Three Grifters, Off to Fleece the World...

(With apologies to "Moon River")

I've said more than once that South Dakota's favorite mainstream, non-sexual crime is embezzlement. From the small town bar to state government to federal grants, a lot of money disappears. Sometimes people die, although those are usually ruled suicides if the sum is large enough. So South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley ruled that EB-5's Richard Benda's death in a field - shot in the stomach with a shotgun - was a suicide.  And Gear Up!s Scott Westerhuis killed his family first, then set his house on fire, and then turned the gun on himself. (There was also a safe that apparently developed legs, trotted off like a pig, and has never been found...) I've written about these before.  (Benda and Westerhuis)

But over the last month, we've had three big cases of embezzlement that each involved someone in State Government who was somehow put in charge of monitoring their own finances. That's a pretty neat trick to pull off, and I'm surprised that more people haven't thought of it...

Embezzler #1:

Sixty-eight-year-old Lonna Carroll is charged with two felony counts of aggravated grand theft for embezzling $1.8 million from the South Dakota Department of Social Services over the last 13 years of her employment. Specifically, from foster care funds.

“The defendant was the employee making the request for assistance for a particular child. Once the request was made, she had also reached the position of being that supervisory approval,” Jackley said. “So she was the requesting person and the supervisory approval.”

Once the money was approved, Carroll intercepted the check, placed the funds in a bank then transferred the money to her own account in a different bank.

And that's how she eventually, after her retirement, was caught. "DSS converted to a different record-keeping system. A subsequent report filed by the state Department of Legislative Audit documented dozens of instances where checks from DSS were deposited at American Bank & Trust in Pierre, and later that same day cash was withdrawn from the accounts." So they looked into it and... 

The rest will be told in court.  (LINK)

Embezzlement #2:

Sandra O’Day worked for the South Dakota Department of Motor Vehicles in a supervisory capacity. She is suspected of creating fake car titles and using them to secure almost $400,000 in auto loans. Jackley says she created titles for campers without motors because they are not reported to the national registry.

“Once a false title was created, that title was taken to either a bank or credit union and a loan was taken out to somebody else, with the use of that as collateral. Once the loan was secured and the money, she then went and destroyed the fraudulent title.”

The DCI investigation led to the discovery of 13 forged car titles between 2016 and 2023. Since O’Day has passed away, no charges will be filed. According to Jackley, there is no evidence that anyone else was involved. KELOLAND News asked Jackley if the state could be on the hook to repay the loans to the banks and credit unions.

Because she was in a supervisory position, Jackley says O’Day could adjust VIN numbers, which allowed her to create the titles she would eventually destroy. Because of the statute of limitations, the DCI investigation only goes back to 2016. Jackley believes O’Day may have created even more fake titles as far back as 2011. (LINK)

We will probably never know the whole truth about this one - how many titles, how much money, because O'Day died in February, 2024, and Attorney General Marty Jackley has closed the case.  

Embezzler #3:

Lynne Hunsley, who served as a revenue supervisor in the Department of Revenue, was placed on administrative leave by department leadership within the last two weeks as she faces charges that she, too, falsified vehicle titles.

Interestingly enough, Hunsley worked for O'Day, and took over her position when O'Day retired in October, 2023. (I guess she learned from the best.)  This story broke only last week, so we're waiting on a lot more information.  

Meanwhile, A Blast From the Past:

A long time ago, I wrote about a place called MyDakotaAddress in Madison, SD, which was one of those online sites where permanent RVrs could become citizens in South Dakota (and other states with no income tax) through the simple means of spending the night at a South Dakota campground and then paying a regular monthly fee.  From my blogpost back in 2012:

This is only one of multiple little store-front operations that allow a person, in exchange for a yearly / monthly fee, to establish South Dakota residency and thus avoid paying state taxes in the state in which they actually live. They provide a SD mailing address, and help people obtain your new SD drivers license, SD vehicle registration and voters card.” They collect the mail and send it on, send on absentee ballots for voting, and basically allow a lot of people to “live” in South Dakota, thereby avoiding property taxes in their home state and perhaps avoiding other things as well. Who’s to say that the name they give is their real name?

 

Now, this is all fraudulent: It’s mail fraud, voter fraud, tax fraud… But, when I investigated it and brought it to the attention of all my state officials, I was told there was nothing illegal about it, and to contact them “when a crime had been committed.”  (The Wild West Continues)

Well, a crime was committed.  BIG crime.  Car theft.  In 2018:

A ring of savvy car thieves in New York exploited a bureaucratic weakness by registering many of their ripped-off Lamborghinis and Range Rovers in South Dakota, a state that lets people register out-of-state vehicles by mail and wasn’t thoroughly checking to see if they were stolen, the FBI said.

…In all, the group stole about $3.1 million worth of vehicles, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. The heists included the theft of five 2017 Nissan Titan pickups taken from a dealership in Tallahassee, Florida, and a Lamborghini Huracan stolen in Miami, according to court documents.

…According to the FBI, [alleged ringleader Marvin] Williams registered 43 vehicles with the South Dakota Division of Motor Vehicles using false documentation. At least 10 of those vehicles had been reported stolen, authorities said.

"I have reviewed records obtained from the SDDMV, which show that MARVIN WILLIAMS, the defendant, who resides in Connecticut, has registered approximately forty-three vehicles in South Dakota, with the SDDMV, on behalf of himself and others, and has submitted false documentation, including false titles with invalid VINs, to the SDDMV to do so. In contrast to other states, prior to this investigation the SDDMV conducted fewer or no checks to confirm authenticity of VINs and lawful ownership in connection with registration of vehicles" [FBI Special Agent Kevin M. Gonyo, Complaint, USA v. Marvin Williams et al., U.S. Southern District Court of New York, 2018.11.06, p. 6].  (LINK)

Now I can't help but look at Sandra O'Day's career in forged car titles and wonder... was she involved?  Did she copy-cat?  Will we ever find out?  

And also, will anyone in our Legislature consider making it illegal for someone to both purchase and approve their own purchases?  One would hope so:  However, in Davison County, they're talking about merging the Auditor's and Treasurer's Offices into one.  Great idea! Save money!  

But Chief Deputy Auditor for Davison County James Matthews is concerned about the removal of checks and balances that would come if roles combine. “In our current status quo system, we have an elected treasurer and an elected auditor and our offices take each other’s work at the end of the month and are able to balance all the accounts to check each thing to the penny,” Matthews said. “With one office, you eliminate that checking of balance of both independent offices, working together to ensure that all the finances are accounted for and to prevent fraud.” (LINK)

Bingo.  

South Dakota, where we talk like Mayberry and act like Goodfellas...  

  

 

Four Stories and Two Hotdishes

Every morning, I watch Good Morning America for about half an hour while I eat my breakfast, mostly for the news scroll they provide at the bottom of the screen.  There's always something to catch my attention, something that isn't necessarily covered in prime time anywhere.  

For example:

"2,300 Pounds of Meth Hidden in Celery in Georgia Farmer's Market."  

Well, that certainly gave me something to munch on mentally while eating my peanut butter toast.  

Which Georgia Farmer's Market?  (Forrest Hill, right outside of Atlanta).  

Why celery?  Wouldn't it would be easier to hide the meth in the cauliflower?  

