Chicken Ranch report no. 26

I have met the enemy, and it's name is Wagon Wheel. See that image to the right? Yeah, that bombed-out row of cinder block buildings. That's all that remains of the Wagon Wheel, lesser-known cousin to the more famed Chicken Ranch. If you've ever driven along Interstate 10 between Houston and San Antonio, you've probably seen it just west of Sealy, even if you never knew what it was.

The Wagon Wheel was a failed motel that found a second life as a brothel. It was closed down by Marvin Zindler at the same time as the Chicken Ranch, but as Austin County Sheriff Truman Maddox never challenged Zindler, or the governor, or anyone else, really, in defense of the brothel, it pretty much went away quietly. Very few people have ever heard about it. Even newspaper accounts of the time generally relegate it to an afterthought tacked on to the end of a sentence about the Chicken Ranch, usually going something like this: "...as well as another brothel outside of Sealy." That's it. Nothing to see here, move along.

Except that when I made up my mind to tell the Chicken Ranch's story, I committed to telling the entire story--or at least as much as I could uncover--which included the Wagon Wheel as well. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. The more I researched, the more I learned that the Wagon Wheel and Chicken Ranch fates were very much intertwined by circumstances. So much so that the Wagon Wheel demanded a separate chapter. The trouble was, I didn't really have enough information for a full chapter, and because of a dearth of information on the Wagon Wheel from any source, I ended up padding the chapter with tangential material by necessity. In the end I had a short chapter with some interesting stuff in it, but nothing very meaty and not terribly satisfying to me, personally.

Fast forward a few months. Out of the blue, I have a source very familiar with the operation of the Wagon Wheel practically drop into my lap. And this source gives me a few key bits of information that leads to some other sources. Suddenly, boom! I've got a whole heck of a lot of blanks filled in, validation of several extrapolations on my part and illuminating context for facts I already had. The downside is that the chapter required an extreme rewrite, rather than a simple edit.

I worked hard to integrate a lot of the padding material into the chapter, so extracting it is proving more challenging than simply highlighting and deleting. And the new material doesn't fit so neatly in the vacated spots, forcing me to extensively rewrite perfectly good material. But as I slog through and make my slow progress, the new materials laid out clearly next to existing materials, the cumulative context makes one thing obvious: Some of the folks involved with the operation of the Wagon Wheel were not very nice at all.

Hopefully, I'll wrap up the Wagon Wheel chapter shortly, at which point I'll only have six more chapters to go in the second draft re-write. Those should go much more quickly, after which I'll be time for beta-readers. Now, if I only had a publisher...

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Godspeed, Neil Armstrong

Neal Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, the first human being ever to walk on the moon, died today. The Eagle touched down on the lunar surface July 20, 1969. I was born September 16, 1969. I've never known a world where humans haven't set foot on another world.

I never met Neil Armstrong. For someone who is a complete stranger to me, his death has thrown me into a kind of numb melancholy. I've met Buzz Aldrin, who has become one of NASA's greatest ambassadors after overcoming clinical depression. I've read several of Michael Collins' books, including the sublime Carrying the Fire. I've met other astronauts over the years, such as the late Dick Scobee, and even interviewed Bill Anders regarding a funny anecdote for my Chicken Ranch book. I live in the same town as Charlie Duke, and driven past his house many times. But Armstrong is the man who inspired my early dreams of becoming an astronaut, and my love of astronomy and space exploration that he engendered prompted me to become a science fiction writer after it became clear the whole flying rockets into space thing wasn't going to work out for me. You see, in addition to commanding Apollo 11 and walking on the moon (which was the coolest thing ever!) he also piloted the astounding X-15 rocket plane into sub-orbital space seven times, earning his astronaut wings before he ever joined NASA (which was the second coolest thing ever!).

This summer, the family made another of our patented, cross-country family vacation road trips (which reminds me--I haven't properly chronicled the misadventures via blog yet. My bad). We went to Florida this year, and one of our stops was the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral. Even having visited the Johnson Space Center as many times in Houston as I have, I must admit Kennedy gave me many, many instances of squee! One of the most affecting moments, however, came when I discovered the hand casts of the Apollo 11 crew, in the image above. Aldrin's hands look rough and rugged, like an engineer's. Collins' hands seemed almost archetypical, Everyman's hands. Armstrong's though, I found arresting. They reminded me a lot of my grandfather's hands, although they didn't necessarily look all that much like my grandfather's hands, if that makes any sense. They had a sense of age about them, like they carried the weight of an entire species. Silly, I know, but still, the simple plaster display struck me as profoundly intimate.

Godspeed, Neil Armstrong. You inspired me, and hopefully I'll do some good in this life because of it.

