Tag Archives: Pop Culture Mysteries

Aug 13 2015
Leave a comment
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Informant Zero (Part 6)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

“Ms. Donnelly,”  Informant Zero said.  “I have been so very intrigued by Mr. Battler’s blog since its inception that I decided I must get involved.  And Mr. Hatcher, your reports have especially inspired me.”

“So you’re the one who read them.”

“What a life you have lived, Mr. Hatcher.  From 1920 until present day, you have seen this world grow, shutterstock_13743706change, go to war on a massive scale, taken on the criminal underworld of LA’s yesteryear and survived.  Regrettably, you missed quite a bit during your extended nap, but that you’re in good enough condition to share your stories with the world now is amazing.”

“Thanks,”  I said.  “But if I wanted wind blown up my chassis I’d of skipped the trip and stood on an air vent.”

“This is not an enterprise I want to engage in for the rest of my life, Mr. Hatcher.  One day, I’d like to see a Los Angeles where the rich and powerful do what is right because it is the right thing to do, and not because they’re afraid I’ll expose them if they don’t.  Thus, this city needs a hero like you to clean it up and I’d like to do what I can to help.”

“I don’t do much cleaning these days, bub.”

“Then you are truly wasting your talents.  Surely that will change as you get adjusted.  But more importantly, Mr. Hatcher, I can’t help but wonder what this world would be like today had a man of your integrity not fallen asleep in 1955, but rather, had been allowed to continue performing feats of daring do.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the world would be a better place today had you been allowed to keep kicking criminal ass until you became an elderly man during the 1980’s, perhaps even the 90’s.”

“I think about that all the time,”  I said.

“But as an tech expert, I know the mind of a blogger and I know it well,”  Informant Zero said.  “If Battler doesn’t eventually see an increase in readership, he will decide that his time would be better spent playing video games and allowing his ass to expand.  He’ll abandon his blog, you, and your stories will never be shared, because good luck getting through the traditional publishing door.”

“Now just one  moment,”  Delilah said.  “I doubt very much that Mr. Battler will abandon Mr. Hatcher and leave him without the answers he is searching for.”

“He probably won’t, at least not intentionally,”  Informant Zero explained.  “But what if I could help provide a new feature for the upcoming Pop Culture Mysteries spin-off blog, one that would drive up the World Renowned’ Poindexter’s readership?”

I shot Delilah an incredulous look.

“Spin-off blog?  Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Mr. Battler’s mentioned it on his blog a number of times.  Do try to keep up.”

“Do I get any more money for this?”

“No,”  Delilah said.  “At least not according to your contract.”

“Mother of God,”  I said.  “It’s like the damn pinko commies won.”

“Mr. Hatcher,”  Informant Zero said.  “You write very long, detailed reports.  Those are great for individuals who read as a pleasurable past time.  But what about people on the go?  Mr. Battler’s 3.5 readers who only have 3.5 seconds to spare?”

“I don’t know,”  I said.  “Tell them to screw?”

“No.  That’s where I will come in.  You continue to write your long reports.  I’ll write short bursts, quick mini-mysteries, a pop culture question of the week with a short answer.  Together, we’ll inspire Hollywood to plug up their plot holes and put out a better product.  It’ll bring more hits, Battler’s writing career takes off and who knows, maybe if he gets to the point where he actually starts making money off of his Internet ventures, he’ll release you early from your 100 mystery commitment.”

“Now you’re starting to make sense,”  I said.

Delilah was back to reading her note paper again.

“Mr. Zero,”  she said.  “To that end, Mr. Battler has expressed concern that your Pop Culture Mystery expertise may be lacking and has requested that I kick your tires, as it were, with three questions.”

More of that maniacal, ear crushing electric laughter.

“Proceed.”

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 12 2015
2 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries – Behind the Scenes – To Swear or Not to Swear?

Hello 3.5 Readers.

Here’s an advance chapter of a story that will eventually find its way into this season of Pop Culture Mysteries.

Basically, it’s the 40’s.  Hatcher’s an LAPD Detective.  A gang of bank robbers with a hilarious name is headed for LA.

Stereotypically gruff and angry Capt. Thaddeus Talbot is their boss, and he swears like a sailor on steroids.

Only problem is, I’ve tried my best to keep this PG.  I’m doing this selfishly, because I feel it will appeal to more readers (and hopefully, one day make me more money, ka ching!)

I feel like so far I’ve been kind of creative at making these stories interesting, salacious, and at times naughty without resorting to bad language.

I’m not against swearing.  I’ve done it on this blog before.  I just think once you drop some of the more serious swears, the story starts to become something very different.  Thus, I try to limit to “shit” or lesser swears and keep the F-bombs and so on at bay.

So, here’s what I came up with for the Cap’n.  I basically replace his naughty words with expletive deleted.  Tell me what you think.

And while you’re at it, just give me your opinion:

Should there be serious swearing in Pop Culture Mysteries?

“Uh huh…Uh huh…yes…yes sir…uh huh.”

Even through a shut door, the voice of my old boss, Capt. Thaddeus Talbot, traveled. 

Like a couple of kids waiting to get reamed out by the school principal, my partner, Mickey Finn, and I sat on a bench not far from the desk of the good captain’s secretary, Ms. Connie Connors.

Connie had a certain understated beauty about her.  She was a looker, to be sure, but she wasn’t trying to be noticed. 

Capt. Talbot

Capt. Talbot

She was a brunette and wore a simple green dress with a floral print, always carrying herself all nice and professional like.

Meanwhile, Mickey always wore a white suit, trying to pass himself off like he was some kind of hot shot ladies man.  He pulled a handle out of his pocket, clicked the switch, but instead of a blade, a comb popped out.  He ran it through a pompadour that rose several inches off the surface of his cranium.

“Think he’s mad?”  I asked.

I heard our fearless leader slam his phone down.

“CONNIE!!!”

“Does that answer your question?”  Connie asked me, and then in a sweeter tone, “Yes, Captain?!”

“Are those lazy expletive deleted sons of expletive deleted out there?”

“Yes, they are, sir!”

“Send them in!”

“Right away sir!”

“And get me some coffee, will ya’?!”

Yes, readers.  Back in those days, you could just bellow out demands for subordinates to fetch you coffee and human resources was powerless to stop you.  Come to think of it, I don’t think we even had an HR person.  Just an old lady who handled the payroll.

“Of course, sir!”

Mickey and I stood up.

“Good luck boys.”

“Thanks Con,”  I said.

Mickey and I headed into the boss’ office.  It was always messy.  Papers and clutter strewn everywhere.  Oh, and I can’t forget the massive bass mounted on the wall, the captain’s pride and joy.