Who brings enough celery to a farmer's market to hide 2,300 pounds of meth?  

Were they actually planning to sell the celery as well as the meth? 

Did someone pick up a stalk of celery, notice the meth, and ask if that cost extra?

New Zealand food bank distributes candy made from a potentially lethal amount of methamphetamine

"A New Zealand charity working with homeless people in Auckland unknowingly distributed candies filled with a potentially lethal dose of methamphetamine in its food parcels after the sweets were donated by a member of the public.

"The charity’s food bank accepts only donations of commercially produced food in sealed packaging, Robinson said. The pineapple candies, stamped with the label of Malaysian brand Rinda, “appeared as such when they were donated,” arriving in a retail-sized bag, she added."
(LINK)

Wow. Someone went to a lot of trouble, individually wrapping meth in candy wrappers...

And why? Especially since they were given away.  Did they think they were going to get more customers? For meth or for Rinda?

Haven't been able to find an update on this story yet, but I'm keeping an eye out.

"Hippopotamuses can become airborne for substantial periods of time, researchers discover."

So of course I instantly thought of the dancing hippos in Disney's Fantasia. Some images never leave you...

Now I don't know about you, but I would cheerfully watch airborne hippos for 'a substantial period of time'.  A steeplechase? I'm there for it.  "Le Corsaire" ballet?  Oh, yeah.  Hippo v. Seabiscuit?  Bring it on.

So I was saddened to learn that, while hippos trot, not gallop, their airborne time is only about 0.3 seconds.  (LINK)

And, if you can figure out how to slow this video down, you can probably see it:

Tim Walz Accused of Lying About His White Guy Tacos!

I love this story and the whole meltdown that's going on in a certain sphere.
(LINK)

Apparently, no one in certain circles has ever heard of "joshing", i.e., making gentle fun of oneself.  Nor do they know squat about Norwegian Lutheran Culture.

Folks, you have to understand that, up here in the Midwest / High Plains area (including both Minnesota and the Dakotas), there is indeed a Northern European (which we often call Norwegian Lutheran, in gentle joshing fashion) food culture that largely eschews seasoning.  Up here, "hot" means the actual temperature of the food, not the spice. 

"Church Basement Ladies Pale Food Polka"

For example: lutefisk, a/k/a "The piece of cod which passeth all understanding" (and no, I did not make that up).  I have been invited to lutefisk dinners, which are a highlight of the Christmas season, and do not attend, because lutefisk is basically warm fish jello. With the lutefisk comes lefse (riced potatoes mixed with flour, salt, butter and cream, cooked like thin potato tortillas, and served with butter and sugar), boiled potatoes, and (if you're lucky) the one bit of color on the whole plate:  red Jello.

Now while I hate lutefisk, I have really leaned into hotdishes.  They're filling, they're easy to make, they're comfort food in the long, long, long winters.  And they are standard fare at funerals, potlucks, and other church gatherings.

The main point of a hotdish is that they are a full meal in a baking dish: a protein and a starch, mixed with canned soup and sometimes a frozen / canned vegetable.  Tatertot hotdish!  (Generally ground beef in mushroom soup with - you guessed it - tatertots for the topping.)  Chicken with biscuits! Tuna noodle casserole! Turkey noodle casserole! Swedish meatballs in white gravy!

NOTE:  True Swedish meatball gravy has beef broth and a dash of nutmeg in it.  Mmm...  Exotic.

And more endless iterations of hotdish, using cream of mushroom soup, cream of chicken soup, cream of celery soup, cream of ____ soup, topped with biscuits or mashed potatoes or tater tots.  Of late, some people have also been doing spaghetti bake, with tomato sauce and a thick coating of mozzarella cheese.

Here's a classic Chicken and Biscuits Hotdish passed down through the ages (thank you Dark Ally!), in my modern variation (i.e., the onion and mushrooms):

1 can cooked chicken, drained and chopped fine 

1 can cream of chicken soup 

1/2 cup of milk 

1 onion, sauteed with 1 package of mushrooms chopped 

Pinch of sage 

Mix the above together and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. 

Turn the oven up to 400 degrees. 

Open can of biscuits, and put biscuits on top of chicken hot dish 

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the biscuits are brown.

Now here's Tim Walz' Award-Winning Taco Hotdish:

1 lb ground turkey
1 large red bell pepper (or two medium ones)
1 yellow onion
1 can sliced black olives
1 can diced mild green chilies  
1 bottle taco sauce (medium)  
1 16 oz sour cream
1 bag of frozen tots
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
3 cups sweet corn
Cherry tomatoes
Green onions
Shredded iceberg lettuce
Paprika
Chili powder
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Dice the onion and bell pepper into 1-inch dice and sauté in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper for 15 minutes, until tender. Remove onion and bell pepper and set aside in a mixing bowl. Brown turkey. In a small bowl, mix 2 teaspoons each of paprika, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder. Add half of the mixture to the turkey while browning. Reserve the other half of the mixture to sprinkle over the tots prior to baking. When finished, add the turkey in with the sautéed onion and bell pepper. Add black olives, sweet corn, chilies, taco sauce, 2 cups of cheese, and sour cream. Stir mixture until combined. Pour into a baking dish and sprinkle the remaining 2 cups of cheese on top. Add tots on top of the mixture and more cheese. Sprinkle spice mixture on top of tots. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 45 minutes or until tots are crispy and golden brown. After removing from the oven, sprinkle with shredded lettuce, green onions and diced tomato. Serve with sour cream, hot sauce, avocado, cilantro or your favorite taco topping.

NOTE that all the seasonings are "mild" or "medium".  Ain't no jalapenos in this hotdish. You want hot sauce? Cilantro? Avocado? Put 'em on top!

Anyway, that's the Church Basement Ladies way!

You can see the whole musical on YouTube, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IEFkHAsOZs

Bridge of Birds

One of my favorite historical fantasy / thriller / mystery novels of all time is Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds: A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was. I read it when it first came out in 1984, and almost immediately went right down to my local bookstore and ordered it (no Amazon then, folks!) in hardcover.

Why my love of this book? For one thing, the pace never slackens, the cultural and historical references are impeccable, there are enough twists and turns in the plot to make almost any modern thriller look really unsurprising, and there are characters that you will never forget. It's chock full of Chinese mythology, fairy tales, and history. And best of all, it is so witty and hilarious that, no matter what happens, you can't help but laugh at least once a page, and often more. But then I have, like one of the two heroes, Li Kao, "a slight flaw in my character."

The narrator, Number Ten Ox, the tenth son of a peasant family, is without guile, but willingly does what Master Li tells him to, from (after an exhausting, grueling, and hard first quest) relaxing in the bedroom of the concubine of the town miser (Miser Shen), to killing... well, quite a few villains.

Ten Ox is the one who tracks down Master Li when all the children of the village of Ku-Fu between the ages 8-13 fall into a coma plague, thanks to the two pawnbrokers of the village (Pawnbroker Fang and Ma the Grub) who have decided to get and keep ALL the money in the village by poisoning the mulberry leaves so all the silk worms die. The pawnbrokers fake their own deaths, and we meet them again and again and again... (as in real life, so in fiction.) One of my favorites is when the pawnbrokers go forth with "his mother's ashes", and on the road, they spot the cow.

