A Writer's Life

Expanding Literacy through Narcissism

The front page of this Sunday's Los Angeles Times Calendar section features a big essay by my brother Tod discussing his experience writing BURN NOTICE: THE FIX and his research into the business of tie-in writing. I was approached to write the novels, but I declined and recommended Tod, who I knew was perfect for the job:

My brother was right: I was the perfect person. The only problem was my advanced sense of artistic self. I had long, twisting conversations with my agent, my wife and the kid who makes my sandwiches at Quiznos about the literary equity I'd accrued, about how writing a tie-in might somehow sully my career and other topics concerning my navel. My agent told me to take a deep breath, get lucid and call her back after I did some research...

So he did. Read his very funny article and find out what he learned.

UPDATE 8-25-2008: Tod's article got a surprisingly unsnarky mention on GAWKER, some love on TV Squad and some attention from Publisher's Weekly's Book Maven.

UPDATE 8-26-2008: TV Squad also gave Tod's book a rave review.

Get your fix of THE FIX

My brother Tod has posted a link to the first chapter of his new novel BURN NOTICE: THE FIX, which comes out nationwide next month. He also talks about some of the challenges he faced writing the book:

I would be lying if I said writing this book wasn't a challenge. It absolutely was. I've never written a traditional crime novel. Anyone who has read my work in the past will tell you that linear storytelling isn't exactly my calling card. Nor is having a narrator who is reliable. Of course I've written linear work in the past. And of course I've written reliable narrators in the past. But one thing I don't think I've ever written is a hero, even an ironic hero like Michael Westen. My characters tend to be pretty fucked up and of course Michael is fucked up in his own way, too, but not in the "he may have killed his wife and daughter" sort of way. The challenge for me was to convey him on the page in a way that made me enjoy writing him and also was true to Matt Nix's creation.

I think it's the best book my brother has ever written, but hey, I'm biased.

Mitzvah for Tod

My brother Tod's story "Mitzvah" in Akashic's anthology LAS VEGAS NOIR got a shout-out in a positive Publishers Weekly review today:

Columnist Tod Goldberg’s “Mitzvah” makes good use of the Las Vegas myth that people come to the city to bury their past identities and reinvent themselves. His antihero, mobster Sal Cuperine, has for years posed as Rabbi David Cohen, managing to handle the demands of the pulpit until the strain of his charade becomes too much to bear. 

Tod in the Times

My brother Tod's review of two new novels set in Las Vegas, both by first-time authors, appears on the front page of today's Los Angeles Times Calendar section.

What "Beautiful Children" and "The Delivery Man" share -- apart from the obvious thematic portrayal of Las Vegas as "Caligula" -- is, surprisingly, hope. Both Bock and McGinniss flash across the page with firm style, compelling voices and the desire to go deeper than their subject matter. Although neither of their novels has defined literary Las Vegas, both carry the imprint of burgeoning talent, and that is always worth gambling on.

Brotherly Love

My brother Tod has posted a list of five people who hate me -- and the reasons why they do. I was relieved he capped the list at only five and left out Tono Rondone.

UPDATE: My cousin Danny muses over why I'm so hated and reviews my book MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE along the way...

My Brother Gets BURNED

Today, my brother Tod talks about his new, three-book deal to write original novels based on the USA Network series BURN NOTICE:

How this came about is how many things come about when you're not expecting them -- your brother calls you from a scratchy phone in Germany and says, "Hey, do you like the show Burn Notice?" You reply, "Yeah, I love it. It's like an Elmore Leonard novel crossed with Steven Soderbergh's direction and a dash of Albert Brooks' mother issues for good measure. Why?" And then twenty minutes later you're on the phone with your agent, 36 hours later you're making demands of the publisher, 72 hours later you're sitting down with Matt Nix [...]and you're discussing the show he created, Burn Notice, and then, about 100 hours later, you're figuring out just how on Earth you're going to meet your first deadline -- February -- without getting hooked on crank (again)

