One thing I found surprising about Catherine Coan’s short short stories was the variety of voices and writing styles therein.  I, on the other hand, seem to write “…all one, ever the same and keep invention in a noted weed…”, if I may quote the English language’s most famous sonneteer.  The next surprise came in the form of her fine wit which renders more meaning with each reading.  Again, I have written short intros, (in italics), to these pieces which I hope will not detract from them.

Ah, to be a schoolboy again.  And drawing pictures with schoolgirls.  And learning so many new things, with visual aids in the classroom to enhance the rich imagination of childhood. ─AS
 
Drawing On Eyelashes

Remember, when you were a kid, doing drawings, and in those drawings drawing eyelashes on some animals to show that those animals were female (lizards, mice, fish, birds)? Another question, this one for bats: Bats, why must you swoop about, swooping for blood, when you could just do you know what with your lashes and almost surely get better results, like maybe even a little ceramic bowl of blood with your name on it (and yes, I know that your name is difficult to spell, Empress of Moldovia, but try to be positive, please)?

I forgot to tell you earlier that I have made a time machine which shows all of time up until now on an overhead projector from 1980. You are going to have to decide who gets to operate the rollers, and if there is any bickering, we’ll just wait until tomorrow to do this. Good. Continue reading More Short Short Fiction of Catherine Coan →

Bookmark It

For Diane Schneider McArdle
 
At Colfax Avenue Elementary School in North Hollywood I had Mrs. Grover as my fifth-grade teacher.  Mrs. Grover was the most elderly, in appearance, of anyone who taught me before college with her fully grey head of thick hair and her leathery pruned face and old fashioned eyeglasses.  She was very alert though.  From any vantage point, she could spot the slightest nuance of a ten year-old’s mischief at any desk in her classroom.  I was pretty sure I could outrun her, if I could only get to the door first.

One day, the most attractive girl in our class, Diane Schneider, came to school with terrible scabs on her face.  The story circulated among the children in the class was: Continue reading Grade School Memories ─ Dogbite →

Bookmark It

This morning I am writing in pain.  That’s better than writhing in pain, but in this case, they are not far apart.  I was involved in a single-pedestrian accident on the sidewalk in front of Arty gallery last night.  The official report states that alcohol was not a contributing factor.  The victim had a blood-alcohol content of 0.02%.  Witnesses state that the victim, who wore a cheap hat, tripped on uneven sidewalk paving and fell face first onto the cement where, shocked, he briefly groaned in agony.  He was carrying a bag, the contents of which spilled onto the sidewalk revealing a signed copy of Stan Lerner’s Criminal.  The sole blame for the accident lay in the victim’s operation of his feet. Continue reading Artwalkin’ with Stan ’n’ Al →

Bookmark It

July 2009 is gone, August now races towards conclusion and I’m thinking about my next adventure. But a haunting ghost of July continues to cause my mind and spirit to be restless. Perhaps more weakness than strength is my proclivity to be sentimental.

A comment on Facebook from my childhood friend Lisa was all that was needed to transport me back to age thirteen and our first game of ping-pong—I loved Lisa all those years ago. I could spend a whole day lying on the grass, staring at the sky, and thinking about her. What if? What if? Neil Young’s voice is singing, “Old man take a look at my life…”

And to further cosset my self-indulgent emotions, July 2009 marked the first anniversary of two significant events in my life, not as significant and pure good as thirteen-year-old love, but significant nonetheless. A year ago, July 2008, my book “Stan Lerner’s Criminal” won the Grand Prize at the 2008 Hollywood Book Festival. And to promote myself as a writer, at the urging of Todd Sims (founder of GrooveTickets and friend of the past), I committed publicly in cyberspace to become a regular blogger. Downtown Oliver Brown was not a thought at this time. In fact it was my blog Erin Brockovich’s Daughter that was the impetus for Oliver. And it was Oliver’s success on Blog Downtown (Eric Richardson’s blog) that made downtownster.com and blogsincity.com inevitable progressions.

I had intended to go on in this vein and revisit the tragedy of  “Stan Lerner’s Criminal”, Barnes & Noble, Borders and why an award-winning book is so hard to find or hasn’t been made into a movie—I am often asked these questions. But it’s the first Friday of August and we should all be having a goodtime in the sun…Of course there is more, as brevity is nowhere to be found in my nature—except when it comes to the soul of my wit.

Although much overshadowed by “Stan Lerner’s Criminal”, 2008 was also the year my novella “In Development”, the story of Hollywood’s most powerful and scummiest producer, was released. Recently, literally the last few days, I’ve finished what’s called in the industry, “the polish” of the screen adaptation. So, suffice it to say, that “In Development” is on my mind and I’m thinking that a story of sex, manipulation, lying, betrayal, and murder—otherwise known in Hollywood as a story with a happy ending, might just set a superlative tone for the weekend.

So please read on and enjoy a few chapters of a book from the summer of 2008, “And the seasons they go round and round.”

Prologue

Breakfast at the Peninsula

The Peninsula Hotel ranked among Beverly Hills’ finest establishments. A modest four stories, its cream-colored exterior walls exuded European elegance. The motor court was paved with Tuscan cobblestone and it curved in a half circle around a spectacular yet understated fountain. Stan Peters arrived for breakfast like clockwork Monday thru Friday at 8:00 in either his black Rolls Royce Phantom or his diamond silver Mercedes Benz SL 500.