"Mother!" he screeched. "My beloved mother has been reborn as a cow!".. The cow's eyes were streaming with tears of joy as she lovingly licked the bald fellow's skull. "Mother! What joy to see you again!" he sobbed, kissing her hairy legs. What choice did the farmer have? ... He was only a gentleman farmer, and he was quite surprised when he was informed that cows always weep when they lick salt...

"Lies, all lies!" screamed Pawnbroker Fang.

"We demand compensation for slander!" howled Ma the Grub.

Or Doctor Death:

We walked through the open door into a room that was littered with carcasses, and where a little old man with a bloodstained beard was attempting to install a pig's heart into a man's cadaver while cauldrons burped and kettles bubbled and seething vials emitted green and yellow vapors.

Doctor Death sprinkled the heart with purple powder and made mystical signs with his hands. "Beat!" he commanded. Nothing happened so he tried yellow powder. "Beat, beat, beat!" He tried blue powder. "Ten thousand curses why won't you beat?" he yelled and then he turned around. "Who you?" asked Doctor Death.

"My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao and there is a slight flaw in my character, and this is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox."

"Well, my surname is Lo and my personal name is Chan, and I am rapidly losing patience with a corpse that absolutely refuses to be resurrected!"

Doctor Death is trying, desperately, to resurrect his late wife. "Don't worry, my love, I'll have you out of that coffin in no time!" He is also a wonderful source for the Elixir of Life, which will surely allow you to live forever, unless, of course you get the distressing side effects, so it's best to try it first on a cat, a crow or a cow... Just in case... It fells an elephant in 20 seconds.

Then there's Henpecked Ho, the unfortunate husband of the Ancestress' daughter, and who one day has finally had enough of living with a mother-in-law who is a 500 pound genocidal maniac. Almost as ancient as Li Kao, the Ancestress, is still waiting for grandchildren and decides Number Ten Ox will be a good son-in-law. In her already prepared schoolroom for the grandkids is written:

HEAVEN PRODUCES MYRIADS OF THINGS TO NOURISH MAN;
MAN NEVER DOES ONE GOOD TO RECOMPENSE HEAVEN.
KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!

And she lives by what she preaches. Until one day, thanks to Li Kao and Number Ten Ox, Henpecked Ho realizes that an axe can be an excellent relative remover. When he dies, successful, his last words are

"Immortality is for the Gods. I wonder how they can stand it."

Of course, there is a major villain in the piece, the Duke of Chi'in, a thinly disguised Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (259-210 BC) whose empire barely survived three years after his death. He left a holocaust of victims behind him and a mausoleum that (in real life) is the source of the famous terracotta warriors. And in the novel... well, his one and only punishment is death.

The Duke of Ch'in has an Assessor (the ultimate tax man), Key Rabbit, who is married to a peasant girl, Lotus Cloud, who has "fallen victim to insatiable greed." Every man who meets her falls in love with her except for Li Kao, who again explains "I have a slight flaw in my character."

There's a fairy tale about the Star Shepherd and Jade Pearl, the Chinese version of Psyche and Eros, and Jade Pearl's mentor and guardian, the Queen of Ginseng.

There's the story of how a stretch of the Great Wall called the Dragon's Pillow was built 122 miles away from the rest of the Great Wall, on orders of the Ruler of Heaven, the August Personage of Jade, who delivered the plans in a dream to the builder. And of Wan the soldier, buried in the Dragon's Pillow to guard it for all eternity from his lonely watch on the Dragon's Tower.

There's the… oh, there are so many stories... and they all intertwine and mingle.

Jade plate,
six, eight.
Fire that burns hot,
Night that is not,
Fire that burns cold,
First silver, then gold.

And the ending is a knockout, that rises for a whole chapter in a glorious symphony in words and images, and mixes, somehow, laughter with wet eyes, and is totally satisfying. That is rare.

The beautiful Bridge of Birds was climbing slowly toward the stars, and a great song was spreading across China. Faster and faster we sped through the sky, and on the ground below the peasants were running from cottages and lifting little children in their arms to gaze at glory.

"You see?" said the peasants. "That is why you must never give up, no matter how bad things may seem. Anything is possible in China!"

Indeed it is in Bridge of Birds.

Shelley Duvall in Three Women: An Homage to Ambiguity

Shelley Duvall died in her sleep (apparently from complications of diabetes) on July 11, at age 75. She was quirky, different, hard to peg down, and an incredible actress, producer, director, and writer. And she made it seem effortless.

Think The Shining. Kubrick made everyone do endless takes in almost all his movies, and he was especially hard on Shelley, in order to "break her." Jack Nicholson told Empire magazine later he thought Duvall was fantastic and called her work in the film, "the toughest job that any actor that I've seen had." She later said that "For the last nine months of shooting, the role required her to cry 12 hours a day, five or six days a week, and it was so difficult being hysterical for that length of time".

She could also do a performance simple as a folded napkin: see her journalist in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Or Dixie in Roxane.

I think the director who understood her best (other than herself in Faery Tale Theatre) was Robert Altman. He cast her in seven movies: Brewster McCloud, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill & the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, 3 Women and Popeye.

Pinky Rose: I wonder what it's like to be twins.
Millie Lammoreaux: Huh?
Pinky Rose: Twins. Bet it'd be weird. Do you think they know which ones they are?

3 Women is my favorite Altman movie. I love the cast, the weirdness and the dreaminess coexisting with the banal reality of so much of the dialog, and so much of working-class life. Harassing and nit-picking bosses, indifferent and cliquish coworkers, and a full-time job that pays so little you still need a roommate to pay the bills and keep food on the table in a one-bedroom apartment. Whatever car you're driving, you'll be driving it until it finally gives up the ghost, and then no one knows how you'll replace it. That, my friends, is real life.

Duvall's Millie Lammoreaux wants more. She reads all the magazines on how to dress, how to decorate, how to act, how to be more attractive to men, and tries to make all of that real. She has no idea that she's trying too hard, is more desperate than she knows, and is a shallow bore. Her coworkers at the health spa (and yes, there are twins there) and the doctors she "lunches with" in an attempt to find a boyfriend ignore her; her fellow apartment dwellers make fun of her (especially when she slinks down the stairs to hang out at the pool in a long, hooded cover up…). Only she and Pinkie Rose think she's wonderful.

Pinky Rose: You're the most perfect person I've met.

Millie Lammoreaux: Gee. Thanks.

Sissy Spacek's Pinkie is an awkward, naive, Southern girl, who latches on to Millie like a limpet, if a limpet could flatter, adore, and imitate. Until the accident, when Pinkie nearly drowns, and when she finally returns, her personality has changed completely.

And then there's Willie. To me, Janice Rule's Willie is the real mystery of the movie: so heavily pregnant, so thoroughly clothed, almost entirely mute (but what she does with her eyes!), painting endless murals of alien-looking naked humanoids with massive penises and / or assaulting, screaming, murdering and dying on all the pools in the area – including her own. As for why she's still with Edgar, that drinking, swaggering, target shooting, womanizing has-been Western stunt double… Well, sadly, that isn't that weird. We've all seen Willie and Edgar in real life.

"Do you think they know which ones they are?"

I don't know. Do any of us really know who we are? Deep down? Remember when you were young, and you ran with a pack (or were kept or rejected from running with the pack) – and the pack really looked, talked, acted all alike so that the adults often couldn't tell one from the other. Could the pack individuate, or was that the point of keeping the pack pure? To drown in the collective?

