On Writing: George Singleton

Writers Write Meme Gallery

It's 5 o'Clock Somewhere Flag

January 17, 1920 — Prohibition began on January 17, 1920, when the Volstead Act went into effect.

Book Reviews in Review: 2018

Here are my favorite five of the books I reviewed in 2019—Keep those hits coming…

Threading together songs with flash fiction riffs and verse in a collection of improvisational literary jazz is a great concept. It gets to the heart of the osmosis of music into our memories. This Petri dish experiment was definitely a success. The one problem I had with this book:  it was too short.  I wanted more. (5 of 5 Stars)

Link to Fate Fell Short on Amazon

It was as if I opened a Carl Hiaasen novel and fell through a space-time continuum portal to the Emerald Isle where Skink & Company all suddenly have an Irish brogue. As an aficionado of wacky Florida misadventures since Tourist Season, this was a good thing—a very good thing. Parts 2, 3 & 4 of the Dublin Trilogy are definitely in my reading queue. (5 of 5 Stars)

Link to A Man with One of Those Faces on Amazon

This is a book of two tales. The first one, the adventure of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur-buccaneer’s no-holds-barred battle to survive and cash out, was fascinating. The second, about life as a Facebook corporate drone…not so much. The Zuckerberg brand of palace intrigue is, really, not so unique and special in the annals of American Corporate Manifest Destiny. I have to say, though, that the author’s Afterward—an update written after Antonio’s “departure” from Facebook and the original publication of Chaos Monkeys—is a great essay on current events involving the social media giant. (4 of 5 stars for the first half; 3 of 5 stars for the second half; 5 of 5 stars for the update)

Link to Chaos Monkeys Faces on Amazon

As a pilot and aviation aficionado, my familiarity with the lives and exploits of Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle gave me a case of literary empty field myopia, where at first I did not see and appreciate the story telling craftsmanship of Winston Groom (author of Forest Gump). Like a Bach fugue, The Aviators tells three biographical tales simultaneously, taking the reader from rag wings to aluminum overcast. The result being that these giants of aviation somehow came off as even more larger than life for me. (5 of 5 Stars)

Link to The Aviators on Amazon

I have to admit I was sold on the title alone. I’ve been “free range” so long that I had almost forgotten the drone life lived out in the honeycombs of bureaucratic cubicles.  Semegran brought back all the odd camaraderie of office workers and the capricious quirks in the business of pushing paper in a muted Carl Hiaasen style with a tale that leaves you smiling in the warm Texas Hill Country breeze. (4 of 5 Stars)

Link to To Squeeze A Prairie Dog on Amazon

Damnit! No self-control. None. Whatsoever. Zero-zip-nada. I knew from Volume I: Fate Fell Short that these were rich, tasty truffles to be saved and savored.  But noooooooo.  I had to snarf them all down at once. And here I am with literary chocolate smeared all over my face, staring at an empty box in despair…wishing for more.  (5 of 5 Stars)

Link to Anything Other Than on Amazon

The Ventures – Wipeout live in Japan 1966

Clear and Present Dangers……William Kennedy

“Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate.”

― William Kennedy

Lynyrd Skynyrd-Call Me The Breeze-1976

I keep blowin’ down the road
Well now they call me the breeze
I keep blowin’ down the road
I ain’t got me nobody
I don’t carry me no load

Ain’t no change in the weather
Ain’t no changes in me
Well there ain’t no change in the weather
Ain’t no changes in me
And I ain’t hidin’ from nobody
Nobody’s hidin’ from me
Oh, that’s the way its supposed to be

Well I got that green light baby
I got to keep movin’ on
Well I got that green light baby
I got to keep movin’ on
Well I might go out to California
Might go down to Georgia
I don’t know

Well I dig you Georgia peaches
Makes me feel right at home
Well now I dig you Georgia peaches
Makes me feel right at home
But I don’t love me no one woman
So I can’t stay in Georgia long

Well now they call me the breeze
I keep blowin’ down the road
Well now they call me the breeze
I keep blowin’ down the road
I ain’t got me nobody
I don’t carry me no load
Oooh Mr Breeze

Clear and Present Dangers……Martin Luther King Jr.

“Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

T Bone Burnett – Acquired Past

Suspicious character
A short brunette
The vengeful God of the South
Everybody knows these things go on and yet
Tie this scarf around your mouth
And I might static out at any moment

Making this machine to take her through the?
And quasi radiowave td
The hour before the angel broke the seal
And Hank Williams tragic life was?
And I might static out at any moment
And I might re-assemble into?

Will someone take this knife out of my back and plunge it deep into my heart
But don’t let anyone who lives in there
For her eyes are filled with laughter and deceit
I’m in danger when they meet
And I am not where I think I am

I’m afraid things are not going to work out for?
But you’re going to have to find someone willing to be a victim
If these gentlemen will kindly take this cue
They will show you off into oblivion

She was demystified by her own words
Pure speculation?
She simply split?
Then backed into the?
And I might static out at any moment
And I might re-assemble into?
And we might cross paths and the flux might?
For a moment that she never will forget