“Shut the door.”

I did and we each took a seat in front of the captain’s desk.

“Hatcher and Finn.  Two disgusting, oversized boils on my ass that I can’t squeeze the puss out of for the life of me.”

“Good to see you too, Cap,”  I said.

“I just got off the phone with the mayor…”

Here it comes.  Under Capt. Talbot’s leadership, Mickey and I plus four other guys were part of the LAPD’s special operations unit.  Compared to modern assault tactics, there wasn’t  anything all that special about it.  We kicked down the doors that everyone else was afraid too, that’s about it.

There was a chain of command and really, the Mayor should have been lodging his complaints with the Chief of Police, but His Honor was a particularly corrupt degenerate and just called Captain Talbot whenever he had a bee in his bonnet, as though we were somehow his personal goon squad.

It was a source of great gastrointestinal discomfort for the boss.

Talbot was a tall drink of water and lanky too.  Built like Frankenstein and his face was just as pretty.  He was a tough old bastard and we’d often bond over how many Germans we sent into the afterlife during the wars we served in, him WWI and me WWII, respectively.

He grabbed his stomach.

“Goddamnit, my labonza.”

“Ulcer again, sir?”  I asked.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Connie came in with a coffee mug and set it on the captain’s desk.

“Thank you sweetheart.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Connie gave me a peak to make sure I was still alive before heading to her desk.

“Jesus Christ,”  Talbot said.  “His Honor just shoved his head so far up my ass that I can actually taste his Brylcreem.”

Mickey, who’d done little more than stare at his shiny shoes the entire time, laughed.

“You think that’s funny, Finn, you no good, two-bit Irish expletive deleted sucker?”

By now, I should inform you that the good captain had quite a mouth on him.  So bad that it could make a longshoreman cover his ears.  It was the type of mouth that Ma Hatcher would have washed out with soap.

Also, and I hate to admit it, but he was a racist.  And a sexist.  Most people were back then.  You have no idea how progressive I was for my time.

“No sir.”

“The Dapper Dandies,”  Capt. Talbot said.  “Those happy go lucky sons of motherless expletive deleted…”

It’s not easy complying with Bookshelf Q. Battler’s request to keep these tales PG, especially when Thaddeus Talbot is involved.

“…they just hit San Diego.  Do you know what that means?”

“Chula Vista’s screwed,”  Mickey said.

“Finn, I swear to Christ I’m going to leap over this desk and strangle the shit out of you if you don’t shut the expletive deleted up.”

“Sorry boss.”

“LA is next!”  Capt. Talbot said.  “The Mayor’s sure of it.  Washington, D.C’s already sent out some G-Men to take everything over.”

The captain took a swig of his coffee and winced, grabbing his side again.

“St. Christopher’s tits, expletive deleted on your Aunt Edna’s ass!”

My old boss was a virtual Rembrandt of obscenity.

“Cap,”  I said.  “I hear coffee’s not good for an ulcer…

“Are you a goddamn doctor, Hatcher?”

“No.”

“Did I ask for your expletive deleted opinion?”

“No sir.”

“Then you know where to stick it.”

“Up my ass, sir.”

Talbot slammed his fist down on the desk.

“Expletive deleted! Those FBI expletive deleted suckers are going to waltz right in here like they own the joint, take everything over, and we’re just going to be left sitting around in a circle jerk with our dicks in our hands.”

“Typical Tuesday,”  Finn said.

The captain pointed a finger at Mickey, reminding him to clam up.

“We need every man we can get,”  Capt. Talbot said.  “We need to grab every uniform, every detective, hell, every goddamn meter maid we can get our hands on, divy them up, and post a unit outside every bank in the city limits!”

“Boss,”  I said.  “No offense, but all that’ll do is scare these scumbags off.  If you really want to do them in, we need to set a trap.”

The captain shook his head.

“Hatcher.

“Sir?”

“That is, by far, the dumbest expletive deleted idea I have ever heard in my entire expletive deleted life.  I always thought you were the brains of this unit but now you’ve convinced me you’re expletive deleted dumber than Finn.  Shoot yourself in the head so I don’t have to look at your stupid face anymore.”

The door opened a crack and Connie poked her nose in.

“Captain?”

“Connie, do you mind?  Men are talking here.”

Yeah.  People used to say stuff like that too.

“There’s some men here to see you, sir.”

“Tell them to go expletive deleted themselves.”

Connie opened the door all the way.  Behind her, there were at least a dozen FBI agents, suits all starched and neatly pressed, not a hair out of place.

And leading the pack?

Noneother than FBI Director and notorious lawman J. Edgar Hoover and Assistant Director Clyde Tolson.

“If it’s all the same, I think I’ll let you tell them that, boss.”

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Aug 12 2015
Leave a comment
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Informant Zero (Part 5)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

“A question for you, my guests,”  Informant Zero said.  “What is the greediest animal in the world?”

I wasn’t amused.

“I’m not one for riddles, Jack.”

“Are you, Ms. Donnelly?”shutterstock_243113842

“I’d wager it’s man.”

More smoke blew out of the shadowy orifice.

“And you’d be correct.  As the Native Americans have said, man has a hole in his heart, a deep hunger that can never be filled.”

I checked my pocket watch.  This guy was going to go on and on.

“Los Angeles has the single largest collection of celebrities in the world,”  Informant Zero said.  “We have men and women who are magnificent to look at, in peak physical condition, and they get paid obscene amounts of money to play make believe.  I’ll admit that acting takes skill and training.  However, let’s be honest.  They’re not digging ditches, or breaking a sweat, or worried about bills like the average citizen is.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,”  I said.

“One would think that an individual who is blessed enough to sniff the rarified air of fame and fortune would be content, but as you witnessed on your way to me, that is not the case.  No matter how much man obtains, he always, without fail, wants more.  Though the general assumption is that celebrities must be happy because they live lifestyles that are far above the norm, the truth is that most famous people are woefully unhappy.”

“I’ve seen more than a few folks get to the top of the world only to fall off it,”  I said.  “I’m one of them.”

“Yes, Jersey Jabber,” Informant Zero said, a mocking note to my failed boxing career, which came to an end when I took a dive.

This guy knew everything about me.  Makes sense, since as he mentioned, he was one of Bookshelf Q. Battler’s 3.5 readers.

“Sometimes the hunger that drives man can be good, such as when Mozart composes a symphony or Picasso paints a canvas.  Both men made their art in search of society’s approval, but they also gave the world the gift of their talent as well.”

I sat back in my chair, locked my fingers behind my head and yawned.