NOTE: Speaking of drowning, there's a lot of water in 3 Women, and you can interpret it any way you like. Millie and Pinkie work a spa where they spend most of their time providing water exercise and baths. Everywhere has a pool. Dreams begin and end with water. Jung's collective unconscious? Life in the womb? Ursula LeGuin's "The Social Dreaming of the Frin"? You pick.

Some people have said they find the movie misogynistic. I don't see it that way. Each woman in 3 Women has their own character, and the actresses themselves were allowed to develop them. Altman let Spacek and especially Duvall improv a lot of their dialog. Duvall wrote Millie's diary and planned her recipes:

"I got this whole book of recipes that I'm keepin'. And I list 'em by how long they take to make. You know, if you only have 20 minutes, you just look under 20 minutes... and it tells ya all the kind of things that you can make in that amount of time."

I have heard versions of that conversation in real life.

And Millie's dress, always caught in the car door. It started off as a mistake, but Altman didn't reshoot the scene, and kept as a signature through the whole movie.

"Do you think they know which ones they are?"

I don't know, any more than I know what happened to Edgar, or how / why / when the three women end up the way they do. That's half the fun of watching 3 Women more than once. It's a mystery, like dreams...

And I like dreams. And ambiguity. Knowing your version of the ending, but also knowing it could be something else. Also from the "your guess is as good as mine, but I'll probably stick with mine" list:

• 2001 A Space Odyssey – We've only been arguing about what the hell it means for 56 years and counting...
• Solaris – (the 1972 version by Tarkovsky, PLEASE)
• High Plains Drifter - 1973, is he real or is he a ghost?
• Picnic at Hanging Rock - 1975, One of my top ten ever since the first time I ever saw it. Been watching Peter Weir films ever since.
• The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey - Australian, 1988 - another one of my top tens.

What's on your list?

Everybody Knows...

The small town or village has long been a popular site for mystery fiction, especially murder.  And, of late, for supernatural, spooky, sinister things.  Mayberry meets Twin Peaks meets Stranger Things.  That kind of thing. 

But the truth is - sorry fans! - there's not many covens, although there's plenty of huddling over a Ouija Board or a Tarot Deck, just for the frisson of getting a message...  And there's usually one person in that huddle who's secretly manipulating the messaging, because it's easier than you might think, and it's fun.  They're not a witch, just a control freak.  Lots of those in a small town.  

There's also always at least one person who believes that there is a Satanic coven that's manipulating all the kids. ("Why else would they be doing drugs and having sex and leaving graffiti all over the school bathroom?  We never did that!"  No, you got drunk, had sex, and left graffiti on rocks at the local park.)  And everyone seems to have a pet conspiracy theory, from flat-earth to aliens really do greet every President who's elected...  And some are weirder than that. 

But I pity any alien, demon, or hostile alternate dimension who tries to go up against the Boss Bull and/or Boss Cow of any small town:  if you've ever tangled with either, you know that Logan Roy has nothing on them.  They're just far more polite during the fileting.  

BTW, the Boss(es) are rarely the Mayor, sometimes not even Councilmember (city or county), because why should they have to do all that scut work?  Endless meetings and paperwork are not that appealing, when you can sit home with a phone and a drink and tell people what to do from afar.  

As to crime, there's a lot more murder in fiction than in reality.  In reality,  there're lots of drugs, theft, especially embezzlement, vandalism (usually teenagers but not always), drunk & disorderly with or without assault, simple assault, sexual assault, and, finally, murder, which happens just infrequently enough for people to say, "I'm shocked, shocked!  That kind of thing doesn't happen here."  

Note:  Embezzlement is very common because the actual pay in small towns is pathetically low for almost all jobs, with no health insurance, which leads to a lot of medical debt.  And ever since gambling became legal, with slot machines in every bar, there are a lot of gambling addicts.  Hope springs eternal and all that.  Interestingly, most people who embezzle are caught (Though it often takes a while), but very few actually go to prison for it.  It's mostly restitution and fines, maybe a brief jail sentence.  And, as I said in a prior post, they're usually rehired in the same town, because there's not a sizeable job pool to draw on.  

There are also a lot of drugs.  Not just marijuana, but meth, heroin, and fentanyl.  The Boss' (grand)son or (grand)daughter has been known to be the major drug dealer.  Or victim.  Or both.  

BTW: For those who move to a small town and want to get "in", there are a few paths:

• Born and/or marry into an old family - Antebellum antecedents in the South, pioneers in the Midwest / West.  Money and / or land (in abundance, especially out West) helps considerably.  
• Wealth - Start a business that brings lots of money to the community, and you will soon have power, clout, and probably a spouse for you and/or your children from one of the "old families".  
• Freakish charisma and likeability can also work pretty well.  Of course, it can always evaporate, and then you're back on the bottom again, if not run out of town.

BTW, Boss Bull and Boss Cow are sometimes - but not always - married, not always to each other, and often can't stand each other.  But they do know perfectly well how to work with each other to stop anyone else from replacing them and their minions.  For one thing, they often don't take the obvious leadership positions, but pass those on to Useful Idiots.  

Ironically, Useful Idiots almost never realize they're useful idiots.  The Dunning-Kruger effect is a real thing, and applies to more than knowledge.  Generally Useful Idiots are elected to the top positions in town or church or boards because s/he will be easily manipulated, and will take all the blame for when things go wrong.  But s/he actually believes that s/he is the best person for the job, and popular because of her/his wisdom and expertise.  They are almost never undeceived.  I know one small town where the mayor was reelected time and again with no opposition and thought it proved the people loved him, but it was because Boss Bull or Boss Cow had made it clear to everyone that he was the one who'd been chosen.  

The Bosses also generally have at least one Court Jester around at all times.  These are people who will do anything to ingratiate themselves with one or another of the Bosses.  Compliments, fawning attention, praise:  the Boss can hit the worst hook you ever saw, and they'll say, "Great shot! Shame that gust of wind came up" - you know the type.  Constant errand running, "helping out", etc.  And, depending on the age, youth, attractiveness, etc., there might be sex...  Of course, when the fit hits the shan, so to speak, it's never the Boss' problem.

Speaking of Boss Bull and Boss Cow, the one person they never mess with is the Encyclopedia - s/he knows the history of everything, everyone, and where most if not all of the bodies are buried, while being discreet enough to keep from being murdered her/himself.  At least in real life. Fiction kills them off all the time, which is one of the reasons why "Midsomer Murders" is so popular. 

The Bosses also (almost) never mess with are people who can actually do things they want done.  The locksmiths, mechanics, gardeners, carpenters, roofers, plumbers, electricians, dentists, doctors, nurses, ophthalmologists, etc. ... they are all actually useful, and so are left alone to do their jobs.  

Just don't get too uppity. 

And don't try to take over for the chosen Useful Idiot and run for office.  

And don't be stupid, be polite and helpful and smiling. Always.

And make sure, when moving to a small town, you find out as quickly as possible who the Bosses are.  

*****

BSP!  BSP!  BSP!  

Thanks to Barb Goffman, my story "Sophistication" appears in Black Cat Weekly #149, available at Wildside Press or Amazon.

Hi Mark Thielman!  Good to see we share a cover and a magazine!  And love your story, "Dramatis Personae!"

