All posts by Matthew Callan

Pointless Nostalgia

Jean Shepherd: Strange Tales of New York

shep2I have often waxed at great length about my love of Jean Shepherd’s radio show, here and elsewhere. I’ve written about and shared many kinds of programs of his over the years: nostalgic, anti-nostalgic, childhood tales, army tales, philosophical meanderings, and various combinations of the above.

Another thing he did well on his shows—something I haven’t really touched on before—is his ability to convey a mood of eeriness, of creeping, unnameable terror. Around Halloween, he loved to dedicate shows to stories about the Jersey Devil (and occasionally its lesser known cousin, the Kentucky Devil). He did many other shows about the pull of the supernatural and the fear of ghosts. But more often, he would talk about the terror of the everyday, the weird, creepy things happening right under our noses.

For no good reason at all, I want to share one such show, which aired on April 14, 1970. It starts with Shep sharing a bone-chilling news story from New Orleans, where creepy things tend to happen with some regularity. But then he shifts into a tale from the days when he first moved to New York, and his somewhat desperate attempts to find friendship in a city that can make newcomers feel crushingly alone. The story starts out amusing, involving wild parties, random encounters, and lapsed drunken monks (really), but it quickly deteriorates into a sad and chilling arena. Shep closes out the show with another story, this one about helping a friend investigate an apartment he’s interested in renting. Finding a place to live in New York is terrifying enough, but this story goes beyond even the usual level of terror and into a special, weird place.

Though Shep’s stories in this show refer to things that happened in the 1950s and 1960s, there’s something eternally New York about these stories, a very New York brand of loneliness and sadness and squalor that few people wrote about then and even fewer write about now. I found it genuinely unnerving to listen to because it all felt so real to me, and I find it amazing he was able to convey this feeling with only his voice (although a creepy Stockhausen composition helped, I suppose).

Enjoy (if that’s the word). Just don’t listen to it with the lights off.

[audio:http://scratchbomb.com/media/1970-04-14-Strange-Tales-of-NY.mp3]
Literary Endeavors

Contested

I may have mentioned this before several thousand times, but I’ve written a novel. It’s called Hang A Crooked Number. Here is what I say about the novel to people who may wish to represent or publish it:

Backstop lives a double life, and both are crumbling. To the outside world, Backstop appears to be a minor league catcher of rapidly diminishing skills. In truth, he is an operative in training for The Moe Berg Society, a secret intelligence group that uses baseball as a front for its spy work. The mysterious disappearance of his fellow trainee, Mark, has plunged him into a career-threatening slump. Backstop gets one last chance at proving his worth when his handler asks him to investigate a connection between rumors of a mole and The Scouts, a faction of old-school spies hell-bent on seizing leadership of The Society. His mission is complicated by his new roommate, The Swing, an aging slugger working on a major league comeback, and by Brooke, a tenacious reporter who suspects Backstop holds the key to her investigation into Mark’s disappearance. With one eye on his plummeting batting average and the other on the mounting casualties of his mission, Backstop attempts to unravel a conspiracy that could change the game forever before he unravels himself.

This is the logline (industry terms!). Out of necessity, this omits a lot of what the book is. At the risk of explaining a thing that should serve to explain itself (like art is supposed to do), I can say that Hang a Crooked Number is about a lot of things that have almost nothing to do with spies, or baseball, or an imaginary world that has spies in baseball. A friend of mine who read it described it as “very New York,” which I took as a compliment. What I’m saying is, if you don’t dig baseball and/or spy novels in the slightest, I think you might still enjoy it.

The reason I’m going on about this is because I would like you to know Hang a Crooked Number is currently in the running for something called the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The novel has made it to the quarterfinals, in fact, and is one of about 100 titles under consideration in the General Fiction category. I entered the novel in the general fiction category because despite the novel’s genre shell, I think it’s closer to literary fiction than anything else. (See: defensive overexplaining above.) I’m normally suspicious of any contest that would allow me to advance this far, but they haven’t asked me for any money or to crash on my couch yet, so I think I’m safe.

If you want a tiny glimpse of the novel, Amazon is offering free ebook excerpts of all the quarterfinalists; mine can be found here. If this were in print form, what you get would only be the first 10-15 pages or so. But hey, it’s free, innit? I don’t think people downloading and/or reviewing this excerpt on Amazon will have any bearing whatsoever on whether or not Hang a Crooked Number progresses to the next rung on the contest ladder. But I don’t think it will hurt its chances either, if you catch my drift.

This novel will see the light of day, one way or another. If it’s via this contest, great. If it’s via the more old school method of agent pitching to editor over a three-martini lunch, great. If I have to make and distribute an ebook myself, great. If I have to tattoo it on my back and walk down the beach, great. My primary interest is to see it available to as many people as possible. That probably eliminates the tattooing option, but never say never.

Alright, as you were.

The Funny

Summer Blockbuster Previews Based On Their Fake Jay Leno Monologues

leno_movieDid you see the other day where a town in Ohio that was down on its luck reopened a huge factory that had been shuttered for years? They said you couldn’t manufacture in this country anymore, but these plucky workers proved the critics wrong! Seems they found a real growth industry: making Big Macs for Bill Clinton! Remember, he ate a lot of those? The 90s, guys!

Guys, did you see this thing where Dominic Terreto and his car-boosting crew have been offered immunity for their crimes if they help the feds capture a criminal mastermind? Oops, probably shouldn’t have mentioned the details of an undercover operation on the air like that. Really strange that I would know anything about that to begin with. Those guys are probably all dead now. Oh well.

Did you see in this thing in the papers, folks? Apparently this high school basketball team in San Diego has gone undefeated ever since they fired their old coach and replaced him with a dog! It’s true! Nothin’ in the rule book says a dog can’t coach basketball! He’s got the kids back to the fundamentals: passing, free throws, and fetch! Anyway, stick around, we got David Brenner coming up!

Did you see this, read this, hear about this? Apparently a guy made himself a millionaire by bootlegging and gambling and bought himself the fanciest house in West Egg, all to impress some girl he used to like named Daisy. Boy, did he ever just think of sitting on a flagpole or something? Thanks for tuning in to the Old Gold Joke Minute, folks. Not a cough in a carload!

Did you see this thing where a mechanic from New Jersey won the New Hampshire primary with his straight-shooting, no-nonsense approach? This guy came outta nowhere to shock all the pundits and make people believe in democracy again! They think he can land the nomination, but it’ll depend on if this part comes in from Detroit! Cars!

Did you see this thing where earth has been overrun by zombies and humanity may be doomed? Did you hear about this? Is anyone hearing this? Is anyone out there at all? I’m holed up in my underground garage, hiding behind a Stutz Bearcat. If anyone can hear me, a little tip for you guys: windshield wiper fluid is potable.

Did you see this thing where an elephant wants to sing instead of dance? Crazy! This is happening in a universe where we’re all CGI elephants who dance constantly, by the way. Thanks for tuning in, this is Jay El-Leno-phant.

Did you see this thing where aliens?

Folks, did you see this thing where the Iron Man is back? That’s all I can say. The producers only gave me my page of the script. And now, please welcome back the Dancing Itos!