The True Story of the D-Day Spies: Double Cross

By Jay Holmes

DOUBLE CROSS addresses one of the more complex and important intelligence operations of World War Two. It explains how the UK’s MI-5 Counter Intelligence division quite effectively turned and managed German spies in an attempt to deceive Germany about the Allied plans for the invasion of Western Europe in 1944.

The first thing about this book that jumps out is its readability. Great Britain’s operation for running double agents involved many people and many details. The details can be tedious to consider, but without considering enough of them, these operations can’t be reasonably understood. MacIntyre has done a brilliant job of presenting enough details without making the book read like a boring bureaucratic report. I envy his ability to present such a complex and important piece of history in such a readable form.

Good history writers do good research—lots of it—and Ben MacIntyre certainly did his. But he did something else as well. He very skillfully analyzed the collected data and produced an accurate and clear interpretation of the facts. I’ve never met Ben MacIntyre, but if he was never a spook, he should have been one. For us.

In DOUBLE CROSS, McIntyre manages to present personalities from both sides of that terrible war in very human form. He demonstrates how imperfect people from diverse backgrounds working for MI-5 shared that one essential quality that any effective intelligence person must have. They shared a genuine commitment to their mission. In this case, their mission was to help defeat Nazi Germany. By most traditional standards, the agents would not appear to be “cut from the right cloth.” In some instances their handlers committed blunders in dealing with them. The book clearly shows the reasons why each of them might have failed miserably, as well as why they didn’t.

I had previously read and enjoyed a couple of MacIntyre’s books, but so far, this must be his masterpiece. I have no hesitation in giving this book a Five Star rating on the Five Star scale. It’s not a movie but I can’t help but assign our Bayard and Holmes “.44-Magnum” rating because I so rarely get to use that top assessment. Anyone with interest in World War Two or the world of intelligence operations, or who simply likes good action stories, should absolutely read this book. It’s purely a great book.

image from Bloomsbury.com

Bravo to Ben MacIntyre for staying awake and on course through so many hours of work reading thousands of pages of documents to get to the critical facts. Well done!

You can find DOUBLE CROSS, along with MacIntyre’s other books, at Ben MacIntyre: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle.

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‘Jay Holmes’, is an intelligence veteran of the Cold War and remains an anonymous member of the intelligence community. His writing partner, Piper Bayard, is the public face of their partnership.

© 2012 Jay Holmes. All content on this page is protected by copyright. If you would like to use any part of this, please contact us at the above links to request permission.

The End is Near (and we deserve it) . . . News Agency Cites “The Onion” as Fact

Fars, the Iranian government-backed news agency, last Friday cited an article from The Onion as fact. The article said most rural Americans prefer Iranian President Ahmadinejad that President Obama. I cracked up when I read this, but then I realized there might be some truth in it if the rural Americans in question don’t understand Farsi and don’t allow translators. Particularly during election season. . . The worst part? Some of those at Fars still believe the story even after they found out The Onion is a satirical paper.

image aljazeera.com

Read the full story here. Iran Apologizes for Citing Onion Spoof Obama Poll as Fact

Blogs and Articles in No Particular Order

New York Times Best Selling Author and Heckuva Guy James Rollins has a great new series about Apocalypse called Know it Now! Many sources predict the end of the world in just a few months. James Rollins looks at the possibilities for how that could happen and what we can do about it in a 12-week series that investigates different forms of Apocalypse. You can subscribe to these free videos at his blog, Know it Now! Introduction – Can We Predict the Future? Episode 1.

“Criminal Minds” should hire Catie Rhodes to help with their story lines. She finds the the creepiest facts. Early American Serial Killers: Jesse Pomeroy

By International Best Selling Author and Graceful Lady Vicki Hinze, What is Reversal in Fiction Writing?  Check out her latest romantic suspense, SURVIVE THE NIGHT, the first of the much-anticipated LOST, INC. series.

Tiffany A. White and Amber West are the two women I count on for my entertainment news now that there’s no TV guide in the Sunday paper.  Tiffany gives us a run down on the series premieres of October in New October Drama, and Amber gives us a peek at Lucy Liu’s modern day Sherlock Holmes series, Elementary, in Elementary, My Dear Watson.