Triple Homicides - Twice! And a Flood

(Gov. Noem's pet slogan, more appropriate
than she's ever been able to grasp)

Well, it's back to crime in South Dakota, and we've seen a lot of it lately. Besides the usual child molesters and child pornographers (at least one a week, most of them not living in Sioux Falls, just so you know it's not all centered in the city), the drug crimes, and miscellaneous crap, we've had two triple murders within two weeks. And no, no one's calling them a "mass shooting" because you have to hit 4 victims to be a mass shooting. But I'm sure that, given enough time, someone will up the ante and put us into the big leagues.

First Shooting

So, this is what happened: On May 23^rd, Jay Ostrem (former mayor of Centerville, SD, pop. 946, where everyone lived) 's wife and a guy named Paul Frankus were all drinking together when Mr. Ostrem was passed out. While he was asleep, Paul forcibly kissed her and exposed his genitals to Mrs. Ostrem (and/or rubbed his penis on her).

Five days later (Monday, May 28th), after some more drinking (the police smelled alcohol on his breath when they arrived), Mrs. Ostrem told Ostrem about the incident, and he went "raging out of the house". She said she had no idea that he had weapons in his car, but he did. (I find Mrs. Ostrem's last statement disingenuous, but that's just because I find it hard to believe that she never saw or noticed an "AR-style rifle" in the back seat or the trunk.)

Anyway, he stormed across the street, where Paul Frankus, 26, Zach Frankus, 21, and Timothy Richmond, 35 were, barged in and started shooting. Zach Frankus called police at 9:44 p.m. Monday to report that his brother had been shot by "a guy from across the street" and that the shooter had gone back home. Apparently Ostrem came back, because while Zach was on the phone with the dispatcher he said that he had been shot, too, and then stopped talking. (I have no idea when Mr. Richmond was shot.) (Yahoo)

When Ostrem was arrested a short time later, there was an AR-style rifle on the ground near him, he had a handgun in his pocket, and he smelled strongly of alcohol.

This being South Dakota, an anonymous contact told me that Ostrem was known for drinking and mental instability. Records also show that he was not squeaky clean sexually:

He'd been sued for sexual harassment in federal court in 2010, while serving as mayor of Centerville, by former Police Chief Rachel Kopman, who claimed she’d been subjected to unwelcome sexual comments for more than a year before her dismissal as chief. The suit was settled in 2012. (Source)

He was also a law enforcement officer in Wyoming for two decades, where there were a couple of gun-related incidents while on duty and at least one lawsuit. (Wyoming)

Ostrem is being held on a $1 million cash bond, which tells me that no one in tiny Centerville trusts him. Good.

Second Shooting:

About a dozen people were having a regular bonfire party (food and beer) on June 6th in a quiet residential neighborhood in Sioux Falls that went on into the early hours. Somewhere along the line, Justin Cody Rackley, originally from Texas, who moved to South Dakota in 2020, came to join them.

Anyway, Mr. Rackley came to the bonfire armed with a handgun, because ________ (fill in your own reason here)

When the police arrived at 2:45 a.m., there were three adults shot to death (Daniel Carl Kemnitz, 43, Kellie E. Reaves, 43, and Michael A. Thompson, 34, all of Sioux Falls), and two other victims who had non-life threatening injuries and were taken to the hospital.

NOTE: The only prior on Rackley's South Dakota record is a simple assault charge in 2020, BUT prosecutors said he also has a criminal record in Texas. He's being held on $3 million cash bond, so obviously no one trusts him to not do a runner. (LINK)

Apparently, this was a fairly regular bonfire gathering, with people coming and going throughout the night. From the Go Fund Me page for Kellie Reaves: "a strange man showed up to their bonfire and attacked her home with gunfire which left her and two others without a chance of survival." (Thank God all the children were asleep indoors.)

Neighbors Angela and Joe Windstead, who live next door, told the Argus Leader on Saturday afternoon their internal cameras caught the sound of 16 shots, three of which were muffled. They turned the footage and audio over to police, they said.

Joe Winstead also said he saw his neighbors sitting out around a fire at about 9 p.m. at the house that's now a crime scene. "They were out there most of the night," he said. "I know I got up once or twice in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and they were still out there. But like this morning, we went out front, and there are two vehicles that were there that we've never, ever seen there before."

The Winsteads said they've known their next door neighbors for about seven years. "She's a wonderful gal, with a wonderful man," Angela Winstead said Saturday afternoon of Reaves. "We've had absolutely zero issues. She's the one neighbor we clicked with, and she's the only other neighbor on our block that was really our age when we moved in."

Investigating Officer Nyberg said the incident does not appear to be a crime of passion or a robbery. "That's why we're trying to track down anybody that was there at the time that it happened to see if we can't flesh out some more information," he said.

Rumor mill:

"The shooter was an acquaintance of one of the victims. He was a stranger to everyone else. The shooter and a victim (high school friend of the homeowner) ran into the homeowner and her friend at the gas station and were invited over.
"He said something racist early on but dropped it when called out. He repeated it later and things escalated.
"I was told by a victim's family member that a survivor had the shooter pinned for an hour before the cops arrived and was repeatedly punching the shooter/fighting to keep him down."

MY NOTE: This might be Kellie Reaves' "heroic significant other, Dusty Miller" (see Obituary) and if so, the punching is, to be frank, fine with me. And it would explain the mug shot below.

"Even the victims' families still don't have a ton of great, reliable information. This is a senseless, horrible situation."

Amen.

Writer's Analysis:

As a story, the first one is kind of obvious: grouchy old man with guns and a drinking problem whose wife told him one of the neighbors assaulted her… so off he goes and kills everyone who was in the house. Excessive, but at least there's a motive. And it could be worked a number of ways: wife and neighbor had been having an affair for a while. Everyone's an out of control alcoholic, and things escalated that night. The old man had other reasons for wanting the neighbor dead and got his excuse. The real victim was one of the others in the house, but people would buy the motive of a sexual assault. I mean, you can see a number of ways to twist it up, build the tension, etc.

It's the second shooting that's frustrating, because there's no motive other than (perhaps) being called a racist. And it's all so random. I think writers and the reading public hate random crimes unless they're incorporated in with something that does have meaning. Is a hot tempered guy from Texas who packed a gun and lost it when being called a racist enough? I think a major change in motive or an in depth background would be required to write this one. As it is, it's a real reminder to not invite people you meet at the gas station over to a party.

BTW, The last time Sioux Falls had a homicide that involved three or more victims was 1973, when a family was found deceased in their home. There were four victims, and the suspect took their own life. (Argus)

Oh, and we had an almost shooting:

June 17, Jason Matthew Palmer, 49, of Sioux Falls was arrested for shooting a rifle at a 12 year old and 17 year old who were talking and playing outside. He got upset, walked out, fired the rifle once, and went back inside and barricaded himself indoors. I guess that's one way to get arrested. (DakotaNewsNow)

Rain, Rain, Go Away…

Last week, we had 16 inches of rain in Sioux Falls and most of Southeast South Dakota (some places had more), with a cloudy one day break in the middle that did nothing to improve our depression or our apprehension. Flooding started almost immediately. I grabbed some groceries on the non-rainy day, and scurried down to Yankton Park to see what it looked like: the port-a-potties were already tipped over on their side, bobbing in the water, and all I could think of was, "I hope they were emptied before this hit."

