NEW SHORT STORY TITLED "TOURETTES"

Hi folks,
Still without electricity! This bites... Word is, we'll have juice back on tomorrow. Anyway, I can get down to a nearby coffeeshop once a day to charge the ol' laptop and check emails. Usually have about an hour to do stuff, and one of the things I'm doing now is posting this.

Noir writer/editor Court Merrigan contacted me a while back to ask if I'd send him a short story for his emagazine Bareknuckles Pulp Press which he was relaunching after a hiatus, and he did me the honor of saying he'd like mine to be the first story for the relaunch. How in the heck can anyone refuse such a distinct honor? I sure couldn't! Problem was, I don't write short stories these days, but I came up with a solution, and came up with an excerpt from my as-yet-unpublished black comedy crime novel, THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING.  This book was the most fun I've ever had in front of a typewriter and with most of my clothes on and I'm writing a second novel with the same characters in what I hope becomes a series. I sent the excerpt to Court and he claimed he loved it and I guess maybe he did as he published it and if you want to check it out, just go to http://www.outofthegutteronline.com/2012/07/bareknuckles-pulp-no-1-tourettes.html and start reading.

Not to give stuff away, but there's a scene in it where the protagonist's main squeeze, Cat, who happens to be a call girl, provides a diversion for him in a black bar so he can escape being rendered room temperature by Sam Capelli, the enforcer for the local Mafia to whom he owes money. This novel came to life first as a short story published in THE SOUTH CAROLINA REVIEW, and then I wrote this novel, and then I wrote a screenplay based on it. When I wrote the screenplay, I was teaching for the UCLA Writer's Program, and was engaged in co-writing another screenplay with Steve Duncan, a black screenwriter who wrote THE COURT-MARTIAL OF JACKIE ROBINSON (A TNT Special), and was the creator/runner for two TV series, A MAN NAMED HAWK and TOUR OF DUTY. I was afraid this scene might offend black readers/viewers, so I ran it past Steve to get his opinion from a black man's pov. "Shit, Les," he said. "This is just plain funny stuff! Nobody's going to be upset at all." And so I kept it in.

Hope you enjoy the read. Also, if anyone happens to be friends with Woody Harrelson, I'd love to have him read the screenplay. I wrote it envisioning him to be the lead character, Pete, but he'd need to read it to determine if he'd be interested or not. I almost had a chance to contact him a few years ago when my dentist said he'd send it to him, but that never materialized. My dentist, a cool guy named Ron Rumbaugh played in a band with Woody when they were both at Hanover College and they've remained friends, but time passed and I didn't press Ron to send it to him and now we've kind of lost touch. So...

(You just never know who knows who...)

Blue skies,
Les