Number One Amazon Bestselling Author Aaron Patterson directed me to this article, Average Price of E-Book Best Seller Rises Nearly $2 in Four Weeks.

Bad Police Sketches: a Photo Gallery

Reader Empathy: Catch It & Keep It with Guest Angela Ackerman. Angela also co-authored The Emotion Thesaurus, a MUST for every fiction writer. It belongs on the bookshelf right beside your Strunk & White.

Just in case you should need this one today, How to Escape from a Black Hole: Scientists Study Energy Jets.

My gift to my writing partner, Jay Holmes, along with all of you other guys who read this. “Miss Bum Bum” Pageant Seeks Brazil’s Best Butt

The 25 Funniest Tweets about the Debate

And an important health message for gamers from one of my all-time favorites, Nathan Fillion of Castle and Firefly fame.

Campaign Style Poll Daddy:

All the best to all of you for knowing satire from truth.

Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Pilgrim, As You Journey

This is the week of the mass American pilgrimage. Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, is the day we Americans travel home. It is the one holiday we all share, no matter what our religion. The day when we gather as families.

Some of us will have genuinely happy reunions. The stuff of Norman Rockwell.

image from Office of War Information 1942, wikimedia commons

Most of us will have mixed days. Something we have to hassle with a bit. Perhaps a family fuss getting out the door, and then putting up with Uncle Freddie’s bad jokes and Aunt Marge complaining that the dressing is dry. But once everyone settles in for the football, it’s all good.

For some, though, Thanksgiving can be a gut-wrenching ordeal. The hassles are extreme, and the holiday becomes an endurance test of dysfunctional abuse that demoralizes us and convinces us that we deserve nothing from life or ourselves but the crumbs of inadequacy, malcontent, and failed expectations.

Most people who persist in that brutal existence do so from habit and from the fear of change. But a brave few walk away into the unknown with the conviction that whatever lies ahead, it cannot be worse than the hell they left behind. They quit showing up for the beatings.

If you are having joyful reunions this week, we celebrate with you. Such family experiences are the source of strength that sustains us through life’s turmoil.

If you are biting your tongue in between hugs and laughter, we admire you for your tolerance and commitment. Such commitment is the foundation of civilization.

If you are suffering, our hearts and prayers go out to you in the hopes that one day, you will get out.

And if you are one of the ones who walked away, we salute you. You will be alone this week, or with close friends, or with people you barely know who have unfamiliar traditions. If you have persevered down your lonely path, you may even be with a new family by now, making Norman Rockwell jealous.

We know what it took for you to walk away, and we count you as our family. Your “not being there” didn’t come for free, and we honor the price you pay each day. It never gets easy, but it does get better. This song says it all.

Wherever you are in life’s pilgrimage this Thanksgiving, Holmes and I wish you peace. We will see you back here on Monday, November 28.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Piper Bayard & Jay Holmes

Kait Nolan: Wolf Writer, Wolf Kisser

To cap off our Labor of Love Day festivities, Holmes and I are pleased to have a chat with romance writer extraordinaire, Kait Nolan*. Kait just released her new book, Red, which is a YA twist on the Red Riding Hood tale, because, after all, every fairy tale has a dark side.

I downloaded Red to my nook as soon as it came out, and it disappeared just as quickly. No, nothing is wrong with my nook. My 13-yr-old daughter took off with it. She started reading and didn’t stop until she was finished. Except for once, that is, when the tension had her so caught up she had to run into my office and bemoan Sawyer’s dire situation. This is what my very discriminating daughter had to say about Kait Nolan’s newest novel. . . .

“Red is a thrilling adventure with surprises around every corner. A wonderful mix of romance, violence, and supernatural transformations. An absolutely intoxicating read!”

Kait Nolan. She even looks like a romance writer, doesn’t she? Her answers are the ones in bold.

So Kait, we’re delighted for the chance to get to know you better.

We’d like to start out by asking, what was your inspiration for Red? What tipped the scales for you from passing idea to active endeavor?

The voices.  They wouldn’t hush.  Elodie literally woke me up at night telling me her story.  Which did not put me in particularly good humor with her, as I value my sleep.  But the only solution was to tell her tale.

