Jots And Tittles.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SOLOMON'S VINEYARD by Jonathan Latimer is a hard crime pulp classic banned in the US for 40-something years. I've read half of it to learn why it was banned for so long. With no clue I read a review of the book. The sex is violent, the gals like raw meat and blood and destroyed clothing before they copulate. Yawn. The reviewer is right, its THE DAIN CURSE by Dashiell Hammett all over again. Except Hammett didn't spell it out in detail. OK. Been there, done that, got the scars.

A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE by Nelson Algren arrived in the mail. I'm reading his dope classic THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM. So far I'm not impressed.

Also reading THE STREET OF NO RETURN by David Goodis. Its a tale of a teen idol who ends up on Skid Row, and the seriously hot female singer who ends up there, too. Each tossed away and forgotten. The Sterno bum and the 300 pound has been.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Transcribed a letter from 1895, my great grandmother was on her honeymoon, traveling from New Orleans to Memphis, and on to her in-laws home at Ole Miss. I dragged out my stuff to reveal the writing. The paper and ink are troublesome, but I deciphered 90% of whats there (and much of what I missed isnt there to transcribe), and it isn't earth-stopping information. They took a boat from Tallahassee to NO, spent a few days touring the town, then caught a steamboat up the Mississippi. Officers are courteous and obliging, food is scrumptious, boat should dock tonite, blah blah blah.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Got lucky today. Located an old plantation my 4th Great grandfather owned till 1799, at Georgetown South Carolina. It was called WATERFIELD before he sold it, then it became BENVENUE Plantation. The US Government owns it today. It was a rice plantation. The Pinckneys owned it before ancestor Robert Grant bought it. Grant was an MD who served Francis Marion during the Revolution.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

3 DRAWINGS MADE BY MY ANCESTOR JAMES B GRANT IN 1860 AT SAVANNAH. He was 18 years old at the time. During the Civil War he made many drawings of kids, and camp scenes, and a drawing of the US Capitol with its dome being constructed.

Old drawings add much to a family history project.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Today I'm transcribing a letter written in early 1862 at Yorktown Virginia. The letter records an attack my ancestor made on Union sharpshooters and a Union artillery battery protecting the sharpshooters. Its real cavalier excitement. A brigade commander, he sent a battalion out to chase the sharpshooters away. The men were hesitant, so ancestor mounted his horse, unsheathed his sword, and took off thru the men to attack the sharpshooters alone. It shamed the men, and they went running after George. George stampeded the sharpshooters then attacked the artillery, alone. General Early watched it, then sent riders after George, to order him back.

George died a few days later, sitting calmly on his horse at Williamsburg VA awaiting the order to counter-attack Union forces in his sector. He was shot in the head and heart. Jefferson Davis had promoted George to General rank, but George didn't know it. A letter I found captures the death.

Another ancestor, Jim Grant, was a private soldier in the 8th Georgia Infantry Regiment. He wrote a long account of Bull Run. God placed him in the vortex of the action, and he captured all the gore and glory, and heard with his own ears Thomas Jackson anointed "Stonewall." After Fredericksburg General Lee promoted him to 1st Lieutenant for gallantry, but I have no idea what Jimmy did there.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Finished reading STREET OF NO RETURN by David Goodis.

Its a story about political corruption, police brutality, race riots, and Skid Row bums in Philadelphia. No happy ending. Plenty of graphic violence. A hot radio crooner is caught fucking a mobsters honey. The mobster is polite, and asks the singer to move on. The singer refuses. It doesn't end well for anyone.