There are small towns that are still flooded and will be until the Big Sioux and the Small Sioux rivers quit cresting.

A railroad bridge collapsed down in Sioux City, Iowa from the strength of the rushing floodwaters. The Big Sioux River crested at 45 feet, seven feet higher than the prior record. (LINK)

Roads are buckled from the raging water.

Fields are flooded, meaning the crops are lost.

They closed Falls Park in Sioux Falls because it was way over its banks, and idiots were going down there to film it, trying to get out on the rocks, etc… One idiot wanted to go swimming in it. I saw the video, and all I could think of was let him experience Darwin's Law for himself.

Meanwhile, our Governor finally got back from her trip to Washington, D.C., and headed straight for the camera at one of the wealthiest spots per capita in South Dakota, Dakota Dunes, and North Sioux City, SD. Her press releases have been regular, urging everyone to report their damage to the South Dakota Office of Emergency Management, because "We have to have a loss — in order to qualify for FEMA — of $1.6 million worth of property damage." (LINK) She also said her top priority would be the area around McCook Lake, where the residents are complaining that “McCook Lake was sacrificed for the benefit of North Sioux City and Dakota Dunes. We don’t really think that’s fair.” (LINK)

June 24^th, 2024, view of flood damage that occurred the previous night
at McCook Lake in southeastern South Dakota. (Courtesy Dirk Lohry)

Yesterday, Governor Noem says she will NOT call out the South Dakota National Guard to help with clean up or disaster relief:

Noem said counties must request assistance from the National Guard. The governor then decides if it should be warranted.  “That’s usually a very crisis situation. And the National Guard is extremely expensive. So, if you do activate the National Guard, then the local county has to pay for that response.  We have to be wise with how we use our soldiers. And this was a situation where our community was pretty well prepared, and that wasn’t necessary to activate them at this time."  (LINK)

I think more of us might buy this line except that Noem has sent our National Guard down to Texas three times in the last three years, spending $1.3 million of our taxpayer dollars each time.  So, Texas gets to use our "extremely expensive" soldiers, but we don't?  Former South Dakota Governors have sent the National Guard out for other floods...  

Meanwhile, all that water headed south, and will end up in Nebraska.  

And the storms themselves went east, into Minnesota, where one result is that the Rapidan dam in southern Minnesota had a partial failure, and may fail completely.  The National Guard has already been activated in Minnesota to respond to flooding.

Sigh...

It's hot, it's humid, the heat index Tuesday went up to 105, and the mosquitoes are biting.

But my hollyhocks are blooming!

And how's your week been?

The Timeless Advice of Dylan Thomas

We have all run across people who ask us the damnedest questions, sometimes so stupid they beggar belief:

"How do I write a bestseller?" Look, if I knew, I'd be doing a tour of morning news shows.

"Do you have Stephen King's address and phone number?" No, and I doubt if he has mine, either.

"Could I make more money writing spy thrillers or horror stories?" Flip a coin, flip a coin.

"I have a great idea - do you know a good agent?" No. The only people who get to pitch ideas are Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, James Patterson, et al, and all they have to do is whisper, and the contract shows up.

"I have a great idea - you could write it, and we'd split the profits 50/50." Better yet, you write it and I won't read it.

Sigh…

But sometimes someone writes the most brilliant response to all these questions. Back in 1951 or thereabouts, the editor of "Circus" asked Dylan Thomas "to describe the steps which help to establish a popular poet in England today. It was an opportunity for irony which he has not wasted."

Enjoy.

How to Be a Poet or the Ascent of Parnassus Made Easy

by Dylan Thomas

Let me, at once, make it clear that I am not considering, in these supposedly informative jotrhythmic, Poetry as an Art or a Craft, as the rhythmic verbal expression of a spiritual necessity or urge, but solely as the means to a social end; that end being the achievement of a status in society solid enough to warrant the poet discarding and expunging those affectations, so essential in the early stages, of speech, dress, and behavior; an income large enough to satisfy his physical demands, unless he has already fallen victim to the Poet’s Evil, or Great Wen; and a permanent security from the fear of having to write any more. I do not intend to ask, let alone to answer, the question, “Is Poetry a Good Thing?” but only, “Can Poetry Be Made Good Business?"

I shall, to begin with, introduce to you a few of the main types of poets who have made the social and financial grade.

First, though not in order of importance, is the poet who has emerged docketed “lyrical,” from the Civil Service. He can be divided, so far as his physical appearance goes, into two types.

He is either thin, not to say of a shagged-out appearance, with lips as fulsome, sensual, and inviting as a hen’s ovipositor, bald from all too maculate birth, his eyes made small and reddened by reading books in French, a language he cannot understand, in an attic in the provinces while young and repellent, his voice like the noise of a mouse’s nail on tinfoil, his nostrils transparent, his breath gray; or else he is jowlcd and bushy, with curved pipe and his nose full of dottle, the look of all Sussex in his stingo’d eyes, his burry tweeds smelling of the dogs he loathes, with a voice like a literate Airedale’s that has learned its vowels by correspondence course, and an intimate friend of Chesterton’s, whom he never met.

Let us see in what manner our man has arrived at his present and enviable position as the Poet who has made Poetry Pay:

Dropped into the Civil Service at an age when many of our young poets now are running away to Broadcasting House, today’s equivalent of the Sea, he is at first lost to sight in the mountains of red tape which, in future years, he is so mordantly, though with a wry and puckered smile, to dismiss in a paragraph in his “Around and About My Shelves.” After a few years, he begins to peer out from the forms and files in which he leads his ordered, nibbling life, and picks up a cheese crumb here, a dropping there, in his ink-stained thumbs. His ears are uncannily sensitive: he can hear an opening being opened a block of offices away.

And soon he learns that a poem in a Civil Service magazine is, if not a step up the ladder, at least a lick in the right direction. And he writes a poem. It is, of course, about Nature; it confesses a wish to escape from humdrum routine and embrace the unsophisticated life of the farm laborer; he desires, though without scandal, to wake up with the birds; he expresses the opinion that a plowshare, not a pen, best fits his little strength; a decorous pantheist, he is one with the rill, the rhyming mill, the rosy-bottomed milkmaid, the russet-cheeked rat-catcher, swains, swine, pipits, pippins. You can smell the country in his poems, the fields, the flowers, the armpits of Triptolemus, the barns, the byres, the hay, and, most of all, the corn. The poem is published. A single lyrical extract from the beginning must suffice: —

The roaring street is hushed!

Hushed, do I say?

The wing of a bird has brushed

Time’s cobwebs away.

Still, still as death, the air

Over the gray stones!

And over the gray thoroughfare

I hear — sweet tones! —

A blackbird open its bill,

— A blackbird, aye! —

And sing its liquid fill

From the London sky.

A little time after the publication of the poem, he is nodded to in the corridor by Hotchkiss of Inland Revenue... Hotchkiss, lunching with Sowerby of Customs, himself a literary figure of importance with a weekly column in Will o’ Lincoln’s Weekly and his name on the editorial list of the Masterpiece of the Fortnight Club (volumes at reduced rates to all writers, and a complete set of the works of Mary Webb quarter-price at Christmas), says casually, “You’ve rather a promising fellow in your department, Sowerby. Young Cribbe. I’ve been reading a little thing of his, ‘I desire the Curlew.’” And Cribbe’s name goes the small fetid rounds.