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Friday Night Videos

Okay, today's video is "Calling Elvis" by Dire Straits. To be honest, I feel the live version of this song, off the On the Night album, is much stronger than the studio single. But then again, the live version doesn't have this magnificently bizarre Thunderbirds puppet video. So my choice is clear. Enjoy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Kinks.

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Friday Night Videos

Hey all, blogging from my hotel room in the Dominican Republic, and the power just went out. Predictable, huh? So I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. Here are the Kinks with, you got it, "Predictable":

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Men At Work.

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Yeah, I'm late with the Armadillocon report, pt. 2

Saturday morning dawned all too early, and it took quite a bit of convincing to roust Monkey Girl out of bed (nothing against Armadillocon--this is a recurring theme at our house). We were rewarded with a cool, comfortable ride to Austin, which is a thing to be cherished, as my AC in the car was still out. Once we arrived at the hotel, we were happy to see no fire trucks parked out front. Flooding (which I've since been informed was the result of a broken 1-inch line and not some idiot hanging heavy stuff from a fire sprinkler) was not in the cards this day. Monkey Girl quickly found a fellow in an elaborate steampunk battle armor costume for me to take her photo with, then was off to pursue her schedule of events.

My first panel was at 11 a.m., "Alternate History: The Way Things Weren't," with Steven Utley, Howard Waldrop, Peni Griffin, Bob Mahoney and Josh Rountree. With a lineup like that, how could it not be a great panel? We talked a whole heck of a lot about history--the regular kind--and how hindsight is so apt at spotting pivot points where things could very, very easily gone a different way. Research is a rabbit hole one can fall down and never emerge from. We also touched on the fact that bad alternate history exists pretty much only as a cockeyed "Where's Waldo?" exercise with famous figures. I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly, and it was a lively discussion.

My next panel came at 4 p.m., "Learning from Others' Mistakes: Writing Errors to Avoid," which proved great fun. I moderated. Bill Spencer, Kathleen Cheney, Urania Fung, Scott Lynch and Jamie Lee Moyer pulled more than their weight in the discussion. I kicked things off by confessing that as a 17-year-old, I sent my recently completed epic fantasy novel (based heavily on D&D) to Stanley Schmidt at Analog for serialization. Yeah, nobody else 'fessed up to anything that cringe-inducing. Mostly we talked about stupid writer tricks, and how not to interact with editors. Nothing earth-shaking, but the audience seemed entertained, so I call it a win.

I fear I missed a whole lot of cool panels this year, and didn't make a single reading. Mid-afternoon, I got a call from home that the air conditioner had gone out. How's that for crummy luck? Not only was my car a sweatbox, but my house was rapidly becoming one as well. This became something of a distraction for me the rest of the day, so to anyone I had a conversation with--if I didn't seem like I was all there, you have my apologies. I took Monkey Girl over to How Do You Roll for sushi dinner, then came back in time for her to hit the art auction and me to wander through the dealers' room a bit (art show was fantastic this year, with lots of talent on display). I did catch the "Pictures at an Exhibition" session, in which pro artists such as John Picacio gave a guided tour through the art show and discussed the styles, influences and techniques used in the various works on display. It was interesting, but as the art show is merely sectioned off from the dealers' room, the noise grew overwhelming after a bit and I ended up stepping away simply because I couldn't hear anything said.

A highlight of the evening was a screening of Joe Lansdale's low-budget horror film, Christmas with the Dead, scripted by his son, Keith, based on a story of Joe's, with daughter Kasey Lansdale as one of the zombies. It's a little rough, as you might expect from a low-budget indy film, and there were a few pacing issues, but overall it was a great deal of fun. It's certainly better than almost any Roger Corman-produced film, or anything you can find on the skiffy channel. There's some sly, subversive humor in the film, some trademark Lansdale strangeness, and a good number of gross-out bits to satisfy the zombie fans. I can see this becoming a cult classic, especially around the holidays. It's not Bubba Ho-Tep, but then again, what is?

We wrapped it up soon after that. There were several room parties, including a joint one thrown by ApolloCon, FenCon and ConDFW--great folks, all of them--but for some reason hardly anyone showed. I mean, it wasn't exactly crickets chirping, but it wasn't far from it. This is the second year in a row where Armadillocon had no Friday night parties at all, which is troubling enough, but to have the Saturday parties underwhelm--and I'm not speaking of heavy drinking, but rather of the continuous ebb and flow of fans and interesting, varied and stimulating conversations--that I am rightfully concerned. hopefully, next year will correct this negative trajectory.