Book Burning

I've been so caught up doing  my movie, that I have fallen way behind on everything...and missed  my brother Tod's Jewcy column in late May on the Kansas City bookstore that burned it's entire stock of books as, the store owner  says, a "a funeral pyre for thought in America today" and as "a wakeup call to all who value books and ideas." My brother wrote:

If [the bookstore owners] don’t see the hypocrisy in their actions, perhaps they need only to look down the road a few miles at the Blue Valley School District, where debates raged over appropriate titles being offered to students, prompting the formation of the PABBIS-like ClassKC.org (Citizen for Literary Standards in Schools), a group with their own stringent ideas about literacy. If burning 20,000 books for the cause of literacy is an act of art, how does that art change if the belief system of the group changes? I have no doubt that [the bookstore owners] love books, just as I have no doubt that many of the parents who comprise ClassKC.org love books (or at least the Book), and thus I wonder: If the action is the same, does it matter what the cause is?  If ClassKC.org hosted a book burning in the name of literacy awareness in the schools of Blue Valley, too, the same books would burn.

The bigger question is... what the hell is going on in Kansas City?

Vicious Lies...and more than a little truth

I just stumbled on this old Las Vegas Mercury column my brother Tod wrote about the time I dragged him and my sister Linda to a science fiction convention in a horribly misguided attempt to sell copies of my book .357 VIGILANTE. A lot of his column is, um, fictionalized...but it doesn't matter because it's very funny:

  "It takes place in a futuristic L.A.," I said to the man in the "V" uniform who'd stopped to handle the book.

  "Yeah? Are there aliens?"

  "Only illegal ones," I said. When I was 14, I thought this was a pretty funny thing to say.

  "I only read books with real aliens in them," he said, setting the book down.

  "You're an idiot," my sister said from behind her magazine. It was the first time Linda had spoken for at least an hour.

  "Pardon me?" the man said.

  "You said you only read books with `real aliens' in them and I said that you're an idiot," Linda said, still not looking up.

  "You're very rude," he said.

  "'V'  was canceled," Linda said, "just FYI."

He forgot to mention in the column that both he and Linda contracted chicken pox at the convention. I came out unscathed. My brother and sister, sadly, were emotionally scarred for life.

"Oh, my naughty love, Tod thought. Where could you be?"

My Brother Tod is having lots of fun messing with the fanfic crowd over at Fandom Wank:

Just wanted to pop in to say that, no matter how much you hate Lee or me, I've enjoyed reading all of this and several other posts beneath this one. You guys are exceptionally funny. That you point out the general fucktardery of your particular world is something I can get behind. I'm hooked. Now, will someone write something about me where I'm involved with Dave Navarro, Carmen Elektra and a dagget from the original BSG? Seriously. You write it, I'll put it on my blog. Just make me skinnier and more handsome than I am.

And they've done it.  Tod is brilliant.

They Hate Me, They Really Really Hate Me

My brother Tod stumbled on a seething horde of  people who really, really hate me and he couldn't be happier about it.

They are fucking hysterical. I mean this. I laughed my ass off reading about their hatred of Lee, their dubious thoughts on me (they are particularly upset with my poor grammar and word choice and misogyny, which is basically what Wendy is upset with me about on a fairly regular basis, but someone liked "Simplify" which thrilled me, as that is, and always has been, my favorite story)  and then their rants on other topics happening in and around fandom. I spent about thirty minutes reading this website and I about pissed myself. I've actually bookmarked it.

UPDATE (2-19-2007): Tod only scraped the surface. There's much more Lee-hating to enjoy.

Links A-Go-Go

I've been away in New York for a few days at the Mystery Writers  of America board meeting and am just now catching up on my favorite blogs. Ordinarily, I'd build whole posts around some of the stuff I've found...but I'm too lazy. So you will have to see for yourself what Emmy Award-winning writer Ken Levine has to say about Aaron Sorkin's dig that he wasn't a "real" comedy writer.  And you'll have to experience for yourself the utterly bizarre "Galactica-A Team-V" crossover fanfic that my brother Tod stumbled upon.