Sounds like a strong young lady.

Piper’s daughter was so excited about your writing after reading Red that she downloaded the rest of your books. We realize it’s a bit late to ask this, but are all of your books YA?

Actually no, this is my first YA (published anyway—I’ve got a lot of YA manuscripts collecting dust in the manuscript graveyard).  But it won’t be my last.  It’s SO MUCH FUN writing YA. 

BTW, you might want to warn her about one, um, ahem…steamy scene in Forsaken By Shadow.  It’s not too graphic on a romance novel scale, but just sayin’…

Thank you. I’ll be sure to mention that to her. What other books have you written, and what genres are they?

Everything else I have out is a sort of paranormal romance/urban fantasy hybrid (I tend to have too much romance for strictly urban fantasy, but way more action than the typical romance).  There are currently two novellas in the Mirus series (Forsaken By Shadow, Devil’s Eye) and a freebie short story (Blindsight) in the same world.   I’ll be putting out an omnibus of all three (Genesis) in e and print within the next month or so.  Then moving on to full length novels in that series.

Sounds like plenty to keep you busy. Having read your blog and tweeted with you for several months, we have the impression that you are one of the most dedicated writers we’ve ever met. How many hats do you wear, exactly?

Researcher (full-time), college instructor in psychology (part-time), writer (in-between-time), domestic engineer (other-in-between-time), food blogger, and general goddess-in-training. 

That’s a lot of hats. So are you telling us you are really a cyborg, and you never have to sleep?

Sleep?  What is this sleep thing of which you speak?  I am proudly sleep-deprived since I graduated college in 2002.  😀  Seriously, though, it is a major challenge.  You know that whole “people need an average of 8 hours a night?”  Well I’m at the upper end of that average.  My body wants 10 HOURS.  I usually get about 7.  I am firmly convinced that instituting world-wide daily nap time for grown-ups would be a major step in achieving world peace.

Hear, hear! Now, you clearly must love writing to be so dedicated. What did you love most about writing Red?

I loved stepping out of my Mirus world (which I love) and playing in a new one.  It’s always a joy to me to explore new worlds and new characters, and in this case it was particularly fun to be…not an adult for a while. 

What’s your favorite thing about Elodie Rose, the leading lady of Red?

Elodie kicks butt.  She’s strong, independent, and capable and doesn’t wait around expecting somebody else to come save her or fix her problems for her.

What’s your favorite thing about Sawyer, the young man/wolf?

His bu…I mean, his absolute dedication to Elodie.  He totally respects her strength and doesn’t feel threatened by it.

Sounds like a good man. Especially if he has a nice “bu….” (Holmes insists I note that last sentence was a Piper comment, and not a Holmes comment.) When you finished Red, did you dive right into a new project?

Oh I tried.  It didn’t go well. My brain, it esploded. 

Lol. Can you give us any hints about the topic of your next book?

Well, I can’t say with 100% conviction, but I’m probably going back to my Mirus world to play around with that other favorite wolf-shifter featured in Devil’s Eye.

While reading your blog, Piper discovered a page with great gluten free recipes. Since more and more people are realizing they are sensitive to gluten, have you ever considered writing a cookbook?

Not so much, no.  I enjoy food blogging and sharing recipes for food I enjoy.  But I’m not sure I’d have enough totally original recipes for a formal cookbook.   Now a fiction series that includes recipes…THAT I’d like to do.

Piper’s dog, Daisy, was very excited to know we’d be speaking with you here today. She has a few questions for you, too, if you don’t mind.

Daisy

Hi Kait. *wags tail* I’m so happy to meet an author who gets it. . . . Oh, sorry about that fur on your dress. . . . Stephanie Meyer got it. She wrote those books about that sexy Jacob and some other characters that cluttered up the rest of the pages. Dog readership is a driving force in today’s book market, you know. Jacob was my main alpha, but now you’ve given me another sexy wolf to love in Sawyer. *rrrowww, wag, wag*

Who wants a tummy rub?  *scratch scratch scratch rub*  Who’s a good girl?  Have a meatball.