“More often, the hunger causes man to implode, such as when you turn on the news to learn about the latest actor or musician to become wrapped up in a scandal.  That hunger is why being a famous actress wasn’t enough for Lindsey Lohan.  It’s why she experienced her infamous battles with drugs and alcohol.  Even Bill Clinton, the former president, engaged in transgressions with an intern.  Even the highest office in the free world couldn’t satiate him.”

“Get outta’ town,”  I said.  “There was a president who got some action on the side?  Why don’t you tell me these things, Ms. Donnelly?”

“It was two presidents ago, Mr. Hatcher.  I’ll tell you about it later.”

Informant Zero switched gears.

“What is the most valuable form of currency?”

Delilah and I looked at each other.  We had nothing.

“Information,”  Informant Zero said.  “In today’s world, information is traded, bought and sold like commodities on the open market at a breakneck pace.  Our celebrities unsatisfiable hunger to fill their bottomless hearts causes them to engage in all manner of transgressions.”

“Like that fella in the cowboy hat who has short people cover him in cottage cheese?”

“Like him.  And that is where I come in.  My vast network of spies feed me a never ending flow of information of what’s happening in this town at all times.  More often than not, I know something is going to happen even before it happens.”

“Gotta say then, Jack, its odd that the group of famous perverts upstairs would allow you to set up shop here.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Hatcher.  It is I who allow them to set up shop here.  This is my establishment.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“The actions you saw upstairs are tame compared to what truly goes on behind closed doors in the City of Angels.  Mere foolishness and nothing at all I’m concerned about,”  Informant Zero said.  “There are actions that certain famous individuals who shall remain nameless are engaged in that, if you were to hear about them, you’d never watch a movie or listen to a song ever again.”

“Worse than the cottage cheese thing?”  I asked.

“A million times worse,”  Informant Zero said.  “And that’s where I come in.  For a price, I can bury a brewing scandal and keep it away from the public.  I can bury a celebrity’s bad information by trading on information I’ve stockpiled about the misdeeds of various politicians, government officials, journalists, and business executives.”

“Blackmail for a clean sweep?”  I asked.

“Indeed.”

I started to get up.

“Ms. Donnelly I don’t think we want to be involved with this sort of character.”

“Before you make up your mind,” Informant Zero said.  “Know that I have accomplished more good than anyone else could have with such an endeavor.  “I have never used my powers to cover up illegal activity, only actions that would provide great embarrassment and humiliation for the perpetrator.”

“I repeat, ‘worse than the cottage cheese thing?'”

“Name redacted’s fondness of cottage cheese thing has been widely reported in the trades and gossip rags, Mr. Hatcher.  The public doesn’t care one iota.  His quote per film is higher than ever.  The world has a higher level of tolerance for depravity than it did in your day.  The actions engaged in upstairs, though questionable, would barely register a blip on the public’s radar compared with the inappropriateness I’ve helped the powerful hide.”

“So you run a one stop shop for entitled assbags,”  I said.  “They come here, they lather themselves up in dairy products, get their jollies off, and if they need to, come ask you to take the heat off of them for something they did that’s even WORSE than the freakshow going on upstairs?”

“That’s it in a nutshell,”  Informant Zero said.  “However, I also use the information I obtain for good.  I have provided law enforcement agencies with information that has cracked troublesome cases and put bad people away.  I have worked with the press to expose charlatans, frauds, and others who prey on the weakest among us.  But alas, I cannot obtain and trade information that will help the world without the profits from helping celebrity transgressions disappear.”

“Mr. Zero,”  Delilah said.  “The question yet to be addressed is how can you be of service to Mr. Battler?”

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Aug 11 2015
Leave a comment
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Informant Zero – (Part 4)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

Ding.

The doors opened and we found ourselves in small, unfinished cement room, barely big enough to lie down in.  A neon ceiling light bulb flickered on and off, providing spotty illumination.

A random goon in a suit with an expressionless face and sunglasses was waiting for us.  He guarded a single door.shutterstock_229115299

“Names, please.”

I looked behind me.

“There isn’t exactly a big line of people waiting to get in.”

An expressionless voice to go with the face.

“Names, please.”

Delilah intervened.

“Detective Jacob R. Hatcher, P.I. and Delilah K. Donnelly, Esquire.  We have an appointment with Informant Zero.”

The goon’s eyes perused a single sheet of paper on a clip board.

“Hmmm.  Yes.  Your names are on the list.”

“Finally,”  I said.  “Can you let us in already?”

“One moment please,”  the goon said as he looked toward the ceiling, where a speaker was mounted next to a video camera.  “Boss?”

The broadcasted response came in the form of an artificial, demonic sounding robotic voice.  It was low, deep and menacing, the stuff that nightmares are made of.  It filled the room and echoed off the walls.

“Good evening Mr. Hatcher.  Ms. Donnelly.”

“Informant Zero?”  Delilah asked.

“Indeed.  I apologize for the cloak and dagger treatment, but it is necessary to ensure my safety.  If you’ll indulge me, Ms. Donnelly, I’ll ask the final question our mutual contact provided you.”

“Of course.”

“Why…”

He really leaned into that “why.”

“Why…did the swallow wear a sweater?”

Delilah broke out the note again.

“Because,”  she read.   “It’s very chilly this time of year in Colorado.”

Informant Zero was not impressed.

“Shoot them.”

I drew Betsy and had her pointed at the chump before he could get his hand on his automatic.

“WAIT!”  Delilah cried.

It was the loudest I’d ever heard her speak before.

“Capistrano!  Because it’s very chilly this time of year in Capistrano!”

There was a pause.

“You may enter,”  Informant Zero said.

“Quite a blunder, Ms. Donnelly,”  I said.

I gave her a hard time but in truth, it was the first mistake I ever witnessed her make as well.

shutterstock_24224476“It’s not my fault the contact’s writing is atrocious.”

“Personal responsibility, Ms. Donnelly.  Personal responsibility.”

“My man will take Betsy, Mr. Hatcher.”

Interesting.  He knew my revolver’s name.

I took my finger off the trigger and forked her over.

“I’m going to need her back.”

The goon nodded.

“And your cell phones, please.”  Informant Zero said.

Delilah handed hers over.  I followed.

“That you can keep for all I care.”

The goon ran a metal wand up and down my body.

“What the hell is that thing?”  I asked.  “Some kind of weird sex toy?”

“Metal detector,”  the goon said as he ran the wand over Delilah.  “It finds hidden weapons.”

“Better check her twice then, Jack.  She’s packing some serious heat.”

Delilah shook her head.  I assumed she was once again thinking, “not the right time.”

The lady lawyer handed over her clutch and all of our items were secured in a lock box.

The door buzzed and we were in.