He is next asked to contribute a group of poems to Hotchkiss’s anthology, “New Pipes,” which Sowerby praises — “a rare gift for the haunting phrase” — in Will o’ Lincoln’s. Cribbe sends copies of the anthology, each laboriously signed, “To the greatest living English poet, in homage,” to twenty of the dullest poets still on their hind legs. Some of his inscribed gifts are acknowledged. Sir Tom Knight spares a few generous, though bemused, moments to scribble a message on a sheet of crested writing paper removed, during a never-to-be-repeated week-end visit, from a shortsighted but not all that shortsighted peer. “Dear Mr. Crabbe,” Sir Tom writes, '’I appreciate your little tribute. Your poem, ‘Nocturne with Lilies,’ is worthy of Shanks. Go on. Go on. There is room on the mount.” The fact that Cribbe’s poem is not “Nocturne with Lilies” at all, but “On Hearing Delius by a Lych-Gate,” does not perturb Cribbe, who carefully files the letter, after blowing away the dandruff, and soon is in the throes of collecting his poems to make a book, “Linnet and Spindle,” dedicated “To Clem Sowerby, that green-fingered gardener in the Gardens of the Hesperides.”

The book appears. Some favorable notice is taken, particularly in Middlesex. And Sowerby, too modest to review it himself after such a gratifying dedication, reviews it under a different name. “This young poet,” he writes, “is not, thanks be it, too ‘modernistic’ to pay reverence to the shining source of his inspiration. Cribbe will go far.”

And Cribbe goes to his publishers. A contract is drawn up, Messrs. Stitch and Time undertaking to publish his next book of verse on condition that they have the first option on his next nine novels. He contrives also to be engaged as a casual reader of manuscripts to Messrs. Stitch and Time, and returns home clutching a parcel which contains a book on the Development of the Oxford Movement in Finland by a Cotswold Major, three blank-verse tragedies about Mary Queen of Scots, and a novel entitled “Tomorrow, Jennifer.”

Now Cribbe, until his contract, has never thought of writing a novel. But, undaunted by the fact that he cannot tell one person from another—people, to him, are all one dull, gray mass, except celebrities and departmental superiors — that he has no interest whatsoever in anything they do or say, except in so far as it concerns his career, and that his inventive resources are as limited as those of a chipmunk on a treadmill, he sits down in his shirt sleeves, loosens his collar, thumbs in the shag, and begins to study in earnest how best, with no qualifications, to make a success of commercial fiction.

He soon comes to the conclusion that only quick sales and ephemeral reputations are made by tough novels with such titles as “I’ve Got It Coming” or “Ten Cents a Dice,” by proletarian novels about the conversion to dialectical materialism of Palais-de wide boys, entitled, maybe, “ Red Rain on You, A If,” by novels called, maybe, “Melody in Clover,” about dark men with slight limps. And he soon sees that only the smallest sales, and notices only in the loftiest monthlies of the most limited circulation, will ever result from his writing such a novel as “The Inner Zodiac,” by G. H. Q. Bidet, a ruthless analysis of the ideological conflicts arising from the relationship between Philip Armour, an international impotent physicist, Tristram Wolf, a bisexual sculptor in teak, and Philip’s virginal but dynamic Creole wife, Titania, a lecturer in Balkan Economics, and how these highly sensitized characters react a profound synthesis while working together, for the sake of One-ness, in a Unesco Clinic.

No fool, Cribbe realizes, even in the early stages of his exploration, with theodolite and respirator through darkest Foyle, that the novel to write is that which commands a steady, unsensational, provincial and suburban sale and concerns, for choice, the birth, education, financial ups-and-downs, marriages, separations, and deaths of five generations of a family of Lancashire cotton brokers. This novel, he grasps at once, should be in the form of a trilogy, and each volume should bear some such solid, uneventful title as “The Warp,” “The Woof,” and “The Way.” And he sets to work.

From the reviews of Cribbe’s first novel, one may select: “Here is sound craftsmanship allied to sterling characterization.” “English as Manchester rain.” “Mr. Cribbe is a bull-terrier.” “A story in the Phyllis Bottome class.” On the success of the novel, Cribbe joins the N.I.B. Club, delivers a paper on the Early Brett Young Country, and becomes a regular reviewer, praising every other novel he receives— (“The prose shimmers”) and inviting every third novelist to dine at the Servile Club, to which he has recently been elected.

When the whole of the trilogy has appeared, Cribbe rises, like scum, to the N.I.B. committee, attends all the memorial services for men of letters who are really dead for the first time in fifty years, tears up his old contract and signs another, brings out a new novel, which becomes a Book Society choice, is offered, by Messrs. Stitch and Time, a position in an “advisory capacity,” which he accepts, leaves the Civil Service, buys a cottage in Bucks (“You wouldn’t think it was only thirty miles from London, would you. Look, old man, see that crested grebe.” A starling flies by), a new desk and a secretary whom he later marries for her touch-typing. Poetry? Perhaps a sonnet in the Sunday Times every now and then: a little collection of verse once in a while (“ My first love, you know”). But it doesn’t really bother him any more, though it got him where he is. He has made the grade!

---

But let us look, very quickly, at some other methods of making poetry a going concern.

The Provincial Rush, or the Up-Rimbaud-and-At-Em approach. This is not wholeheartedly to be recommended as certain qualifications are essential. Before you swoop and burst upon the center of literary activity — which means, when you are very young, the right pubs, and, later, the right flats, and, later still, the right clubs — you must have behind you a body (it need have no head) of ferocious and un-understandable verse. (It is not, as I said before, my function to describe how these gauche and verbose ecstasies are achieved. Hart Crane found that, while listening, drunk, to Sibelius, he could turn out the stuff like billyho. A friend of mine, who has been suffering from a violent headache since he was eight, finds it so easy to write anyway he has to tie knots in his unpleasant handkerchief to remind him to stop. There are many methods, and always, when there’s a will and slight delirium, there’s a way.) Again, this poet, must possess a thirst and constitution like that of a salt-eating pony, a hippo’s hide, boundless energy, prodigious conceit, no scruples, and — most important of all, this can never be overestimated — a home to go hack to in the provinces whenever he breaks down.

The White Horse Tavern in New York City
where Thomas was drinking before his death

Of the poet who merely writes because he wants to write, who does not deeply mind if he is published or not, and who can put up with poverty and total lack of recognition in his lifetime, nothing of any pertinent value can be said. He is no businessman. Posterity Does Not Pay.  

Also, and highly unrecommended, are the following: —

The writing of limericks. Vast market, little or no pay.

Poems in crackers. Too seasonal.

Poems for children. This will kill you, and the children.

Obituaries in verse. Only established favorites used. Poetry as a method of blackmail (by boring). Dangerous. The one you blackmail might retaliate by reading you aloud his unfinished tragedy about St. Bernard: “The Flask.”

And lastly: Poems on lavatory walls. The reward is purely psychological."

Dylan Thomas' writing shed.
photo by Richard Knight

To read the whole article, go HERE.

Voices, Voices, I Hear Voices...