So, Monkey Girl and I packed up and headed home before the wee hours got too wee. She made a killing at the art show, leveraging her limited funds into a veritable plethora of fine art pieces worth far more than the paltry sums she paid for them. Now all she lacks is wall space for the illustrations. She also found a partner in crime close to her own age that also likes Doctor Who and is active on Deviant Art. Yeah, a monster is created. For my part, the convention ended on a downer. The AC issues at home ended any hope of returning for Sunday's wrap up, and I had soooo many people I still hadn't gotten a chance to talk with. And, of course, I wanted to hear Howard Waldrop's traditional con-ending reading. Maybe next year, hmm?

I have to admit my amusement of Neal Barrett, Jr., being utterly befuddled by my Galaxy Note phone when he borrowed it to make a call. Not to worry, I helped him out. But still. Does that make me a bad person?

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Yeah, I'm late with the Armadillocon report

So sue me. Life's been a bit busy. Armadillocon 34 happened almost two weeks ago, and I'm just now barely getting around to writing up a report. And guess what? That report's going to be fairly terse. And I'm not identifying everyone in the photos--you kids can tag those you know once this blog post imports to Facebook. Yeah, I'm that lazy.

Armadillocon, through circumstances beyond my control, turned out to be the only convention I attended in 2012. This is not good for me, since 1) New Braunfels is not known for its writer community and 2) I depend on the writerly interaction I experience at conventions to recharge my enthusiasm for whatever projects I'm working on. This year, for the second year in a row, Monkey Girl attended with me, hitting the gaming demos, wreaking havoc on the art show and generally attending any panel that caught her attention. We arrived around 5 p.m. on Friday, after a miserable drive up in my car with the non-functioning air conditioning. My apologies to anyone who happened to be standing downwind from me--I normally don't smell that bad, I swear (on the upside, I now have a new car with a great AC system!). Monkey Girl and I checked in at registration then headed over to Fire Bowl Cafe for dinner. When we returned, we found the disconcerting sight of two fire trucks parked outside of the hotel. And fire alarms going off inside. Nobody seemed to take evacuation too seriously, so she and I wandered in and out.

Turns out there was no fire, but rather some genius decided to hang something extremely heavy from one of the fire sprinklers in a room on the fourth floor. Which promptly broke, flooding the room, and adjacent rooms, and rooms below, and eventually the lobby while setting off all the fire alarms. Stop me if you've heard this one before. The moral of the story: People are dumb.

I caught the tail end of the "Texas Is Fantastic" panel, interrupted often by a voice over the intercom muttering something unintelligible about the watery apocalypse ongoing on floors 1-4 and the lobby. Opening ceremonies were fun, with A. Lee Martinez as the toastmaster. He promised not to get mushy, then got all mushy and life-affirming and geeky. Other guests of honor included Anne Bishop, Liz Gorinsky, Chloe Neill, Julie Dillon and Bill Parker.

My one panel on Friday was "The Still Changing Definition of Urban Fantasy" with Anne Bishop, Chloe Neill, Nancy Holzner, Stina Leicht (my arch-enemy) and Ari Marmell. About half the panel came to Urban Fantasy through the works of Charles de Lint, and the other half some time after de Lint, Emma Bull and others had done much to define the sub-genre. I'm still not clear one the changing definition element, other than the fact that Urban Fantasy has proven flexible and moved beyond the old "elves in the modern city" stereotype it once had. We also distinguished it from other forms of "Contemporary Fantasy," such as what someone like Jonathan Carroll writes, in that music seems to play a big part in Urban Fantasy, and the subgenre is very much a product of the time it is written, steeped in pop culture and the flavor of the era (ie Wizard of the Pigeons etc.). Holzner moderated well, giving everyone an opportunity to contribute to the discussion. Fun panel, and I got to rub elbows with two of the GoHs. Does Armadillocon treat me right, or what? Afterwards, I chatted with various folks a bit then, as there were no room parties that night (second year in a row nothing happened on Friday evening--a disturbing trend) I gathered Monkey Girl and headed home. Hey, I'm old and she's young, so we've got to manage our time wisely.

And with that, I'll stop for now. I'll try and wrap up my report and post the remaining photos I took in the next day or so.

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Friday Night Videos

On Facebook and elsewhere, I've had a bit of conversation of late regarding Vegemite. I like the stuff--had a sample a few years back during an Aussie friend's visit--but it's not readily available in the U.S. So when I saw some at World Market last week, I picked up a jar despite the (relatively) steep price. I'm probably being charitable by saying it's an acquired taste. It's a thick, dark yeast extract paste that is fairly pungent and briny, but is also fat- and carb-free, chok full of vitamin B and lesser amounts of other nutrients. A little goes a long way. I've discovered it pairs really well with dark beer when spread on toast (I tend to go for nutty, multi-grain breads, for the record). None of which has anything at all to do with Friday Night Videos, other than the fact I cannot speak of Vegemite without automatically thinking of Men At Work. Enjoy.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Talking Heads.

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