32 Flavors of Awesome

Some yahooer sent me this link to a Live Journal blog post that mentions yours truly. I don't know about you, but I think it was my brother Tod who sent it to me:

Also, totally love Tod Goldberg. He's the brother of Lee Goldberg, known for throwing periodic hissy fits over the existence of fanfic. But while Lee is an asshat, Tod is a brilliant writer. His blog is wonderful, and his short-story collection "Simplify" is . . . umm, lots of good things that I am not qualified to elaborate on. I am usually not a fan of straight fiction, because I hate reading about normal people doing normal things, but Tod Goldberg is 32 flavours of awesome.

She's right... I am an asshat and Tod is a brilliant writer. But I'm thinner and have a lot less body hair.

My Brother Is Too Damn Funny

My brother Tod's Letters to Parade feature on his blog should be a book. But until that happens, you'll just have to visit his blog every Monday for the latest hilarious installment. This week's is one of my favorites. Here's an excerpt:

In the case of G. Martinez of Jamaica, NY, the fetish is James Bond. And G. has a very important question so that he or she can finally complete their very special project:

As a James Bond fan, I'd like to know who was the tallest 007.

This question has obviously been edited. What the crack editorial staff of Parade snipped off when they created this stupid fucking question when they realized they didn't have anything on Bond in Personality Parade on the weekend before the opening of the latest installment, was this:

It is very important that I get the exact measurements of whichever Bond this was  -- I hope it was Lazenby! Oh, how I have longed for Lazenby! -- as I am building a cage in which the actor could live. Additionally, I'm creating a suit made of skin I've stripped every day from my thighs, the bottom of my feet and that space between my plumbing so that Mr. Lazenby could wear me like a tuxedo, a very snug tuxedo, covered with the aroma of my glands. Please, could you also tell me if any of the actors who played Bond are claustrophobic? And it would be very helpful if I could get the address and phone number of the gentleman who played Jaws in the Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

Walter Scott probably never even saw this part of the question because, well, he doesn't exist.

I Love It When Tod Gets Hate Mail

My brother Tod gets the most amusing hate mail from the strangest people:

You're perhaps the most unlikable, trivial, angry person I've ever read online. You would be an incredibly successful female middle-school student. Try inserting a few spurious capital letters and misspelling (more) words, and you could fit right in at MySpace. Your photograph looks very Arabic and not very Jewish, and it's also extremely creepy. Some people were born to write (not you) and some born to be photographed (not you, either).

Naturally my Arabic-looking brother, who clearly has too much time on his hands since my Mom moved from his neighborhood to mine, responded right away and asked the writer to be his mentor. He wrote, in part:

My mother and father, while both Jewish, were apparently quite ugly, which lead to the unfortunate photo of me you saw that apparently makes me me look Arabic. I guess looking Arabic would be a bad thing? I'm sorry if my Fertile Crescent appearance in that photo doesn't please you, my mentor, but I assure you that there are other photos of me online where I look Italian, which might please you. There are also some where I look Persian, which probably wouldn't please you too much. Others still make me look like a Russian Jew, which I am, but that might make you think I'm a Communist. I assure you, Neal, I love America and am not a Commie. I do like Russian dressing, but only on a certain chicken dish...

[...]I'm sad that you find me the most unlikable person online. That means you've never visited my brother's blog. He could use your help, too, Neal, to see the way out of failure toward success. [...]Will you be my life coach? Will you teach me how to write midnight letters to novelists who you stumble upon while searching for the lyrics to The Ballad Of Irving? That was you, wasn't it Neal? Writing me from the Lutheran Medical Center in Denver? Neal, I feel safe in saying that I need you in my life now more than ever.