I give it 5 starz for suspense and plot.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Back to writing at last, starting with a series about a corrupt headshrinker. I use a boatload of sexual experiences I had with female clients over the years. Don't gasp, its common. I'll bet I saw more of my supervisors muff than her boyfriend did, though she was mostly a tease. JIMMY COME HELP WITH THIS DARN SLIP, ITS BUNCHED UP AROUND MY WAIST. LEMME PULL MY SKIRT UP AND YOU PULL THE SLIP BACK DOWN. I RECKON I NEED TO BRING A CAN THAT OF STATIC-FREE SPRAY AND KEEP IT IN MY DESK. Later she'd apologize and blame her alcoholism, till the next time. I took many of her Ed.D. classes for her.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SOLOMON'S VINEYARD by Jonathan Latimer.

Banned in the USA from 1941 to 1986, I cant imagine why.

One hundred, thirty-two pages, I'll swear its really 1132.

Every reviewer loves it; what in hell did I miss!

Long story short: A PI goes to Smallville to rescue a young woman from a cult. The woman is the putative annual human sacrifice to the embalmed founder of the cult. The new leader of the cult, a hot promiscuous blonde called THE PRINCESS snares the PI for plenty of sex and strong-arm robbery of the cults treasure.

The PI gets plenty of nookie from all over town. THE PRINCESS likes her sex mixed with lotsa underwear shredding violence. HIT ME! is her creed. But theyre all talk. The HIT ME! part is immediately followed by LATER, BACK AT THE HOTEL...the homosexual night clerk flutters his eye-lashes at the PI and offers to tuck him into bed at the end of the shift in 10 minutes. No one ever gets fucked, but all swear they do. Then the PI swears he ate a 4 pound steak. Uh, guy? That's a roast.

As nearly as I can tell SOLOMONS VINEYARD is a DAIN CURSE (Dashiell Hammet) knock-off.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Started 3 new stories as Florida Spring lets the creative sap flow again.

One of them is interracial/LW I call BLACK BIRD IN A GELDED CAGE. Black woman married to a retired vet who is run over and knocked outta the game for most intents and purposes; he's a 40 year old 4th grader now. Then she walks in on her girlfriend and the owner of their company playing hokey-pokey aboard the conference room table. The girlfriend, promoted to manage the Atlanta office, suggests that there's a quick elevator to the top of the company for a cute black woman with the right stuff and attitude.

The others I haven't named. One involves a Gay politician and his Peruvian/Inca wife. Back in Lima she caught hubby polishing anuther pols apples in a hotel, and blackmailed him into marriage and a trip to America. Now he wants a divorce, cuz Gay is cool, and the court sends them to a shrink to save the marriage. Its LW on steroids. Hard crime noir.

#3 is LW with hubby fucking his mother in law after he catches his wife fucking his business partner.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Anuther story idea popped into my skull. I call it SWEET REVENGE.

At the 50th reunion of Smallville High School Reggie Dorkmann shows up looking maybe 25 years old. The gals notice that they feel better than 68 when theyre near him.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Reading THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM by Nelson Algren.

The goddamn book takes 50 pages to get interesting, and the interesting part is a digression about an old blind fat man with a hare-lip and bleeding gums. His gums bleed really bad.

But I cant recall much from the first 50 pages. Its like a windy post by 3113.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

RETIREMENT.

Before I retired I drove 3000 miles per month. That's one oil change and 100 gallons of gasoline every month, and one set of tires per year.

Now I drive 50 miles per week or 2500 miles per year. Every place that matters is a mile or so from the house.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I added Mickey Spillane to my IGGY list. His highly acclaimed I, THE JURY is too lame to suffer. Frederic Brown may be headed to IGGY, too.

Raymond Chandler remains #1. Talmage Powell is #2. And Dashiell Hammet is a solid #3 in the Pantheon of Hard Crime Noir. I'm starting to like Nelson Algren, maybe more than David Goodis.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Read more of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM by Nelson Algren. Past the blind alcoholic with the bleeding gums, we visited an alcoholic dog, then observed an old heroin addict agonizing till he got a fix, then discussed his addiction history with his fixer. Algren packs lotsa description into this book. I think it won a major writing award. Algren was an addict at one time.

THE BURGLARS by David Goodis is too boring, so I moved on.