Thank you. *lick, lick* Those were some great kisses in the book. You know. The ones where the token girl gets to kiss the brave, sexy wolf. It was clear you wrote that from first hand experience. Did you get to kiss lots of wolves for that material, or do you have a main wolf?

I do have a main wolf.  We’ve been happily mated for just over twelve years now.

Did it taste like meatloaf? I love meatloaf. I always imagined kissing a wolf would taste like meatloaf.

That would depend entirely on what I made for dinner …

So I remember seeing some stuff about Arnold Schwarzenegger in the news recently, and I was wondering if that super-wolf, Sawyer, and that token girl who follows him around need a maid?

Now, Daisy . . . That’s not appropriate. Sorry about that, Kait. I’m still working with her.

I’d love to know what else you would like to tell us about Red?

I suppose that it is a stand-alone.  I keep getting asked if there will be a sequel.  It wasn’t written with a sequel in mind, and at present I don’t see much room for one, but I’ve learned never to say never with my characters.

Is there a question you wish we had asked you today?

Can’t think of a thing.

Since we are The Romance Doctors, and you’re a romance writer, do you have any questions for us?

Not at the moment, but give me time to get into the next WIP.  I’m sure something will present itself!

Thank you so much for stopping by our blog and giving us a chance to learn more about you and Red. Sorry about that dog slobber. A touch of Dawn liquid should get that right out . . .  Daisy, get out of Kait’s car . . .

Red, which is highly recommended by both Piper and the most discriminating YA reader you’ll ever find, her daughter, is available at Smashwords, Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Barnes and Noble, the iBookstore, and All Romance EBooks. It’s been an honor to speak with you today, Kait. Thank you for stopping by.

Do you folks have any questions for Kait?

Piper Bayard—The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Holmes—Student of Sex, C4, and Hollow Points

*Kait Nolan is stuck in an office all day, sometimes juggling all three of her jobs at once with the skill of a trained bear—sometimes with a similar temperament. After hours, she uses her powers for good, creating escapist fiction. The work of this Mississippi native is packed with action, romance, and the kinds of imaginative paranormal creatures you’d want to sweep you off your feet…or eat your boss.  When she’s not working or writing, she’s in her kitchen, heading up a revolution to Retake Homemade from her cooking blog, Pots and Plots.

You can catch up with her at her blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

How the Schooling Disaster in Detroit is a Win for Al-Qaeda

By Jay Holmes

United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently declared that the Detroit, Michigan school system is a national disgrace. He is right. Some politically sensitive types in Detroit were offended by this. They should, instead, be offended by their educational system.

When Duncan was selected as Secretary of Education, I wondered how qualified he was. After all, he had been a professional basketball player in Australia for ten years. He also has a sociology degree from Harvard. Red flag to me. Most of the sociologists who I have met in government are anxious to quote statistics and salivate at the possibility of discovering more statistics. When I ask them for an action plan, they give me a blank stare. In fact, they often act as though they have been shot by a poison dart whenever action is required.

Another red flag to me was the fact that Duncan came from the hideously corrupt political system in Chicago. After a closer look, though, it became evident that, as the CEO of the Chicago school system, Duncan had played a part in significantly increasing test results for students in Chicago. Obviously, the hard work of the kids, the parents, and the teachers made it happen, but until Duncan showed up, the Chicago schools were well on their way to hell with no redemption in sight.

The improvement in Chicago test scores was on both the national standard testing for all grades and on the ACT. Also, the number of Chicago youngsters graduating increased, as did the number of Chicago youngsters entering colleges. These were real results. Duncan obviously wasn’t the typical school superintendent claiming victory after leaving a school system in shambles.

Ok. So red flags aside, and without knowing about or giving a damn about his politics, the guy won a major battle in one of this nation’s most important wars, and he showed up sober to fight that battle where the enemy held the high ground and outnumbered him badly. I’ll give credit where it’s due. Given Secretary Duncan’s history of success and the pathetic results produced by the Detroit school system, I take his statement about Detroit seriously.

Now that we have identified a priority target, what shall our tactical plan be? I am a bit out of my league here. This is a battle that I am willing to fight passionately, but I lack the best weapons and training to ensure victory. I’m willing to listen and learn.