It was a small, dimly lit office.  Sitting at the desk was a shadowy figure with a hood pulled down low over his head.  The lighting was such that it was impossible to make out his face.

“Please be seated.”

He was still using the voice changer.

“Ms. Donnelly, rumors of your beauty do not do you justice.”

A courteous “thank you” was Ms. Donnelly’s reply.

“And Mr. Hatcher, your appearance is just as refined and ruggedly handsome as described in the tales on the Bookshelf Battle Blog.”

I looked over to my blonde confidant.

“Is this another one of those generation gap things I don’t get?  Do men just hit on other men at random now and I’m expected to nod and smile politely?”

Informant Zero laughed.  Fun fact.  Robotic voice changed laughter nearly pops your eardrums.  Delilah and I both reached for our ears.

“No, no, Mr. Hatcher.  I assure you my interest here is strictly of a business nature.”

“Yes,”  Delilah said.  “I must say, Mr. Battler was quite intrigued by your proposal.”

Battler was in on this?  Why was I always the last to know about these things?

“As he should be,”  Informant Zero said.

A cloud of smoke emerged from the shadow man’s facial area and I could see the feint red glow of a cigarette grow brighter as he inhaled again.

“I have the power to grow his website’s reader count far beyond a paltry 3.5, though that’s not an offer I’d make to just anyone.”

Copyright (c) 2015.  Bookshelf Q. Battler.  All Rights Reserved.

Images courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Aug 10 2015
Leave a comment
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Informant Zero (Part 3)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1      Part 2  

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

After leading us through a door and down a dark hallway, the cowboy screeched his Segway to a halt in front of an elevator.

He pushed the down button.

“Here, buckaroos, is where I leave you.”shutterstock_239019796

“OK then,”  I said.  “Happy trails, pardnah.'”

“Before I go…the rules.”

“The rules!”  the cowboy repeated loudly.  “You’ll follow them to the letter if you don’t want to get thrown out of here.  Rule Number One.  Do not ask Informant Zero his name.  If he wanted you to know, he wouldn’t refer to himself as Informant Zero.”

“Makes sense.”

“Rule Number Two.  Do not touch Informant Zero in any way, shape, or form.”

“But I like touching shadowy underworld characters,”  I said.  “It’s a condition.  I can’t help it.”

Delilah tugged on my sleeve.  “Now is not the time, Mr. Hatcher.”

The cowboy squinted at me, attempting to discern whether or not I was joking.  Obviously I was, but he let it go.

“Rule Number Three, do not remove Informant Zero’s disguise.  He takes a number of precautions to hide himself from the world, and he needs to keep it that way.”

“Kinda redundant, Jack,”  I said.  “Touching him would be required to reveal him.  You could have stopped at number two.”

“NO, YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED AT NUMBER TWO!!!”

This guy was like a ticking time bomb, the slightest provocation set him off.

His comeback didn’t even make sense, but I didn’t want to rile him up any further.

“We like Informant Zero,”  the cowboy said.  “We want to keep him around.  People are only allowed to conduct business with him when they follow the rules, capiche?”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to…”

Another tug on my sleeve from Delilah.

“We capiche,” she assured our guide.  “We very much capiche, thank you Mr. Redacted.”

“All right then,”  the cowboy said as the elevator dinged.  “As long as you kemo sabes capiche.”

The doors opened and we stepped inside.

“Enjoy your visit and tell old IZ I said hello.”

Just before the doors closed, I snuck in a, “Go suck some cottage cheese ya’ sick bastard.”

And just before our descent, I heard a fist pound the metal doors, followed by an, “OW!!!  SON OF A…”

“Mr. Hatcher, that was quite uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry Ms. Donnelly.  I just didn’t like the cut of his jib.”

“Well you’re going to have to get used to jibs of all different shapes and sizes if you’re going to make it in this world.  The days when everyone marches to the tune of the same drummer are long gone.”

“Tell me about it.”

Like a trip to Veracruz, it was a long ride.

As we continued to plummet deep below the Earth’s surface, Delilah piped up again.

“Mr. Hatcher, were the olden days really that good?”

“Not at all,”  I said.  “Everyone foisted their personal beliefs on you and threatened to ruin you if you didn’t comply.”

“So why are you in such a hurry to get away from the present?”

I didn’t skip a beat.

“Because everyone foists their personal beliefs on me and threatens to ruin me if I don’t comply.”

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 09 2015
3 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Informant Zero (Part 2)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

The Anything Goes Club.  Armand wasn’t kidding.

I’d never seen such a disgusting display in all my life.

shutterstock_71510056

“How is it possible that I’ve been scraping the fungus off of LA’s seedy underbelly for years and this is the first I’ve heard of this place?”

“We hide ourselves well, sir,”  Armand said.  “We cater to all manner of, interests, and our more famous clients appreciate our…discretion.”

Indeed, there were a number of celebrities in our midst.  Lucky for them, I was new to this time period and while I recognized many of them from seeing them in passing on Ms. Tsang’s television, I didn’t know any of them by name.

I was fairly certain one of the gals slathering herself up in the jello fighting pit was the same skirt who pointed to prizes and smiled on Ms. Tsang’s favorite game show.

And that guy who was tripping out and dancing on the pool table? He looked a lot like the actor who plays the father on that sitcom Ms. Tsang always watches.

You know.  The one where the wife and kids do everything right and never make a mistake and they all have to suffer through the constant incompetence of the family’s idiotic paternal figure?

Yeah.  I know.  That describes every sitcom so it’s hard to narrow it down.

Ms. Donnelly was a bit more hip than I was.

“Is that NAME REDACTED playing the banjo in his underwear?”

“Sure is,”  the bartender said.  “That son of a bitch sure can wail.”.

“Ms. Donnelly, I wonder if we might move this along?”

“Of course,”  she said as she turned to Armand.  “I was told it would be possible to meet with Informant Zero?”

Armand’s beady eyes lit up.

“Informant Zero?”  the butler asked.

“Yes, Informant Zero,”  Delilah repeated.

Armand looked at the bar keep.

“Informant Zero.”

The barkeep nodded and rang a loud dinner bell.

He then shouted, “INFORMANT ZERO!”

Across the room, there was a DJ wearing a furry gorilla costume, though he didn’t wear the mask.

Abruptly, he shut his turntables down, cutting off the music entirely.

“INFORMANT ZERO!” the DJ announced through his microphone.

All of a sudden, in a room full of sickos, Delilah and I were the ones being stared at.

A man with a ripped six-pac road over on one of those two wheeled Segways.  He wore a cowboy hat and a pair of leather pants.

Segway.  What an interesting machine.  I wanted one myself.

“Who seeks Informant Zero?”  the cowboy asked.