Neal immediately wrote back:

Now, the most important part of my advice. Masturbate one more time (it's the closest you'll come to  losing your virginity) and then kill yourself. Don't stretch it out for twenty-odd more years of sucking dick to pay for your meth, getting turned down by crack whores, and constantly referring to your family as if anyone knows them. Just get it over with.

I am not kidding, the world will thank you. Your funeral will be a party, and we'll enjoy dancing around your unmarked cardboard box.

Neal also cc'd his lawyer on his reply, which is the perfect punchline to the whole thing.  I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a blog post (though it was probably one of Tod's famous Letters to Parade columns).

East of Bizarro

My brother Tod just returned from speaking at  the East of Eden writers conference in Salinas, California where he had some hilarious encounters with aspiring writers. He lists a few of them on his blog. Here's a sampling:

3. Number of writers who attempted to present me with velobound manuscripts: 9

4. Number of writers who asked me to write their ideas: 4

5. A conversation with a very nice woman who wanted some advice on her short story:

Woman: I think my short story would make a great musical.

Me: Uh, okay.

Woman: I've already written all the lyrics and am adapting it for a movie musical.

Me: What was the last musical you saw?

Woman: Oh, I can't remember the last time I saw a great musical. They don't make great musicals anymore.

Me: Then why do you think a movie studio would want to make a musical out of your short story?

Woman: It's a universal story, I write wonderful songs, it would be just a great musical. My screenwriting teacher at the junior college thinks so, too.

Me: What kind of movies does your screenwriting teacher make?

Woman: Documentaries and technical films for businesses.

I was a keynote speaker at the same conference a few years ago, shortly after one of the surgeries on my arm. Just before I went on stage, I spilled an entire slice of chocolate cake in my lap. I tried to wash it off and only made myself look like someone with both a severe bladder control problem and irritable bowels. Nothing earns you respect and admiration when you're standing in front of hundreds of people like a pair of soiled pants.

Fistful of Laughs

I absolutely love my brother Tod's "Letters to Parade" feature on his blog. I never miss it ... even now, while I'm toiling in Berlin (he really has to gather them all together  into a book).  Today's edition was so funny, I almost wet myself:

Exhibit B: Dan Travers of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Travers, you insipid fucktard, I ask you:  When was the last time you saw a bunch of 65 year olds performing A Chorus Line?

When A Chorus Line returns to Broadway next month, will it feature any members of the original 1975 cast?

Yes, Dan, they are all returning. Even though they are collectively 1239 years old, the entire original cast is planning on stuffing their sagging appendages into the leotards once again to reprise their roles from THIRTY ONE FUCKING YEARS AGO. What is wrong with you, Dan? I mean, really? Where's the disconnect between reality and whatever it is you're living in? Is there anything you did especially well in 1975 that you'd want people to see you doing today? Even the writer of A Chorus Line, James Kirkwood, is dead. Do you want him to reprise his role, too?

And that's just a sample of the fun and frolic awaiting you at Tod's blog today.

Tod Finds Self-Published POD Gem

My brother Tod Goldberg has reviewed DANCING ON THE FLY ASH, a self-published P.O.D. book, in his Las Vegas City Life column:

It's a sad state of affairs, however, that the one book spawned from a blog that actually succeeds has gone virtually unnoticed: Dancing On Fly Ash by Matt Bell and Josh Maday.

The differences between Bell and Maday and their blog brethren is they are actually fiction writers, unlike Cutler, who slept with a lot of people, and Cox, who is a fine journalist but not a fine fiction writer (it's not a trait that is easily shared), and their blog (found at dancingonflyash.com) is a daily splash of flash creativity: Each day, in 100 words or less, either Bell or Maday writes a complete short story. Dancing On Fly Ash collects the best 62 of these entries and the result is both exciting and frustrating -- exciting in that the best of these short-short-short stories packs the emotional wallop of a novel and frustrating because several stories beg for more than the form allows.

The stories veer from the dramatic to the poignant to the absurd, the best of which contain all three styles.