As someone who is not a trained teacher, though, even I can easily identify a few facets of the problem in Detroit. Some of the issues are external to the schools. Detroit is a failed, Rust Belt city with chronic, long-term high unemployment, high crime rates, and no signs of recovery. OK, we know the battleground now. Do we evacuate the children to refugee camps in Canada, or do we make a stand and fight? It looks like we are going to stay and fight.

We are dealing with children who live in fear of violence and economic uncertainty. Many of the children have no real parent, or an undereducated parent working overtime at a back-breaking job. Ok, that’s most of what we need to know about the innocent hostages in question. So we need a solution that can rescue the greatest number of kids. Is it “fair” that you and I need to rescue them instead of their parents doing it? Hell, no. But you don’t want to share your national budget, your health care system, your economy, or your streets with uneducated children. Even if you don’t care about them, if you care about you at all, take a look at what’s going on.

Who is the enemy? Who is the hostage taker? Is he from Yemen, Pakistan, or southern Egypt? No, he is from America. He/she is the heartless politico who makes millions of dollars vanish from the Detroit school system each year. He/she is the lazy, self-protecting, responsibility-avoiding slime bag who collects a salary and produces no work in his or her day.

You know what they look like. You have met a few of them in your child’s school or in the company or government agency where you work. They tend to be highly informed about the latest nuance in political correctness, and at the moment they are very busy explaining why everyone needs to join their new initiative on “Azerbaijani cultural sensitivity” or “preventing sexual harassment amongst preschoolers by dangerous four-year-old boys,” or they are busy organizing this year’s Save the Whales Day. At least the kids have fun at the Save the Whales Day, and the whales suffer no impact one way or the other. But this type of useless schmuck “administrator” is not only wasting a salary slot that could go to a live employee, they are preventing sentient beings from running the schools.

Now let’s see how education in Detroit matters to the big picture.

One of the few signs of hope in the stone-age environment in Afghanistan is that, in some locations, children are starting to attend something like real schools. Based on UNICEF numbers, 18% of reading-age girls in Afghanistan can now read. This heartbreaking number is actually good news. A few years ago, the number would have been about .5%. Approximately 49% of reading-age Afghani males can read. This number is also an improvement as compared to 10 years ago.

Literacy matters to national security in any nation, both internally and externally. Better education makes for a stronger economy and fewer criminals on the home front, and when countries become more educated, their citizens are less willing to join any jihad activities. In short, a well-informed nation is less likely to tolerate living under anything like Al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Here’s a real shocker for you. Almost all mobsters and other types of gang members do poorly on any test that measures thinking skills, reading, math, or problem solving. You’re not really shocked at that, are you? Few people abandon real jobs to become foot soldiers for the mob or meth dealers for the local crack King/Queen. By having educated citizens, we have fewer criminals. When other nations have educated citizens, the risk of their citizens joining criminal enterprises like Al-Qaeda decreases. Education is obviously not the only factor in deciding an individual’s path or a nation’s path but it is one of the big ones.

The current estimate for functional literacy of adults in Detroit is 53%. Unlike in Afghanistan, the numbers are not improving. If Detroit does not change directions, we will soon end up searching for volunteer teachers from Afghanistan to teach kids and adults in Detroit to read. When you find yourself asking the question, “How can those people in Someplaceville elect that piece of garbage for a fill in the blank?” a large part of the answer is ignorance. Ignorance is a dangerous enemy of progress, justice, and democracy. Ignorance is the best friend of human suffering.

The anti-West factions in the Chinese oligarchy don’t care much about literacy in Afghanistan, but they and other enemies, such as Al-Qaeda, are happy to see decay in education in the United States. Al-Qaeda and other organized crime groups know that people who cannot read are more easily scammed into supporting their criminal agendas, and they are more easily victimized by those criminal agendas.

The combined adult literacy rate in Pakistan is 58%. People in Pakistan can read better than people in Detroit. Yes, Pakistan. That country in turmoil with no real education system where Al-Qaeda is trying to gain control of the government. The government that Al-Qaeda currently has to pay lease rates for. Perhaps Pakistani immigrant applicants should be required to teach reading in Detroit schools for six months before gaining full visas.