“These two seek Informant Zero,”  Armand answered.

I recognized the cowboy from somewhere else, but couldn’t put a finger on it.  In a room full of twisted behavior, a man who was just pretending to be a Southerner didn’t seem so bad.

The cowboy chewed on a toothpick for a bit, giving us the once over.  Then he had a question.

“What is the slope of the rope?”

It was a test.  I was stumped, but when Ms. Donnelly reached for her cheat sheet, I realized her contact must have prepared her for this.

She raised a finger in the air and read from the paper ever so triumphantly:

“It is equally proportionate to the angle of the dangle!”

I love it when Delilah gets tricked into talking dirty.

The cowboy looked at Armand.  Our butler nodded.  The cowboy wheeled away toward the back of the room.

“This way.”

We followed but he was going fast on that thing.  It was hard to keep up.

Suddenly, I noticed the cowboy was weirder than I had originally surmised.  From behind, I noticed he wasn’t wearing leather pants at all.

He was wearing assless chaps.

“What have I seen you in, buster?”  I asked.

“Nothing,”  the cowpoke said, keeping his face forward, refusing to look at me.

“You in show biz?”

“That’s none of your biz.”

“I do believe he’s NAME REDACTED,”  Ms. Donnelly whispered to me.

“THE GUY THAT PLAYS ROLE IN SUPERHERO MOVIE REDACTED?!”

Oops.  I was less than discrete.

The cowpoke wheeled around and leered at us.

“You know,” he said.  “You non-famous people have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under.”

“I’m sorry pal,”  I said.  “Forget it.”

“No,” the cowboy said as he scooted his scooter so he could get in my face.  He leaned over the handlebars and I found myself leaning backward just to give him some room.

“Sure.  You all look at me on the big screen in my costume and think, ‘Now there’s a guy with a great life.  But you don’t know what’s involved to keep my career going.”

He leaned back and got out of my personal space.

“Everyday I wake up at 5 am.  I run for miles, do sit ups, crunches, squats, pecs, lats, delts.  I work out until dusk and ALL I ever get to eat is a bag of baby spinach and three almonds.”

Delilah hanged back, realizing we were in for it for awhile.  I’d unleashed a monster and was now doubling as his impromptu therapist.

“That’s actually in my contract!  My lawyer and the studio banged out a deal that specifically states I can only eat three almonds a day or risk losing everything.”

Delilah couldn’t resist.

“You should have hired me, Mr. REDACTED.  I’d of gotten you five.”

“Whatever,” the cowboy replied.  “All I’m saying is when I work as hard as I do and provide as much joy to the world as I do, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for me to be allowed to hang out in a private club during my free time and dress up like a cowboy while a pair Czechoslovakian dwarves slather me with cottage cheese and read me the collective works of Ayn Rand.”

I repeated the phrase that I found myself saying a lot in response to this new world.

“What the?!”

“Oh,”  the cowboy said as his face turned red.  “What are you, one of those uptight right wing jerk-holes who thinks that everyone who suffers from Curdoslovakiandwarvishrandism should be swept under the rug and denied their basic civil rights?!”

I had no idea how to respond to that.

“Well guess what, pal?!  I’m here!  I love it when small people from Eastern Europe smear me with spoiled dairy products while they read me tales of an alternative dystopian future, SO GET USED TO IT!”

“OK buster, take it easy.”

“You have no idea how I’ve suffered because of an affliction I can’t control!  It’s not my fault, you know!”

Delilah’s intervention was welcome.

“Pardon us,”  Delilah said to NAME REDACTED.  

She pulled me away and confronted me.

“Mr. Hatcher, you’ve committed a very serious social faux pas.”

“I have?”

“Yes.  You mocked his condition.”

“Condition?”  I asked.  “That’s a real thing?”

“Every thing is considered a real thing now,”  Delilah said.  “No matter what bizarre fetish a person has, society expects you to listen politely and nod as the individual explains to you why this nontraditional interest is the cause of all problems in his or her life.”

“So I can’t just tell him to man up and knock that shit off?”

“Certainly not,”  Delilah said.  “Especially not if you don’t want Mr. Battler to have an anti-Bookshelf Battle campaign launched against him on Twitter demanding that he fire you.”

“This is going to be hard for me,”  I said.  “My generation was too busy fighting a global onslaught of evil to worry about being slathered up with, by, Jesus, I lost track of what this guy has.”

We returned to our guide.

“Sorry fella,”  I said.  “I didn’t know you had it so bad.”

The cowboy nodded and extended his hand.

“That’s big of you to admit you were wrong.”

I looked at his hand, then at Ms. Donnelly.  Her look convinced me I had no choice but to shake it.

The cowboy did a 180 degree turn and led on.  I wiped my hand on my trench coat.  Was that rude?  Sorry.  I didn’t know where his hand had been.

Probably on a Czechoslovakian dwarf.

For legal purposes, Delilah tells me I have to say there’s nothing wrong with that.

Copyright (c) 2015.  All Rights Reserved.

Image courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 08 2015
7 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Informant Zero

By:  Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eyeshutterstock_225997396-2

I pulled my snazzy new set of wheels up to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city.

The joint was falling apart.  Broken windows, crumbling side panels, and I’m pretty sure I saw some bullet holes.

“Are you sure this is the place, Ms. Donnelly?”

“Of course, Mr. Hatcher,”  Delilah said as she stepped out of my passenger seat.

Together, we strolled to a steel plated door, upon which my colleague rapped three times.

She paused.  Rapped twice more.  Another pause, then four more knocks.

A booming baritone voice, not unlike that James Earl Jones fella, came through over the intercom.

“What is the password?”

Delilah retrieved a piece of paper from her clutch, unfolded it, and started to read.

“Hooray for big…”

She stopped and handed me the paper.

“Mr. Hatcher, will you be a gem and read this please?”

I took the note and read it to myself.

“Wowza.”

I looked at Delilah, my eyes begging the question, “Is this for real?”

Her nod told me it was.

Typical Delilah.  She was the kind of dame who wouldn’t say “shit” if she had a mouth full of it, which was ironic because the look on her puss suggested she was always in the process of sniffing it.

I cleared my throat.

“Ahem.  Hooray for big knockers!”

“All passwords must have a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.”

I tried again.

“Hooray for big knockers asterisk…”

I pointed to an “&” symbol on the paper.

“Ms. Donnelly, what is that?”

“It’s an ampersand.”

“Is that what it’s called?  I always just called it the ‘and’ sign.”

“That’s the layman’s term for it,”  Delilah said, “But the accurate word for it is ‘ampersand.'”

