Hammett and Me

It's always fun to talk about Dashiell Hammett. Nick and Nora Charles were his finest creation. If it weren't for the sparkling Depression-era magic of Nick and Nora (The Thin Man), their cocktail parties and speakeasies, deluxe hotel suites and inherited wealth, there'd be no Chris and Peachy. I got lucky in life several times, enjoyed every minute of first class accommodation, fine restaurants and nightclubs.

Of course, Hammett was a far superior writer. That doesn't bother me. Happy to write my little adventures, a modern tale of wealth and privilege, which are not interchangeable or synonymous. The privilege in question is daring, buckets of it, personal and professional. Having money is a curse or blessing, depending on the circumstances. In my third novel of Chris and Peachy, money blows up in their faces. Won't have any in the end, flat broke, except for a beach house and an office on Sunset Boulevard. If they want to eat and drink, they'll have to go back to work as private investigators for hire, a fourth book for sure.

Last night I agreed with Cass, bemoaned my overly honest mansplaining of sexuality. It was natural to use the first person voice, a tradition of hardboiled "dicks" (take that any way you like, it's a convention of the genre to use that truncation; police detectives are "bulls"). It's a manly occupation, despite Hollywood's insistence that goofballs and OCD pooftahs can do just as well. Not true. Detectives deal in life and death, carry a gun for specific reasons.

Finally found Chris a really cool weapon, a compact SIG P320, low recoil 9x19mm, no safety, just draw and shoot. Peachy's Ruger is the sort of weapon a girl would like -- well, a girl who likewise knows no compunction about killing in self-defense or slightly ahead of the curve. People like this exist. They're difficult to get along with, unless they ignore you.

Great fun writing. Also heartbreaking, thrilling, fearful, tender, and sexy. Fifteen years ago, I had to explain without blushing that I was a modern Jefferson (never mind why). Now, it's Dashiell Hammett, an infinitely easier job :) that seems to take infinitely more time, over a year so far -- writing every day, seven days a week, hammering hard men and healthy women on the page, whether it sells or not. I expect to be banned altogether. Something amusingly noble about that, when you think about it, guilty of thought crime.

Wilda knew. "You've had sex before," she remarked, after reading A Portrait of Valor. Yup. It had to be honest, if I was to remain faithful to who Chris and Peachy were, especially Chris, a Marine Corps officer, war hero, tough guy, proud to be a man. Not overly bright but a man of action -- a far better man than I happen to be, which is the privilege of an author, to project an ideal character, someone worthy of the days and weeks and months it takes to breathe life into fiction. People don't do this for drippy shit that meanders like a slow sewer, says nothing about life on life's terms, what men want from women and are willing to fight for, if they must. Anything worth having involves fighting for it, sooner or later.

https://www.amazon.com/Chris-Peachy-Files-Cable-Blount/dp/197392630X

Never loved?

I've been wanted, craved, needed -- uniformly with buyer's remorse later -- but I don't recall being loved, except perhaps by my mother. She would smile shyly and happily whenever we were together, often laughed when I smiled in reply or said something silly to amuse her.

Puzzles the heck out of me. Janet loved me, but we were only 14 and it was cloying. I was too young to be loved -- excuse me, too vain and stupid, because I sent Janet away, told her that I didn't want to go steady. I believe it was the only time that a girl loved me. Had I stayed with her, my life would have been vastly different, far less crazy and reckless and idiotic -- in view of which I'm glad that lovely, innocent Janet escaped my initial senseless march to perdition as a teenager that commenced shortly after I told her we were quits.

Now I'm old and unloved, too ugly to expect any tenderness. Too evil to accept expressions of good wishes or long distance warmth. I adore women, always easy for me to partner them one way or another, to the extent that they find themselves drawn. Smart ones back away, thinking of Mary Lou in particular but not uniquely. Many women are sharp enough to want money and control. I was impossible to control, chronically broke, easily bored.

For those reasons I was almost always pleased to be married. Whether I was fit to be married is a separate question. Some wives made my life easier than others, but it was never easy for them. My best behavior was in short supply, and all four wives often made uneasy sacrifices to patch me up before, during, and after a disaster or two. Queenie stuck like glue through thick and thin, until I betrayed her. Bizarrely, she still feels some sort of admiration for me, while simultaneously blowing a raspberry of ridicule, because she knows how fragile I am. "Unfit to survive," she casually remarked in a recent email.

True enough. I was unloved and unlovable because I'm substandard, approximately half a man. Two of me pasted together might equal a normal person. I was a major chick magnet, but women soon saw how little I could do in the world. They tried to help me, then became frustrated, worried, resentful and disgusted.

It is impossible to help an artist, fumbling his way to perdition.

Why it had to be and continues to be hell is inexplicable. In fairness to the Fair Sex, it was equally painful for men to befriend me. They learned to say little and buy me a beer, have a meal together, no further artistic or financial business to transact. I praised and encouraged everyone in my life. They seldom believed that I meant it, although it was never a lie. I knew how hard it was to create something. It was easy and natural to see goodness in others, even if they were lightyears away from me, like stars in the night sky that I enjoyed and respected. I saw hundreds of them. My life was rich with stars of stage, screen, music, science, law, and the written word -- supremely talented people who achieved things I couldn't. I was a lowly director, a "plumber" as the bombastic Canadian producer scoffed, before he fired me. I was fired many times, humiliated in tabloids, blackballed at Warner, kneecapped by Columbia.

A failed director. Only half a man, remember?

The remnant of the half is now writing. Slight misstatement. I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Perhaps less awkwardly now, after 20 years of doing little else. Yet it's there in every breath and every dream when I sleep -- the deep, unquenchable thirst to direct, to paint the screen with the talent of others in front of and behind the camera. I learned to not do technical jobs, because other men are better with cameras, sound, and editing keystrokes. The only thing I can do is to direct -- and to do it, I need support staff, restaurants, hotel linen, retakes and leisure to change my mind, to see something else that asks everyone to attempt the bizarre, difficult, unlikely, often the impossible.

Now at the height of my powers, nothing has changed. Unwanted and unloved, I paint the page with the bizarre, difficult, unlikely, often the impossible and slanderous. I had to write a letter of apology to an honored friend because I lampooned the Bureau. Other friends turned two blind eyes, cheerfully bought a book that they won't read, to encourage me. Perhaps one man sees value in my work. Single digit sales are an echo of the past, films never exhibited.

Bottom line: If you have talent, any size or shape, fight for it and never quit, right or wrong, loved or unloved, until your life is ended. Artists only get one shot at life. Live as fully and freely as possible, price no object.