Naturally, the authors were thrilled by the review:

This is the first review for our book, so I can’t help but be excited, especially since it’s mostly positive.  It’s so hard to get a self-published book reviewed in the first place, much less by an author of Goldberg’s stature.  We’re very thankful to him for his encouragement and support.

The Elusive Fucktardicine Americanas

Every week, my brother Tod hilariously skewers Parade Magazine and the fucktards (and Parade staffers) who pose questions to Walter Scott.  This week, though, Tod is at his best. Here's my favorite part, which had me choking on my morning bagel:

As a child in the 1960s, I loved the novelty songs of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Are they still around?

It's hard to answer the question Jon Brown poses because it works on so many different levels of consciousness. Are the songs still around? No, Jon, the songs were stuffed into a time capsule and shot into space, which is why you never hear them around Christmas anymore. And everyone knows that once a song stops playing, well, it ceases to exist. Why, it's amazing the Star Spangled Banner has lasted so long, but I put that in the hands of the Lord. You know what also no longer exists? Final Countdown by Europe. Poof! It failed to exist. It's no longer "around". Same with Mickey by Toni Basil. The entire Blow Monkeys catalog. Remember 99 Luftballons by Nena? Gone. No longer "around".

And then the larger question: Does Jon actually mean Alvin and the Chipmunks? Does Jon Brown of Natick, Mass, really think Alvin and the Chipmunks are no longer "around"? Well, that would indicate that Alvin and the Chipmunks ever, you know, existed. You see, Jon, they were a cartoon. Louis Leakey discovered in 1975 that cartoons weren't, in fact, part of the hominid line and all the history books had to be rewritten. C. Owen Lovejoy, in his landmark paper on the subject, noted that cartoons were actually "[D]rawn by people working in Burbank, California and have no relation to any known lines of human evolution. In addition, it appears the Brown family of Natick, Mass. is part of a forgotten link in the parade of humanity known as fucktardicine americanas."

The Book Millionaire Scam

My brother Tod beat me to the news that Lori Prokop's Book Millionaire scam is back... a "reality show" that promises to grant the winner the "lifestyle of being a successfully published author" and  "additional prizes to help achieve the goal of Best Selling and Celebrity Status."

In other words, Lori will publish the winner through her vanity press ("Bestseller Publishing") and they will get a stack of Lori's self-published books. Wow. Where can I sign up? And as I predicted, back in April when this scam was first announced, "Book Millionaire" won't be on any television network...it's going to be on the web. Videos of the suckers, excuse me, aspiring contestants are up on her site. At least one of them is mortified and wrote to me about it:

I fell for it hook, line and sinker...so of course I sent an email to all my friends to sign up on the site and watch for my audition tape and my really smart lawyer friend found your site and now I want to cry!

Lori Prokop's scam is so transparent, how could anyone possibly fall for it? So that's what I asked the lady who sent me the email, and she sent me a lengthy reply. Here are some excerpts:

I was a huge Survivor and Apprentice nut -- always wanted to do one of those shows but did not want to eat bugs or work for Donald Trump.  I was new in self-publishing at the time I sent in my tape....my passion for this business has become my mission.

I have a circle of amazing friends who are always in the spot light--I thought it would make great television so thus I believed the concept. I have a friend on the American Inventor Show,  a friend who was the first person voted off of Survivor and a friend that was on the Today Show...

I have read some best sellers that I felt where only best sellers because they were marketed correctly and I have read some awesome books that will never be on the best seller because they don't understand marketing.  So I believed in the concept. Thinking back I was amazed she was also from Wisconsin.