“OK,”  I said.  “Let’s try this again.  Hooray for big knockers asterisk, ampersand, dollar sign, seven, seven.”

Nothing.

“Maybe you’ve been hustled.”

“I don’t understand,”  Delilah said.  “My contact assured me this password would gain us entry.”

BZZZZTTTT!

The man on the other side of the intercom was back.

“You…may…enter,”  he said, ever so ominously.

I grabbed the door handle and opened it.

We found ourselves in a small waiting room, staffed by a hunchbacked old butler in a tuxedo.  The top of his head was completely bald, but he’d grown out the white hair on the sides down to his shoulders.

I could tell by his voice he was the same cat from the intercom.

“Good evening.  I am Armand, at your service.”

He turned to me.

“Might I take your hat, sir?”

“No one touches the fedora, Jack.”

“Very well.  Walk this way.”

shutterstock_51368320Armand pushed open a set of heavy double doors and we followed him inside.

Let me tell you, 3.5 readers, the interior decor did not match the exterior at all.

We found ourselves in a large, luxurious indoor court.  Lilly white marble floors and columns.  A waterfall in the center.  It was straight out of Roman times.

And speaking of Rome, there was an orgy afoot so depraved that it would have made Caligula blush.

“Avert your eyes, Ms. Donnelly.”

“I’m a big girl, Mr. Hatcher.”

All sorts of degenerate perverts were going at it every which way you looked, and that wasn’t the half of it.

A man dressed up in a clown outfit walked up to me, grabbed me by my shoulders, and stared intently into my eyes.

White makeup, curly green wig, floppy shoes, red nose, over-sized polka dot die, he went all out.

“Do you know why the tungsten mermaid swims on a bed of roses across the night shade amber of the pickle farmer’s garden?!”

His voice was all screechy, more disturbing than an owl’s screams piercing through darkness.

“Um…no?”

He laughed.  His laughs started quietly, then became successively louder.

“Ha.  Ha ha.  Ha ha HA HA HA HA MUAH HA HA HA HA!!! NOBODY KNOWS!!  NOBODY EVER KNOWS!!!!”

“A little help here, Armand?”

“Do as you think best, sir.”

I improvised.  I kneed the clown in the groin, gave him an uppercut to his dopey chin and sent him ass over teakettle, dropping the psycho to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Literally no one in the room noticed or cared.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Ms. Donnelly.”

“Quite all right, Mr. Hatcher.”

We continued on a bit.  The room was enormous.

There were multiple tables set up.  Each one had men participating in various dangerous sports.

There were two men playing that game where you stab the table between your fingers with a sharp knife, timing how many stabs were possible in a minute.  There was a pool of blood on the floor, suggesting an earlier participant had missed and how.

At another table, two men were playing Russian roulette.  Delilah and I watched in horror as one blindfolded participant with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth pressed a revolver up against his temple.

Beads of sweat dripped from the man’s brow and he trembled as he pulled the trigger.

CLICK!

An instant sigh of relief all around.

“The guns never have an actual bullet put into them,”  Armand informed us.  “The game master just keeps spinning the empty chamber, fooling thrill seekers into believing their lives are at stake.”

“And what are those fellas up to?”  I asked.

I pointed to another table where two men were talking rather calmly.  Given the other events, it was a little disappointing.

“I’m thinking of a number between one and ten,”  the first man said.

“Five,”  the second man guessed.

“Nope.”

Enraged, the second man flipped the table over and socked the first man right in the kisser, sending his victim’s teeth and blood spewing everywhere.

“Lying sack of shit!  You know it’s five!!!”

Disgusted, Delilah turned away and buried her head in my shoulder.

Suddenly, this place didn’t seem so bad.

Armand finally answered my question.

“High stakes pick a number.”

We kept walking.

A tall, statuesque Amazonian broad wearing skimpy leather lingerie that left little to the imagination was walking a grown man with an orange ball gag in his mouth.

“Heel, worm!!!”  she commanded as she pulled on a leash attached to a spiked collar around the man’s neck.

Ever so eerily, the woman cocked her head to one side as she looked me over, then poked me in the chest with a riding crop.

“Do you wish to be my slave, maggot?  I will bark orders at you morning, noon and night and you will lick my boots, do my bidding, and cater to my every whim!!!”

I rolled my eyes.

“No thank you, ma’am.  I’ve been married three times already.”

Not sure what to make of me, the dominatrix yanked on her dog man’s chain and walked him away.

Delilah pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a chuckle.  Delilah laughter was rare, but not entirely unheard of.  I enjoyed it when it came.

“That was quite humorous, Mr. Hatcher.”

“I have my moments, Ms. Donnelly.”

“ROAR!”

Our moment was ruined by, get this, a goddamned real life bengal tiger.  A butt naked woman who’d shaved her head bald was riding the oversized cat like he was a pony.  The woman’s body was covered with an elaborate tattoo of two pandas slapping each other with bamboo sticks.

You think I’m making this up.  I’m not.

I reached under my trench coat for my shoulder holster, where I kept Betsy safe and snug.

“It’s housebroken, sir.  You needn’t worry.”

Sex.  Alcohol.  Gambling.  Assorted debauchery.  We saw it all until Armand led us to a bar.

The bartender wore a full length woman’s dress, red with shiny sparkles, but other than that, wasn’t attempting to not appear as a man.  He had a buzzcut, a mustache, and spoke in a tone that reminded me of my Army drill sergeant.

Oddly, he also wore a spaceman helmet.  He lifted up the visor so he could get a better look at us.

“What can I get you?”  the barkeep asked as he set out a tray full of pharmaceuticals and narcotics.

“Uppers, downers, poppers, floppers, choppers, grinders, whirling dervishes…”

As he rattled of the names, he pointed to a different crystal goblet holding the illicit substances.

“…Crank, yank, and spank.  Meth.  Coke.  Horse.  Oxycontin.  Flintstone’s chewable vitamins.”

“We’re good, Jack,”  I said.

“You sure?”  the barkeep asked.  “I make a good airplane glue bath salt sorbet.”

My reaction was a resounding, “What the?”

I leaned in to Ms. Donnelly’s ear and whispered.

“I don’t get it.  He wants to take a bath with me and build a toy model?”

“No,”  Delilah said.  “I believe people use these products to, as they say, ‘get high.'”

“Great Caesar’s ghost.”

“Perhaps a beverage?”  the barkeep pressed on.  “We have absinthe, ambrosia milk, devil’s delight, and Diet Shasta Orange.”

“It is a trifle stifling in here,”  Delilah said.  “I’ll have a water if it’s no bother.”

“Not at all,” the barkeep said.