The battle in Detroit and in other school systems in Western civilization matters. I’m ready to put my boots on and go fight. I recognize some of the weapons available to us. There are some exceptional, highly motivated teachers. There are some passable teachers who aren’t going to join any “special ops” efforts, but they are fighting on our side, and they can contribute. There are some administrators who are not avoiding the fight, but not enough of them, and there are some parents who have the motive and means to help their children. We are not without resources.

So how do we win this battle? That’s a real question for you, readers. Tell me, because I am desperate for the answer, and because your future depends on it.

Bayard, Holmes, Movie, No Popcorn: The Mechanic

By Piper Bayard & Jay Holmes

By popular request, Holmes and I went to see The Mechanic, a film about a hit man who kills his friend, and then takes in his friend’s son as his protégé. Jason Statham stars as Arthur Bishop, the hit man, and Ben Foster plays Steve McKenna, the pup he takes in. So here’s what an author/bellydancer and a man with experience in intelligence and covert operations have to say about this film. . . .

Overall, we think The Mechanic will rightfully appeal to people who like lots of action and explosions in their movies. There are several fun scenes that we won’t comment on because we don’t want to ruin the movie for you. However, Holmes and I agree the whole premise has a few drawbacks.

The first thing we spotted is that you don’t wait at the bottom of a pool to kill a guy, especially when you only have a small bottle of compressed air to breathe off of. What if that guy decides to shower or cozy up to one of his molls before he swims? You suffocate. And with four guys wielding machine guns outside the pool? No. You slip in when no one’s there, put a toxin in his swim goggles, and get gone, because the best place to be when your enemy dies is in another country.

Ben Foster as Steve McKenna

We also agree that no professional in any business knowingly pairs up with a mentally unstable, reckless individual. Even if Arthur had a momentary lapse of judgment out of compassion for his friend’s son, the first time the protégé deliberately disobeyed instructions, he’d be out the door wearing cement shoes. Professionals involved in any aspect of covert operations, legal or illegal, avoid associating with people who are obviously self-destructive because they just don’t recruit people who are going to burn down their world.

Now to our individual comments. I’m leaving this mostly to Holmes because of his expertise in covert operations.

Bayard:

As an author, I appreciated the smooth shifts in the antagonist focus. The Mechanic sorts through the bad guys and the good guys by bringing you along with the one consistent good guy. It’s an effective and artful way to traverse the twists of intrigue without dropping you into a high-speed blender.

And speaking of blenders, I liked that scene. You’ll know what I mean when you see it. Holmes liked it, as well, and thought it was one of the more plausible scenes in the film.

The Fantasy:  Handsome Arthur Bishop Always Wins

I don’t have any comments as a dancer, but as a woman, I can say that Arthur Bishop is a most appealing anti-hero. Very powerful and sexy with his own brand of integrity. Reality check to the ladies, though. Having a hit man for your love interest would have to seriously suck, no matter how handsome or smooth or classy he is, and most of them aren’t.  I mean, this is a guy who values cash above human life. Not only that, he’s gone all the time, he can’t say where or how long, and don’t even think about calling him. He’s the one going places and doing wild things. You’re the one working as a waitress in a sleazy bar, just hoping he’ll call.

Holmes

This movie is not for everyone. It’s an action flick, and there’s more action than flick here. The writers, producers, and directors seemed to follow the tried and true approach of adding more explosions, gunshots, and noise whenever the writing became difficult.

I would say that the acting is better than the script. The conversations appear to be some writer’s first impression of what conversations in the real world might actually be like. Given the vast number of unemployed writers who have life experience and social contacts, I find the lack of polish and effort regrettable. With the bare minimum of dialogue taping together the action scenes, this was the script version of Queasy Cam.

Also, in movies, as in real life, chase scenes and shootouts are much more dramatic after a calm interval. Part of what makes action interesting in an action movie is that contrast. The Mechanic would be better by a whole notch if they left out 10 minutes of violence and replaced it with 10 more minutes of character development, setting, and dialogue.

I thought the sex was just enough that I would not bring any of my nieces to this movie. The visual and verbal allusions to sadomasochistic sex do fit the hit man’s character, but, in my view, they create a smaller audience for this movie. If you’re a dad, and you find yourself willing to share these scenes with your daughter, consider giving your daughter up for adoption while there’s still time for her to develop sanity. For that matter, I wouldn’t bring any guy or gal under the age of fifteen to this movie.

