Life in Milwaukee finds itself marching into another month. Thankfully, this winter has been very mild and no one is more thankful than me. I'm not sure how many harsh winters my poor 18 year old truck can withstand. Yes, I'm cheap to a fault and refuse to spend some exorbitant amount of money on a vehicle that I drive thirty minutes a week. Just doesn't make sense. Even if I drove more than that, I still couldn't justify 20 or 30 thousand dollars on a car. Lets face it, it doesn't cost that much to make it--you're just paying for the over paid auto workers whose unions have  negotiated some of the most lucrative contracts since professional baseball. I'm also holding out for an electric car that can go farther than 80 miles on a charge. We have the technology, the government is just holding back...as always.
Speaking of technology, I have finally upgraded to a touch phone. I'll be the first to say it though, I don't need one. Nobody really needs one. The rest of the world will survive if we don't hear that you're eating lunch or tying your shoe. I don't need the minute by minute play that is your life. You're not that important, neither am I. My retirement goal is to have a rotary phone. You won't be able to get hold of me. If you want to reach me, MAIL me a letter. Good luck with that because the USPS won't be around.
A passenger on my flight the other day said, "Must be nice to get to go to all those great places!" Wow, he must know something about my life that I don't. Great Places? Like Huatulco, Mexico? Yeah it's great...You get up at 3 a.m. so you can make it into the air by 5:45 a.m. You land in Huatulco, a place where they haven't figured out how to get clean water to your tap (it is the year 2012) or put a paved road under the wheels of a car. You step outside the plane for ten minutes in which you sweat like a big girl at the buffet and then you load them back up for the 5 hour trip back to whatever god forsaken city you came from...like Philadelphia or Cleveland; two cities that I'm sure are on every one of your top ten to see lists. You guys do realize that when we stay in a city, it's usually for 10 hours so we don't see anything, but the hotel and the airport. I actually heard a flight attendant express great pleasure when she found out that the city she was going to had a Trader Joe's close to the hotel...really? A grocery store is what gets you excited? There you have it folks, we are so lucky that grocery stores are national landmarks to us. I'm lucky...please...Dayton anyone?

I hope everyone is recovering well from holiday madness and that the credit card statements that are now trickling in have not caused you to run to the medicine cabinet seeking anti-depressant medication! I didn't make any New Year's resolutions simply because I don't believe in them. Change doesn't happen because the calendar turns a page. Change comes from within. Those of you who read Beautiful Hardship know what I'm talking about.
I received my screenplay back with all its criticisms in tact! It was as I had expected, but it'll take more than a literary bashing to deter me. Advice to writer's seeking solace from the bottle...J.K. Rowling was turned down many times before some clown said, "Yeah, I like that." And she had it easy. In her style of writing, all she had to do was create a new character with a new power and suddenly problematic story lines disappeared. That's the beauty of fantasy writing and why I loathe it wholeheartedly. Tolkien was much better.
I recently dug into the story of Joe "Maddog" Sullivan who was a mob hit man for the infamous "Fat" Tony Solerno. I'm half way through his bio and I have to say he is the true definition of "product of the state." He spent his teen years bouncing from reformatory to reformatory in a world that was brought to light in the movie "Sleepers." If you've never seen it, rent it asap. It's one of my favorites and has a few A listers (Pitt and Hoffman). Joe spent his early twenties in Rahway and Trenton, NJ prisons and found himself in the middle of uprisings that earned him a ticket to Trenton State Mental Hospital. Don't know about that place? Rent "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with Nicholson and Devito. Shock therapy and Thorazine were doled out as breakfast staples. It's a tragic story. Is everyone popping the anti-depressants now?
Alright, let's put the pep back in your step...keeping up on the NFL playoffs? My wish was granted when Green Bay was crushed by New York. Aaron Rogers is everything I despise about high profile players. If you lived here, you would understand. The last commercial I saw with him in it was an endorsement for an attorney who makes a living from the ever growing population of drunk drivers. The guy has no discretion...money, money, money....with that being said, I am sending him a copy of Lapse of Reason because I have no doubt he will it endorse it sight unseen!

Ok, I'm not usually one to get my geek on when it comes to airplanes so the photo is not the result of a nerd landing at my house. The only reason I put this on here is so you can see what I've been up to! I just finished a screenplay for a film. The story was supposed to be my next book, but there are some out there that thought it might make a better movie. I think I'll write the book after the movie just so I can hear some idiot say..."the movie was way better than the book." The plot line for the screenplay is stealing money from the Treasury Department while it is being transported on a commercial airliner, aka a Boeing 757 Jet...hence the picture so those of you who are fortunate enough to not be in the world of aviation (Oh how I envy you!) would understand what a 757 is. Of course, the road to having a screenplay actually make it to the finished product we know as a film is a rough one. Right now, it is being reviewed and criticized and taken apart piece by piece by an agency that gets paid to make guys like me feel inadequate and worthless. If it survives, then I will try to pedal it through the offices of Hollywood; a daunting task. At any rate, I can now, finally, continue with my next novel, Lapse of Reason.
Anyone ever heard of Joe "Mad Dog" Sullivan? The only guy to ever escape from Attica Prison? Joe was a mob hit man in the 70's...google him. It's a great story, but unfortunately for Joe it ended where stories like his always do. Joe is serving life in a prison in New York. I looked him up and sent him a book. We've been exchanging letters and I've found him to be a great guy with a great sense of humor in spite of his predicament. I just ordered his book, Tears and Tiers, The Life and Times of Joseph Sullivan. It was written by his wife. I'm going to try to convince Joe to let me write the screenplay. He's a very charming guy, well spoken and at 73, he's in great shape.
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Here's to 2012!