He poured the lady lawyer a glass and set it on the bar.  Immediately, I put my hand over it and pushed it aside.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t accept drinks offered to us in a room full of perverts, Ms. Donnelly?”

I was in my element.  I’d spent a lifetime dealing with scum, knew exactly how to act around lowlives, and I could tell Ms. Donnelly was grateful.

“Armand, what the hell is this place?”

“Anything goes, sir.”

“I can see that,”  I said.  “But what’s the name?”

“That is the name.  You are in the ‘Anything Goes Club.'”

Copyright (c) 2015 Bookshelf Q. Battler.

All Rights Reserved.

Images courtesy of a shutterstock.com license

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Aug 08 2015
Leave a comment
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Fan Dime Drops – For the 3.5 – (Part 4 – Conclusion)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1      Part 2       Part 3

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE

“A third and final question, Mr. Hatcher.”

“Lay it on me, Ms. Donnelly.”

DELILAH:  Java Davis, The Road Trip Writer wants to know why there were so many characters named Johnny in old timey films?

I drummed my fingers along the edge of the table, stalling for time as Delilah stared me down, certain I’d been stumped.

“Davis,”  I said.  “Java Davis.  Word on the street is he’s the nineteenth scribe to take a whirl on Mr. Battler’s blog.  Must be a big time player to to rake in that kind of action.”

Delilah folded her hands and leaned in.shutterstock_239019775

“Do you give up?”

I rose to my feet and paced about, practically wearing a hole in the library’s carpet.

It came to me.

“They didn’t have self-publishing in those days,”  I explained.  “Establishment writers were free to be hacks.  They dished out the slop and the audiences ate it up like ice cream because unlike today’s discerning entertainment connoisseur, they didn’t know any better.”

The lady lawyer returned the dossier to her briefcase and pointed a gloved finger my way.

“You certainly have a talent, Mr. Hatcher.”

“Deduction is but one of my many talents, Ms. Donnelly,” I said as I raised my right eyebrow in a shifty manner.  “Perhaps you’ll let me show you my others sometime.”

The blonde rested a hand on my shoulder.  The gesture was more than welcome.

“Perhaps not.”

Once again, she walked out of my life, a brief distraction from an otherwise lonely existence.

I was sad to see her go, but what a pleasure to watch her leave.

For a brief moment, I was lost in my dreams of blonde bliss, only to be distracted by an old bag of wrinkles.

“You’re going to stare a hole in that behind,”  Agnes said.

“It’s the little things in life, Ag,”  I said, still gawking at Delilah from the study room doorway  as she waited for the elevator.  “Put a cork in it and let me enjoy it, will you?”

“Is that your girlfriend?”

“Nah,”  I said.  “The man upstairs would never be so good to me.  Just someone I work with.”

Agnes was taken aback.

“Work?  You found a job!  Congratulations!  What are you doing?”

“Already told you.  I’m a highly skilled private investigator who tracks down questions to answers about pop culture posed by an anonymous blogger.  She’s his lawyer who brings me the cases.”

The old gal squinted and stared at me like I was from outer space.

“You’re serious?”

“Like a heart attack.”

“You weren’t lying?”

“Ma Hatcher didn’t raise a liar, ma’am.”

Agnes took a seat.  The news that I actually was a private eye threw her for a loop.

“Between the idea that that woman would be your girlfriend or that that woman works with you for a blog that you solve pop culture mysteries for, I have to admit the latter is more plausible.”

“Thanks Ag,”  I said.  “Thanks a lot.  Class over?”

“Yes,”  Agnes replied.  “One of my students had chest pains so I called it a day early.”

“Think I will too.”

“Oh Jake,”  Agnes said.  “I’m sorry.  I offended you didn’t I?”

“Nothing sticks to this gumshoe.  It all rolls off, like water off a duck’s back.”

“Have you made a move yet?”

I took a seat on the other side of the table.  My relationship with Agnes was becoming weird.  Technically, I was older than she was, but she didn’t know that, and she was quickly becoming my impromptu mother.

I think Ma Hatcher would have been ok with it.

“I’ve made more moves on her than a world champion chess player, but my bishop isn’t going anywhere near that queen.”

“Never say never.  Herb had to ask me a bunch of times before I came around.  I’ll never forget it, there was this one time we were at the park, and he got down on one knee and the birds were singing and…”

I stretched, yawned, and checked my pocket watch.

“Great Liberace’s piano, Agnes!  Look at the time.  I’d best skeedaddle.  Take it easy, kid.”

“Oh sure.  I listen to you, you don’t listen to me.  Just like my son.”

She sniffed the air.  Sniff.  Sniff.  Sniff.

“Have you been smoking in here?  This is a PUBLIC building you jackass!”

shutterstock_278169329

Copyright (c) Bookshelf Q. Battler.  All Rights Reserved.

Images courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Aug 07 2015
12 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Picking Your Character Names

Hey 3.5 Readers,

Your old pal Bookshelf Q. Battler is bummed out.

Actually, can you forget that I’m Bookshelf Q. Battler for a minute?

I’ve heard rumors that this blog isn’t actually run by BQB.  That there’s just some random anonymous person behind this all.  “A man behind the curtain” if you will.

Poppycock, I know, but just pretend I’m that guy for a minute.

Pop Culture Mysteries has become such an enjoyable part of my life.  Am I counting the riches from possible PCM novels?

No.

But I’ve tried writing novels my entire life only to write myself in a corner, wish I’d put in a key detail earlier, decide it needs a major overhaul, and just move onto something else.

Why PCM works for me is that when I write it, I step into shoes and become Jake.  I’m just a guy telling a story about a long, remarkable life.

And if I think of key details later?  Jake just happens to remember them.

The result is that I’ve been writing and building this world since April with no signs of losing interest, gaining more interest by the day if anything, and that’s a record for me.

When I write myself into a corner, Jake just pole vaults over it.

I’m happy and that long yearned for novel no longer seems as out of reach as it used to be.

SO WHY AM I BUMMED?

Here’s what happened to me today that knocked me out like an uppercut from the Jersey Jabber:

  1.  While looking for a new book to read, I came across Larry Correia’s Grimnoir series.  It’s fantasy/horror meets hardboiled noir.  In book 1, the hero, Jake Sullivan, takes on monsters and is tricked into thinking an old girlfriend, Delilah Jones, is a bankrobber.

OK, so Larry has written a noir book.  It has characters named “Jake Sullivan and Delilah Jones.”

I’m writing a noir blog with hopes to write noir novels based on that blog.  My characters are “Jake Hatcher and Delilah K. Donnelly.”