Wisconsin? What difference does that make? Clearly, this aspiring writer wanted to be a celebrity so badly, and was so jealous of her friends who got on TV, that she jumped blindly into this ridiculous scam without bothering to notice that, even if she won, she would get none of the things she was dreaming of. Lori Prokop can't give anyone  "the lifestyle of a bestselling author" or "celebrity status"...all she can do is offer contestants some of her self-published "get-rich-quick" books, a cheaper rate on leased cars, and tickets to one of her motivational speeches at a Unitarian church.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the suckers who fell for her scam... they deserve the humiliation and disappointment they are in for. They didn't think about what they were being offered ("the lifestyle of a bestselling author??"). They didn't do any research into Lori Prokop or Bestseller Publishing (ten minutes on Google would have been enough). Instead, they gladly deluded themselves because they wanted Lori's empty promises and outrageous claims to be true...they wanted a short-cut to their dream of being published authors. They have no one to blame but themselves. It's hucksters like Lori Prokop, who profit on the desperation of aspiring writers, that infuriate me.

UPDATE 4-2-06:  My brother Tod and I aren't the only bloggers outraged  by huckster Lori Prokop's Book Millionaire scam. Journalist Richard Cobbett writes:

Is it wrong to hope that people like Lori Prokop wake up one day to find their intestines crawling with tapeworms?

If she did, she'd try to sell them on the Internet  as "miracle healing tapeworms."

 

Fanfic Fool

From my brother Tod's blog today:

The other day, my friend Alex told me that in a creative writing class he teaches at UC-Riverside, someone turned in Willy Wonka fan fiction and wasn't totally clear why that wasn't allowed in a college creative writing class.

The student would be much more at home in a creative writing class at Texas State University taught by Dr. Robin Reid, champion of "Real Person Slash Fanfic." Not only would she accept that assignment, but probably one about Gene Wilder getting his Willy Wonked by Johnny Depp, too.

Washington Post on SIMPLIFY

The Washington Post has reviewed my brother Tod's short story collection SIMPLIFY. They like it. Sort of.

---

By contrast, the guys in Tod Goldberg's Simplify (OV Books; paperback, $14.99) are too busy reeling from various blows -- terminally ill fathers, suicidal sisters, lost brothers -- to reinvent themselves. Many of these stories slide off in surreal directions as they map their characters' psychic turmoil. In "Comeback Special," a man whose wife has left him for his best friend finds that a photo of Elvis (from his 1968 comeback concert) cries blood and even changes costumes. The ensuing media circus helps the story maintain its amusing tone, but it's not grounded enough in the man's life to have much effect on the reader.

Goldberg takes similar risks in other stories, with mixed results. The narrator of "The Distance Between Us," who slowly reveals that his misunderstood brother was a serial killer, is genuinely affecting in his grief, but the premise ends up feeling far-fetched.

Goldberg's best stories are told in retrospect, as if the narrators need psychic distance to fashion their memories in the most potent form. My favorite is "The Living End," a haunting account of the summer of 1973, when the narrator's older brother returns from Vietnam with strange scrapes and bruises; the story becomes a mystery that involves the abduction of a Native American girl across the street. This story has a stable nuclear family at its center -- not stable enough, however, to stave off the enormous forces that conspire to destroy its children.

 

"Ang Lee also directed The Hulk, which is odd because Ang Lee has never been a green monster..."

My brother Tod tackles one of the dumbest questions ever posed to Letters to Parade, from Peter Jones of New York City:

"Brokeback Mountain's Ang Lee is the favorite to win an Oscar for Best Director. How did a Chinese person gain such an understanding of homosexual American cowboys?"

Among Tod's many observations:

1. Ang Lee also directed the Civil War film Ride With The Devil (based on a great novel by Daniel Woodrell, incidentally), which is pretty surprising because Ang Lee isn't a Civil War vet and, in fact, lived part of his life in Pinko China, and, I'm fairly certain, never once listened to a 38 Special album and thought about how cool it would be to grow up in the old South, where he would have been lynched. At any rate, the pop singer Jewel co-starred in Ride with the Devil and her longtime beau is cowboy Ty Murray. Perhaps one drunken night on the range turned into a sexual bacchanal. Perhaps Ty rode Ang like a bucking steer. Perhaps Ang woke one morning with a longing for the feel of a rawhide saddle and the touch and feel of a man. Perhaps he read the fucking short story.