This particular morning, he was looking more impeccable than usual. The Ermenegildo Zegna boutique on Rodeo Drive had just taken delivery of its handmade suit collection for the fall season the day before. As always, Stan, the store’s best customer and Hollywood’s most powerful movie producer, had been there to pick up each of his 31 new suits. He would repeat this routine at several of the city’s high-end boutiques; rarely did Stan need or bother to wear the same custom-made suit twice.

The hotel’s bell captain, Rick Johnson, was a handsome young man of twenty-five—an aspiring actor. As always, he stepped forward to open Stan’s car door himself, rather than delegate such an important task to a valet. Opening the great producer’s door was not as optimal as being in one of his movies but it was a step in the right direction. Hollywood’s most powerful producer had come to know him by his first name.

The door of the Mercedes opened, as it always did, not requiring any of Stan’s own personal exertion. Continue reading FRIDAY LIGHT BLOG “IN DEVELOPMENT” →

Bookmark It

Stan Lerner is a rarity
Well known for his gregarity
 
When my friend Stan wrote “…I know gregarity isn’t a word, but it ought to be…” he inspired me to write the above iambic couplet.  You see, he coined the word in a post in this blog and, if it eventually makes into widespread usage, you will see it in dictionaries.  Although hardly immortal verse, my finding an application for it immediately is helping to get it into the lexicon.  Similarly, when I used and defined the word oenophiliac in an earlier post (a made up extension of oenophile for comedic purposes) I took the term for a wine lover and stretched it into the realm of hyperbole to mean, a lover of wine.  Like some wines, the humor was too dry for some tastes.  I also had to entertain that some of my friends might have thought I was serious, given the robust ebullience I exhibit when tasting fine wines.

The whole business of how words and phrases come into common usage has always fascinated me. I discovered, early on, that if an important enough writer makes up a word, it becomes a word as soon as they write it. Continue reading How New Words Are Born →

Bookmark It

Foreword by Stan Lerner: “The Guardian” in its entirety is posted at the end of each installment. So, if you’re new to the series just scroll down to the beginning and enjoy some storytelling.

The police, led by plain clothed Detective Fry, storm the room just as the dark figure brings the metal baton down on the skull of the last of Dr. Vincent’s men—the shoulders of his white lab coat turn red from the bludgeoning.

“Freeze!” screams the detective, followed by a chorus of the same. The officers, twenty plus, encircle the murderer. “Drop the baton!” insists Detective Fry. “And put your hands up.”

The hands go up slowly, there’s a strange calm confidence in the motion, which is really more of a gesture. The baton is allowed to slip from his hands—with some light flash smoke pellets. And as all reaches the floor the room erupts into fire and smoke. A dart with a wire attached shoots from the raised prosthetic arm and races toward the ceiling.

Fry peers through the smoke, and although it is surreal, he is confident that he is seeing whatever it is fly upwards toward the glass dome. “He’s on the roof!”

The police burst onto the roof with a violence matched by the raging storm. There is no command to fire but they do, and a hail of tracer bullets advances before them as they run in pursuit into the rainy night.

Standing at the edge of the building, the dark figure lets them get close enough, so they can see him toss down a business card. To the amazement of the police, the thing that they have just witnessed commit a brutal murder jumps. Continue reading THE GUARDIAN PART 3 →

Bookmark It

Foreword by Stan Lerner: Sometimes the mind needs the type of rest that can best be found in the world of fiction. So take a few minutes each week and enjoy downtownster’s new superhero The Guardian. If you miss any installment of THE GUARDIAN each post ends with the entire story to date.

Part 2

Dr. Vincent steps over the security guard’s dead body just as the blood from the wound he’s inflicted begins to pool into a dramatic sea of dark red. It’s of no consequence to him as he is intent on joining his men at the bank of elevators.

In the security office a second security guard watches the wall of monitors as he has for the last twenty years. He is still a man in his mid-forties, not an old-timer, but a solid veteran. Of course being a veteran he should not be watching the television, brought into the office against regulations. The show goes on as he sips his fifth cup of coffee, then notices a monitor has gone out.

He shakes his head and picks up his radio intent on reaching his partner—not possibly imagining that he his dead.

“Harry, come in where the hell are you?” He turns back to the monitor and taps on its screen. “Twenty years and never had one of these go out.” He shrugs. “Well there’s a first time for everything I suppose.” He sips his coffee and adopts a more serious tone as he speaks into his radio this time. “Harry where are you? Harry, come in. Are you okay?”

The muscles of his face tense as he leans forward toward the monitor. On closer inspection it appears to be working, the blackness he’s seeing caused by some obstruction to the camera’s lens. And just as his mind processes the possibilities he is jerked out of his seat by a wire around his neck. Instinct to survive causes him to kick wildly as the man in the white coat quite calmly strangles him. With each kick his boots shatter the glass of one of the monitors he has watched diligently for the last twenty years—though, he gains no leverage to free himself. Only a fraction of a second before his right foot reaches the last monitor on the panel does his lifeless body go completely limp—dropping from midair to his attackers feet like a sack of potatoes. 

The storm outside has not abated; rather it has taken on a fury, appropriate to the presence of the dark figure that stands on the ledge looking through the stained glass dome of a part of the museum long closed to visitors. Continue reading THE GUARDIAN PART 2 →

Bookmark It