Now, if you’re curious about the plausibility of this movie, here’s my take. Let’s not bother with the procedural errors because you weren’t hoping that this movie would be an assassination manual, and if you were, I wouldn’t want to help you, anyway. . . . So the plausibility of this highly glamorous, 5-star living Murder Incorporated racket is nill. Why would you pay $50 million to kill somebody when you could pay 20 sleazebags $10k each and see who gets him first?

The idea of some big organization with several teams of assassins all working together in a collegial environment, completing hits at a breakneck pace (no pun intended)—it just doesn’t happen. With that many people involved, the risk of them turning state’s evidence would be beyond control, not to mention the supply and demand issue. These are killers who don’t share a goal or a value. Their only value is money, and there’s no way to hold a group of people together without some other common value. Organized crime struggles with this every day. If you want to know the reality, read the news about Mexican drug cartels. They are what happens when the only common ideology is wealth.

Our Rating:

With a little more character, setting and script development The Mechanic could have been a .357, but, as it is, we have to rate it a .38 special. (Click here for rating system.) There were enough creative action scenes (action as in murder) to make the movie worth seeing for action movie enthusiasts. It has lots of nice explosions and creative use of such things as a bus, a garbage truck, and a garbage disposal. It’s certainly an improvement over the original Charles Bronson/Jan Michael-Vincent version, but if you require plausibility in a movie, stay home and read a good book.

If you’re interested in learning about the life of a real hit man, check out the book Blood Relation. In it, journalist Eric Konigsberg interviews his uncle Harold “Kayo” Konigsberg who was a freelance hit man for various Mafia families and is responsible for more than 20 murders.

Rockin the Road

Last week, I was reading The Road. It reminded me of unemployment and got me thinking about going vegetarian. Since then, I’ve worked a bit of meat back into my diet, but I think cuts with bones may always give me pause.

Anyway, the unemployment road isn’t quite as grim as the post-apocalyptic devastation in the book. In fact, I can honestly say that I laughed more there than anywhere else at any time of my life. Thought I’d share with you some of the ways I found to have fun on The Road.

I categorize these into two groups. Things to do that don’t mess with other people, and things to do that involve messing with other people or might kind of sort of be illegal. Ok. That might sound a little mean, but let’s be honest. The cheapest entertainment around is pulling people’s chains, only I prefer to call it “sociological research.” So here are a couple of lists. . . .

Fun Things to Do That Don’t Really Mess with People

• The most obvious is getting together with your friends and pooling your edible resources for dinner. Grilled cheese sandwiches go really well with the five year old applesauce someone had in the back corner of the pantry.

• Pool your drinkable resources and let the singing, dancing, drumming, and laughter commence. Do this in public places, and people might even give you money.
• Rediscover doodling. All it takes is a pen, a piece of paper, and a lot of boredom.
• Take the chance to educate yourself and go to the zoo and museum free days in your area. If you want to go, and it’s not a free day, call ahead and talk with the manager. Tell him you’re unemployed and can’t pay, and ask him if you can come anyway. You might mention you’re applying for a job that requires you to know a lot about Egyptian mummies or the history of cereal boxes, or whatever, and it would really help you to review their collection. Hey. You never know when you might need to doodle up that Quisp alien for a job interview, right?

• Collect anything you can part with and go in with your friends for a booth at the open air flea market. For you flea market noobs, here’s how it’s done. Do not price your items. Have an idea of what you want, and then watch the crowd. If it’s early in the day, and someone makes a beeline through two toddlers and an old lady to get to your table, increase the price accordingly. If it’s the end of the day, and someone has a nominal interest, take the minimum. Just give it a try. You’ll get the hang of it.
• Cut your hair and make jewelry out of it to sell at said flea market. It’s actually a time-honored art (see below).