Do Mystery Novels Suck?

My brother Tod is going to get in big trouble. In a post today, he explains why he doesn't ready mysteries any more. Because, in his view, most of them suck.

I used to read a lot of mystery novels but in the last several years have found myself easily disappointed by the easy conventions I find in what are acclaimed as the finest in the genre...

...Part of it is a craft issue: I find a lot of mystery novels lazy in characterization and lazy in drama, relying more often on tricks than truth...

For instance, Tod recently read the acclaimed new bestseller by a beloved mystery author:

It had plot holes on every page, as if someone had been fisting it. I solved the mystery in the first ten pages. The villains were stock. The hero was suitably flawed but easily redeemed and the ending was so schmaltzy that I literally said aloud, "Oh, come on!" I then went and looked at the reviews of the book and was stunned to learn it was the writer's "best book in years." That the novel was the "finest mystery of the year." That the writing was "superb" and evoked "Chandler." That the twists and turns of the plot kept reviewers "constantly guessing." That the ending packed "an emotional wallop that will keep fans chatting for months!" Had I read a different book?

He wonders if critics and readers go easier on mystery novels because they expect less from them than they do from other literary works. He also has a problem with the stagnant character development in some mysteries.

Most mystery novels I've read lately feel like just another episode, the characters stuck in a commercial break until the next book comes out. That, certainly, was the case with the novel I read...a continuing series character, widely loved, widely praised, widely selling and so cliched and trite now that it makes the previous works by the author now seem something less. It's a bland book, inoffensive in every way, except that it made me wonder what mystery reviewers (and readers) truly consider classic or brilliant anymore.

While I agree with Tod in some ways (look at the lambasting I got for not jumping on the Ken Bruen bandwagon) I think there's a big difference between a series novel -- which is, indeed, intended to be like an episode of a TV series -- and a standalone thriller. 

Like TV shows, readers expect a series novel to be the same book as the one they read before in the series -- only different. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but we TV writers do it every day. A TV series gives you the same episode week after week, year after year, but with enough differences in the individual stories to make the show seem new and fresh.  Marshall Matt Dillon was essentially the same guy in 1955 when GUNSMOKE premiered as he was when the show was cancelled in 1975...and none of the relationships in his life had really changed. The same is essentially true of most other non-serialized TV series and most series novels.

Stephanie Plum, Nero Wolfe, Phillip Marlowe, Shell Scott, Spenser, Elvis Cole, Kinsey Millhone, Jack Reacher, John Rain, Inspector Rebus... none of these characters have really changed in the course of their respective series. That's one of the pleasures and comforts of the books...you know exactly what you're going to get when you open one up.

Can it get dull? Yeah. Can the writers get sloppy and complacent? Sure. Are readers and critics more forgiving of successful series books and the authors who write them? I think so, because the authors and their characters are so beloved. You are pre-disposed to like the book and to cut it a lot of slack (whereas someone coming to the book fresh, without having read the previous titles, might judge it far more harshly and see the cliches the long-tme reader doesn't).

The problem, perhaps, is that too many new mystery novels these days are reading like pilots for prospective book series rather than as strong, individual novels. You can feel the writer's burning desire to create a franchise in every paragraph. In some ways, this goes back to the earlier discussion here about creating suspense. Nothing kills a book faster for me than the sense the author is more interested in marketing and promotion than in actually creativing vivid characters and telling a compelling story. He's looking ahead to the hoped-for series rather than concentrating on writing a fresh, powerful, and provocative book.

Who Is More Annoying?

My brother Tod is "the most annoying man in the blogosphere,"  according to seminary student James Kosub, but I'm close to stealing the title from him. And Tod is not too happy about it.

True Grit

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN isn't the first gay western. No sireee Bob. My brother Tod has the skinny on the others.

