BIG NEWS: I will be at the Oxford Exchange Annual Book Fair on Thursday, April 22, 2021 in downtown Tampa from 6pm to 9pm. I will have my debut novel Curveball at the Crossroads as well as other books I have been a part of over the years.
The Oxford Exchange is an amazing location and a fantastic place to check out my work as well as the work of many other local authors.
It will be a great time. I am super excited.
More information on the book fair can be found here:
Curveball at the Crossroads was mentioned in Vires, the Florida State Alumni magazine. The entry for the book was directly under the latest news of Oscar-winner and Academy Award nominee Barry Jenkins.
FSU Class of 2003 doing great things and telling great stories.
Tonight's cinematic misadventure was Top Dog (1994) starring Chuck Norris and a dog. Chuck Norris, the baddest man on the planet, teamed up with dog to fight a group of right-wing, white power terrorists trying to destroy San Diego. Why Chuck Norris needed a dog's help in saving the day is beyond me, but a dog has to get paid somehow.
Chuck Norris is the man. He doesn't need help. But when an old cop is killed, his K9 becomes the partner of a cop who doesn't play by the rules. Fact number 1: if you looked up "not playing by the rules" in the dictionary, you would find a picture of Chuck Norris. Fact number 2: if you looked up Chuck Norris in the dictionary, a roundhouse kick jumps off the page and hits you in the face.
There are people who say white power terrorists are too strong of a bad guy for this buddy cop comedy that sometimes seemed like a kid's movie. But to them I say, no bad guy is too strong for Chuck Norris. Add in the world's smartest crime fighting pooch, and this was a walk in the park for the good guys.
Grade: 4 roundhouse stars out of 5.
Tonight's cinematic misadventure was Silver Streak (1976) starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. This movie also starts the guy from Superman (Ned Beatty), the guy from My Favorite Martian, Jaws from James Bond, and Fred Willard. You would think such a loaded and eclectic cast of characters would be hilarious. Alas.
Silver Streak is the story of a mild-manner book editor who witnesses a murder on a train. He gets tossed from the train multiple times by the bad guys only to get back on the train to rescue a woman he hooked up with on his first night on the train. Sounds entertaining enough.
However, this movie is nearly 2 hours long. Richard Pryor doesn't enter the movie until an hour in. This movie should been 90 minutes, tops. It plays like a drama with a touch of humor, instead a full-blown comedy, which would have been much better. I know movies in the 70s were slower paced than the present day, but this movie is slow even for then. Although their pairing is great, Richard Pryor doesn't add enough to Wilder's slow story build for this to have any lasting value.
Grade: 3 silver slow stars out of 5.
Tonight's cinematic misadventure was Track of the Moon Beast (1976), a low budget horror about a dude who gets a piece of moon rock stuck in his head and turns into a giant lizard. The movie stars no one of any significance, although somewhere someone is proud of their grandfather for being in this.
As mentioned, the movie is about a guy, a loner who lives his mom, who enjoys stalking around the desert. He meets this photographer lady who falls in love with him in a few hours. They go to a cliff to watch a meteor shower and a piece of moon rock lands on Earth. A shard of this moon rock lands in this guy's head. After a few days of headaches, he merges with his pet iguana and becomes a giant lizard man. Giant lizard man then torments the town before getting shot with an arrow by a Native American professor.
This movie is listed as one of the dumbest movies of all-time and rightfully so. The character development is weak, the monster is a guy in a rubber suit, and pretty much all the dialogue is awkward and stilted.
Grade: 1 moon rock stars out of 5
Tonight's cinematic misadventure was Best Defense (1984). This war comedy starred Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy, enough comic firepower to topple the Soviets, pummel the Iraqis, and crush the Vietnamese.
Except, like the tank in the movie, it misfires. Badly. There has to be a good story behind how bad this movie is. Someone needs to tell the tale of why this was two completely different movies, weaved together through a really bad plot. While Moore plays an engineer designing tank parts in 1982, Murphy plays a tank commander in 1984 whose life depends on Moore's part. Along the way, however, is bumbling, stumbling, spying, espionage, murder, and more than enough sexual innuendos and racial stereotypes.
This movie could have been decent. As a matter of fact, it probably should be completely rebooted. The idea of a bumbling engineer who makes a part that saves a military unit might not be too bad. But trying to weave it into two comedies and filling the plot with side stories and bad jokes makes Best Defense downright offensive.
Grade: 2 bad shots of 5.
Tonight's cinematic misadventure was The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) starring Tor Johnson and other people who don't really matter outside of IMDB.
The Beast of Yucca Flats is a bad movie watcher's mecca. It is so atrociously unwatchable it needs to be watched. There is a plot, at least, but even that is flimsy at best. There is very little dialogue, so the movie has that going for it. But it has a narrator. The movie is completely tell, rather than show.
As far as the plot, Tor Johnson plays a Soviet scientist - at least I think he is Soviet - on the run in the Yucca Flats. An atomic bomb explodes and Johnson turns into a lumbering beast, think George The Animal Steele meets Freddy Krueger without the cool parts of either of those characters.
The beast kills a few uninterested people - if I was in this movie I would uninterested as well. The police hunt him down. As I said, its bad. Even for low budget 1960s b-movies, its bad.
Grade: 1 beastly star out of 5.
Tonight's cinematic adventure was the final Bill and Ted movie, Bill and Ted Face the Music. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return to the roles they played over 20 years ago to save all existence and to prevent time and space from breaking apart.
I went in with limited expectations. I was pleasantly surprised. Bill and Ted Face the Music was fun. They did a good job bring back old characters and integrating new characters, even if the Missy situation got a little weird, but I think that was the point.
I definitely liked how they brought in different musical characters, although I was curious how they selected who they selected (Kid Cudi, really?) or how they made up other characters.
Overall, it was another excellent adventure.
5 excellent stars out of 5
Ryan Whirty is a baseball researcher and writer. Among his many writing pursuits is his blog HomePlateDontMove, a Negro Leagues Baseball blog named after a famous Satchel Paige quote. A few months ago, I sent Ryan a copy of Curveball at the Crossroads after reading a post he wrote on baseball and the blues. I cold-emailed Ryan, but based on his passions, I knew he would be interested.
After reading Curveball at the Crossroads, Ryan asked if I would be open to an email interview. Of course I was interested.
Ryan emailed me some very good questions about the influences of the book and my thoughts on the commonalities of baseball and the blues.
Check out the interview for a great deep dive into Curveball at the Crossroads.
New novel explores link between baseball and blues - HomeplateDontMove