Fun Things to Do That Mess with People or are Sort of Maybe a Little Illegal, aka Sociological Research

• Pair up as a couple and pretend to be Big Daddy gambler and his Little Darlin’. Dress casually, but cleanly, and be confident. Many people with real money, and I mean REAL money, don’t give a crap what they’re wearing as long as it’s clean and comfortable. Go to the Lexus dealership, and tell them you’re looking for a car, you’re going to pay cash, and you want to test drive the best they’ve got. You plan to head to Atlantic City tomorrow, and you really don’t want to go through the TSA grope again. Enjoy riding around in those fancy cars all day. Be sure to sneer at any cheap, plastic trim, and indulge in all of the coffee and pastries they’ll bring you. Oh. And pick the designer interior before you walk out without leaving your number. . . . Yes, I’ve done this, and I can tell you, the salesmen will drool. Just be careful not to break character under any circumstances.

• For ladies, you can do a similar thing with jewelry, but you don’t need to be as elaborate. Just act like you belong there as you try on those $50k jewels. Ask about their Buccellati collection, and be sure to get the clerk’s business card. (Had great fun doing this with my daughter just the other day, in fact.) If you like looking at beautiful, high-end jewelry, click here for their collection.

• Put on those clothes that you’ve been washing with soap you stole from a public bathroom because you can’t afford laundry detergent. Have a contest with your friends to see who can scare the most people into locking their cars doors by just walking past them. No fair making gestures or mean faces, other than the mean faces people get when they can’t afford soap, that is.
• Build a fire in a barrel and throw in different stuff you find in it to see what happens. You can do the same in a metal bowl in your house if you don’t have a barrel or a yard. I found Vitamin E pills are kind of cool for this. You can see the stuff inside the capsules bubble a while just before they pop. Keep your face back, though. Use your cheap sunglasses as eye protection, and keep a fire extinguisher handy.

• And one of my personal favorites . . . tie a long thread of fishing line to an old purse. Leave the purse beside the road and hide, holding the other end of the line. When someone stops to pick up the purse, wait until they’re bent over and their fingers are almost touching it, and pull it just out of their reach. See how long it is before they figure out they’re being punked, and then enjoy a good belly laugh. One caution, though. Some people can get really pissed off by this one so be ready to run like hell if you have to.

You see? Just because you’re on The Road, it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

All the best to all of you for a week of cheap fun.

Piper Bayard 

Social Media: Costco or Lost in Space?

By Piper Bayard

I took the plunge into FaceBook and Twitter this week. You computer savvy folks might well ask, “So what?” To that I would answer that when I was growing up, technology was a dishwasher that didn’t have two feet and answer to “Junior.” This was a big deal to me. So let me tell you what I found as an alien on my own planet. . . .

In the beginning, Facebook was like my first trip to Costco. So much stuff! So many people! There’s the buddy who got me into social media over by that stack of self-help books, the extended family who probably don’t remember me next to the mashed potatoes, and the “Is she really still alive?” on the chair in the pharmacy section. How cool is that? I was like a kid stumbling with wonder through Toyland.

Then it happened. I tripped over that friend of a friend I hadn’t spoken to in twenty years. The one who knows too much. The warning went off in my head. “Danger, Will Robinson!” That’s when I realized that my jaunt through surreal surprises of seemingly endless stacks of stuff might be more like one of those sci fi shows where you think you’re in paradise, only to find you’re really Lost in Space.

Allow me to explain. If you think about it, everything that ever happened is still happening if you just look from the right vantage point. For example. Anyone 20 light years out in space can look back and see exactly what you were doing twenty years ago. Sort of a creepy thought, huh? Someone could still see you TP-ing their prized, new truck on a damp night so that it would set into a “body cast,” or tying your college suitemate’s door shut to make her boyfriend have to climb out the second story window. *whistles innocently* Anyway, though such things are long past in our awareness, they’re still happening if you’re looking from the right spot in the time/space continuum.

Facebook is the same way. Sure enough. There’s Truck Boy. Wonder how long that TP stuck in the crannies between the cab and the topper? And Suitemate. Has Hell frozen over yet for her to forgive me? (That was her timeline, not mine.) I pause with trepidation. To friend request, or not to friend request? Will the memories of stolen kisses, wild road trips, and shared losses be enough renew the latent bonds of ages past? Or are there still good reasons we didn’t keep in touch? . . . What the hell? Space is supposed to be an adventure, right?