The Best of the Goldbergs

My brother Tod continues his "best of..." theme today, picking his favorite posts from some of our family's many blogs. But he doesn't really answer the big questions...why do so many members of our family feel the need to share their opinions with the world? What makes us think anybody really cares? Are we doing it merely to advertise a product or service (our books, art work, businesses, etc)? Or is it raging ego? Or is it a very public way of keeping in touch with one another?

Or is it a logical outgrowth of who we are? The fact is, I come from a media-oriented family. My father was an TV news anchorman. My Mom is a journalist and author. My Uncle was a popular FM disc jockey for many years and now writes true-crime books. My brother is a novelist and an English professor (yeah, he's a prof now). My sisters are artists and published authors. I've been a journalist, author and TV writer/producer.  Is it really any surprise that we all have blogs?

For Those Who Think Being a Novelist is Glamorous

My brother Tod's Fucktards of the Year" list includes this:

5. The Various Fucktards Who Scheduled Book Signings For Me In Their Stores And Then, You Know, Forgot To Order My Books, Put Up Signs Or Advertise My Event.

This should not be confused with the stores who simply had distribution issues when my book went into a second printing and copies simply were not available. That sort of thing happens when you're wildly successful, so, you know, how the cookie crumbles and all that. No, I mean the people who actually booked events for me, confirmed them, confirmed that they had plenty of books and promoted the event and that signs were "already up" and "the writing group can't wait for you to get to the store" and "I really loved your book," and who, actually, "Oh, gosh, I didn't know you were coming. Did we speak?"

"Yes. Three times. Including yesterday."

"Well, I looked and all your books are out of print. Are you self published or something?"

"No, all of my books are in print -- in several printings, in fact -- and I just had a signing in your store across town and they had all of my books. All of them."

"I don't know what happened then."

I know what happened. You're a fucktard.

Sadly, he isn't making this stuff up. I was at one those signings. Okay, two of them.

Living on the Border Between Mundane and Surreal

No, we're not talking about TJ HOOKER masturbation fanfic, but the Chicago Tribune's rave review of my brother Tod's new short story collection SIMPLIFY.

Tod Goldberg's collection, "Simplify," contradicts its title: Goldberg complicates things, in brilliant and moving ways, in stories that live along the border between the mundane and the surreal.

A young married couple meet Jesus and the devil every holiday season (Jesus is a coffee drinker, the devil likes German beer), and their lives are both blessed and cursed. A dys lexic creates an all-encompassing alphabet, a distinct symbol for every person and event in his world, evoking the language of a book in a Borgesian infinite library. A picture of Elvis Presley bleeds, making its owner a reluctant celebrity.

Goldberg's prose is deceptively smooth, like a vanilla milkshake spiked with grain alcohol, and his ideas are always made more complex and engaging by the offbeat angles his stories take.

Streaming Goldbergs

Have you ever heard Sammy Davis Jr. sing the theme for HAWAII FIVE-O? Do you swoon when Chuck Norris sings "The Eyes of a Ranger?" Well, you're in for a treat. You can revel in the vocal stylings of  Sammy and Chuck, among others,  as well as the wit and wisdom of the brothers Goldberg over at Pinky's Paperhaus. You can stream the complete two hour interview and musical extravaganza or you can hear a 15-minute podcast version with all our really stupid comments and our worst musical selections edited out.

Montgomery Simplifies

David Montgomery reviews my brother Tod's book SIMPLIFY on his site today. And he likes it.

Short story collections are nearly impossible to review, especially in anything under several hundred words. (How do you comment generally on a book that contains twelve different stories that vary in plot, theme, quality, etc.?) Still, there are a few observations that one can make about Tod Goldberg's Simplify. The stories are sharp and insightful, many of them dealing with issues emerging from childhood. The writing is often funny, even when it's painful, and always to the point, with keen dialogue and a strong voice. Finally, the stories on the whole are powerful, provocative and a pleasure to read. The title entry, in particular, is a minor masterpiece.