The stories could not be more different.  Larry’s Jake Sullivan is an ex-con who wields magical powers.  My Jake Hatcher is a guy who fell asleep in 1955, woke up in 2014, and now in 2015 strikes a deal that he’ll solve 100 mysteries for a blogger in exchange for the information that will lead him back to his own time.

Larry’s is fantasy/horror.  Mine is a parody of pop culture as well as a humorous look at the present as seen through the eyes of a person from the past, how some of the things we do today would seem goofy to a person just getting used to the new world for the first time.

My story, Pop Culture Mysteries,  started as a goof, a hard boiled detective solving “mysteries” like what happened to the first Brady Bunch spouses but then lo and behold, in my mind, a whole world and backstory started for Jake, one where I think actual novels are possible.  It’s also intended as a spoof of noir style itself, Jake speaking in that stereotypical tough guy exaggeration filled, comparison laden cadence that old time detectives are known for.

So the two books are different, but you know how haters and online trolls are.

Probably one dingus out there will be like “Bahh there was a noir novel with Jake and Delilah and YOU wrote a noir novel with Jake and Delilah.”

I had no idea.  Had I never come across the book I’d of gone forward without knowing.

So the first question – does this mean MY Jake and Delilah can no longer be Jake and Delilah?  Do one of mine, either Jake OR Delilah, have to get a name change?

The premise makes me sad because, well, call me sad if you must but it’s almost like Jake and Delilah have become my friends.  My life is made so much better when I sit down at my computer every night to figure out what’s going to happen to them next.

2)  That lit a fire under my butt to do some more research.  Low and behold, there are a ton of detective stories with detectives named Jake.  I debated in my mind – I don’t think THAT reason alone is enough to change Jake’s name because if it’s a parody, then what’s one more Jake?

I mean, Jack, John, Fred, Tom, whatever – if it’s a traditional name, there’s a million stories already where that first name has been used.

3)  But – and this is what gets me, I did find another novel on amazon – “Diabolical” by Hank Schwaeble that’s a mix of horror and noir and the hero’s name?  JAKE HATCHER!  BOOOO!!! BOO!!!!  (Sorry Hank, that boo’s not on you personally, just that I can’t catch a break.

4)  So does that mean my hero can’t be Jake Hatcher?  I mean, how far do we take this?  If I write Steve Smith, can you never have a Steve Smith?

I get it if the name is really unique.  Like I can’t write a novel about an accountant called “Lando Calrissian.”  I almost laughed it off but I guess if this guy wrote a noir-ish novel about a guy named Jake Hatcher, then could that be a problem?

If my novel was about Jake Hatcher the janitor fighting for custody of his kids in a drama then it’s probably fine but I guess I am writing a noir, even if mine is a comical noir.

5)  What bugs me is I did research this every which way and a)  I really don’t want to change the names but b) if I’m going to put all the work in to start a Pop Culture Mysteries site and companion novels, then I don’t want some troll being like “you stole those names!”  even though I didn’t at all.

6)  And then my worry is this – there is SO, SO, SO MUCH written material out there, it’s not only possible that the name of your novel in a character was used before, it’s a given.  What if I go back to the drawing board, name my Jake and Delilah something else, and lo and behold, like what if name them Ned and Carol and someone points to an obscure novel I never heard of and they’re like “Ooo you stole those names from the Ned and Carol series!”

7)  It’s gotten me so paranoid that I’m starting to worry someone’s going to pop out of a bush and yell, “Hey you son of a B$%ch!  I’M BOOKSHELF Q BATTLER!  STOP USING MY NAME!!!

8)  Is this just all in my head?  Are these issues to worry about or not?  Is this just something that happens in fiction all the time?

9)  Can I press forward and just keep calling my dear Pop Culture Mystery friends “Jake and Delilah?”  Is it ever possible to think up names that someone wont have a problem with?

I don’t know.  Help me out 3.5 readers.

I guess if you want me to boil down this rant:

  1.  Should I change Jake and Delilah’s names?
  2. Or should I bother because unless I call them Jaboozle and Dawoozle, every name has been used in a novel before and I’m just worrying too much?
Tagged , , , , , , ,
Aug 07 2015
5 Comments
Pop Culture Mysteries

Pop Culture Mysteries: Fan Dime Drops – For the 3.5 (Part 3)

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1    Part 2

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

“Perhaps I was in the wrong to complain about this situation,”  I said.  “After all, being cooped up with the most beautiful woman in the world isn’t so bad.”

That would have worked on my first wife, Trixie, who was all looks and no brains.  Delilah, on the other hand, was the whole package and that meant nothing but disappointment for yours truly.

“Do gain control of your loins and prepare for the next question.”

DELILAH:  Mr. Hatcher, a Ms. Barb Knowles reported this dilemma:

“I have a question for Jake. Can he PLEASE find out how Robert Ludlum has published more books since his demise than he did when he was alive??”

Read Barb’s blog at saneteachers.com 

“Who’s this gal?”

“A teacher,”  Ms. Donnelly explained.  “She writes about ‘the things they never taught her in teacher school.'”

“I don’t envy anyone who has to educate kids in this day in age,”  I said.  “Hell, even my kid brother Roscoe and I were known to drive the occasional chaulk jockey bananas back in our day.  What tricks are kids pulling now?  Whoopie cushions?  Joybuzzers?  Rubber snakes in the peanut brittle can?  Tack on the teacher’s chair?”

“I suppose those are all things that teachers of today have to deal with now and then,”  shutterstock_207933922Ms. Donnelly said.  “When they aren’t busy worrying about drugs and weapons coming into the schools.”

I coughed from surprise.  One of many reasons why I no longer recognized the world I lived in.

“Sorry I asked,”  I said.

I rubbed my thumb and fingers together, making the international sign for money.

“It’s all about the cash-ola,”  I said.  “The green stuff.  The bread.  The lettuce.  The cabbage.”

“Yes, I understand, Mr. Hatcher.”

“An author’s readers are a form of currency,”  I said.  “They’re an asset and like a piece of land, or a house, or a watch, they can be transferred and utilized after the author’s demise.  An author’s name is something his heirs can cash in on and before you’re quick to judge them, you should realize that you probably wouldn’t run in the opposite direction if some extra scratch was coming your way.”

I needed another puff.

“In Ludlum’s case, I bet there are some readers who aren’t even aware he’s gone.  Folks just see ‘Ludlum’ and grab the book like one of Ma Hatcher’s prize winning flapjacks at the county fair.  Other readers are aware but are happy to see stories set in a world they enjoy continue.  And if you’re a writer, and a new writer continues spinning yarns off of a spool you built, don’t you still deserve some credit in the form of your name being slapped on the cover, albeit posthumously?”

“An astute deduction, Mr. Hatcher.”

“Who’s next, sweetheart?”

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →