested for criticizing his policies.
This is what happened to performance-art-feminist-punk-band Pussy Riot.
In February, earlier this year, they staged what has been called a flash-mob-style invasion of a Russian Orthodox church and performed their "Punk Prayer," before being arrested.
They have been found guilty of disrupting public order, and hooliganism (I thought you had to be involved in a drunken fight outside a soccer game to be convicted of hooliganism). Two of the band members have managed to flee the country, and one saw her conviction dropped (because she was actually arrested BEFORE she had a chance to perform the offending song). Two members of Pussy Riot remain in prison, sent to what are described as 'penal colonies.'
I and many of my friends identify, in one discipline or another, as "Artists." For the most part we only have to worry about superficial things; Am I making a living at this or do I have to get a day job? Will I get the Million-dollar contract or do I have to settle for something smaller?
It's easy to lose sight of deeper issues.
There are no more courageous Artists in this world right now than the five members of Pussy Riot.
Earlier today I joined Amnesty International. I had been thinking about it for some time.
The recent Presidential campaigns in the U.S. left me feeling a little, shall we say, UNDERNOURISHED, regarding the issues that actually seem to matter.
But this is not about living in one country as opposed to another. We are a planetary family. What happens to an Artist in Russia affects us all.
-Peter Wick
November 14, 2012
The songs of the Beatles - banned by the Soviet leadership in the 1960's - permeated an underground Russian youth culture so thoroughly, that by the time that generation reached maturity in the 1980's, a majority of Russian society had little or no stomach left for Soviet ideology.
They were over it. Art - in the form of music - had enlightened them in ways beyond what even John, Paul, George, or Ringo could have intended.
Art and creativity can do that. It can change the way entire generations think.
'The Soviet Union' is a historical relic now. In its place are Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and several other smaller independent countries.
Russia is currrently ruled by one Vladimir Putin, and his hold on power is so absolute that you can be arrested for criticizing his policies.
This is what happened to performance-art-feminist-punk-band Pussy Riot.
In February, earlier this year, they staged what has been called a flash-mob-style invasion of a Russian Orthodox church and performed their "Punk Prayer," before being arrested.
They have been found guilty of disrupting public order, and hooliganism (I thought you had to be involved in a drunken fight outside a soccer game to be convicted of hooliganism). Two of the band members have managed to flee the country, and one saw her conviction dropped (because she was actually arrested BEFORE she had a chance to perform the offending song). Two members of Pussy Riot remain in prison, sent to what are described as 'penal colonies.'
I and many of my friends identify, in one discipline or another, as "Artists." For the most part we only have to worry about superficial things; Am I making a living at this or do I have to get a day job? Will I get the Million-dollar contract or do I have to settle for something smaller?
It's easy to lose sight of deeper issues.
There are no more courageous Artists in this world right now than the five members of Pussy Riot.
Earlier today I joined Amnesty International. I had been thinking about it for some time.
The recent Presidential campaigns in the U.S. left me feeling a little, shall we say, UNDERNOURISHED, regarding the issues that actually seem to matter.
But this is not about living in one country as opposed to another. We are a planetary family. What happens to an Artist in Russia affects us all.
-Peter Wick
November 14, 2012
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