So many of my fellow SleuthSayers have written such excellent articles on writing that I feel like it's got to be my turn to give it a go. But all I can really say about writing is: 

Read a lot, stare out the window a lot, and, when possible, sit down in your chair and write. 

Get up and go for a walk. Read some more. Stare some more.  Sit down and write some more. 

Repeat endlessly, until the damn thing is done.   

So much for the actual process of physically putting words on paper.  (There used to be more cigarettes involved, but I quit smoking in 2010.)

As for all the endless stuff that goes into getting to the point where you want to put words on paper, well, I'm certain that insanity runs in my family, and that we all hear(d) voices. 

Like so many writers, of course I have notebooks crammed with things I spot, things I hear, conversations I overhear, etc.  For example:

• The other day I was driving down a street I hadn't been down before and spotted a decorative rock in the front yard, about 3 foot tall and shaped like a crouching monkey.  Hmm...
• Or the time I was at a 12-Step Conference and overheard someone at breakfast explaining that they'd do a Step Five, but they were never going tell a sponsor everything they did "because there's no damn way I'm going to prison, okay?"  Hmm...
• In Italy, watching as a resident's little dog pissed on a tourist’s suitcase; the resident kept walking, muttering “scuzi” without stopping. Hmm...
• On a recent news feed scroll, "TSA finds small bag of snakes in man's pants." Hmm...

Any detail counts. You never know when you'll use it.

Now I will admit, freely, that plots are not my strong point. In fact, I have to claw plots out of thick clay with my bare hands.  But one trick I have learned is that, if you know your characters, they will tell the story themselves.  Especially if you can see them walking, know some of their habits, and hear their voices as they speak.

One gift I do have - and it may be having been adopted so young from Greece, so that I had to learn a new language (English) quickly, along with a variety of accents - is that I memorize voices.  I watch a lot of Britbox and Acorn TV shows, and I'm always turning to my husband and saying, "That's the guy in New Tricks [or some other show], but at least 30 years younger."  Because I recognize the voice.  

This is why I am infuriated at the common soap opera device of having someone getting plastic surgery to look exactly like someone else - and somehow the surgeon managed to get the voice exactly the same too...  No.  No, no, no, no.  A really good impersonator has a special gift all  their own.  

And I also memorize accents: I can reel off a variety, at least in my head, from various American accents to Australian to Scots to Irish, etc.  Some I can actually reproduce myself.  Since my mother's family came from Kentucky, and I spent my summers there, I can do a dead-on impression of Mitch McConnell that I can proudly say has made many Southern friends snort coffee out of their nose.    

The result is that I can and do take someone's voice and/or accent and listen to them talking, interacting, in my head, and, as I say, a lot of the time they'll tell me what's going on, especially (please tell me I'm not the only one...) when I get really stuck. 

And I get stuck a lot.  Like I say, I have to dig for plots the way other people have to dig for buried treasure.  

Lot of work.  

Another gift I have is research.  Remember, I'm a retired historian, from an age when, as a graduate student, if you wrote a paper or a thesis or a dissertation, you damn well better be able to show every reference for every statement you made.  And I do love research.  For example, my first post this May began with an anonymous tip about RFK Jr.'s arrest for heroin in Rapid City back in 1983.  Well, researching that led to me finding the story about RFK Jr. and Riverkeeper and the bird smugglers, and next thing you know it's testosterone and sex diaries...  You never know where you're going to end up, or, again, how you'll use it.  

The result is my head is crammed full of trivia:

• The most popular cafe in post-WW2 Vienna was the Gasthaus Kopp.
• It's not "the man in the moon" but the "rabbit in the moon" in both East Asian and indigenous American cultures.
• The nobility in Heian Japanese culture painted their faces white but blackened their teeth, and were apparently (diaries abound, not to mention "Genji") highly promiscuous. 
• In France, cold cream is called cérat de Galien ('Galen's Wax') after the 2nd century Greek physician who invented it.
• The primary translator of Edgar Allan Poe in French was Baudelaire, whose translation is still in common use.
• Etc., etc., etc...

But all of that is the preliminary work, which (let's admit it) sometimes is the most fun.  For the actual writing, well...

Read a lot, stare out the window a lot, and, when possible, sit down in your chair and write. 

Get up and go for a walk. Read some more. Stare some more.  Sit down and write some more. 

Repeat endlessly, until the damn thing is done.  

I'd go back to smoking, but I'd just have to quit again...

From the Annals of Unforced Errors: RFK Jr and Kristi Noem

But this is not an unforced error.  RFK Jr. didn't go out and actively seek a brain worm, and he hasn't been bragging about it:  his undisclosed health issues, from the brain worm to the mercury poisoning (10 times the recommended limit in his blood),  - all of these were in a legal deposition and had been available for quite a while to the earnest researcher.  

Why in a legal deposition? Because he was getting a divorce from his second wife, and wanted to show that memory loss and cognitive decline meant his earnings were going to go down, meaning he shouldn't have to pay as much alimony.  

What may turn out to be an unforced error is the article he did for Inside Edition, in which he talked about his daily "fistful of supplements" and testosterone replacement therapy - but don't call them steroids around RFK Jr., because steroids are bad (LINK) - while providing hunky pictures of himself doing pushups and going as shirtless as Putin (all that was missing is the crocodile).  

Why would this be an unforced error?  Because men who take testosterone replacement, a/k/a anabolic steroids, often get "mood swings, runaway irritability, and a general inability to listen to anyone else, but they also tend to find their mental functioning—especially their memories—going through a certain Swiss-cheese transformation. The holes in what they recall keep getting bigger."  (LINK)  Testosterone supplements can also cause heart trouble, heart attacks, and strokes, but details, details... 

Okay I can't resist:  The irony of a man who is 1000% anti-vaccination putting anabolic steroids as well as "a fistful of supplements" in his body on a daily basis...  

But the worst unforced error is the diary that RFK Jr. kept in the early 2000s, with a file called Cash Accounts, "where he recorded the date of the infidelity, the name of the woman involved, and a code of numbers, ranging from 1 to 10, representing the performance of certain sex acts."  And there were a lot of them.  His second wife read them during the divorce proceedings, and it sent her into a literally suicidal depression, but not before she shared them with others. You can read some of the grotty details here:  (LINK)

Look, even Samuel Pepys knew enough to use code to record his philandering.  Granted, it would be better to never have an affair, but today that seems to be impossible for politicians and entertainers.  

 Of course, the Queen of Unforced Errors has been Governor Kristi Noem who has kept the fire hose going at full force:

• Killing the puppy in the gravel pit. 
• Killing the male goat in the same gravel pit because it was smelly.
• Claiming to meet Kim Jong Un and staring him down.  
• My favorite part of that one is "I'm sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I'd been a children's pastor, after all)."  Since when are Sunday School teachers called "children's pastors"?  And isn't calling your students "little tyrants" just adding more mud to the pile?  Or is it gravel to the pit? 
• Claiming to have cancelled a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron because of his "pro-Hamas / anti-Israeli comments."
• Promising that if she got to the White House, she would say "Commander, say hello to Cricket."
• Going on news media all over the country and blaming the puppy (by the time she was done, Cricket sounded like another Cujo), the he-goat, the "woke" mob who don't have the guts to shoot a puppy in the face, the unnamed ghost writer who wrote it all and got it published without her ever knowing, despite the fact that she posted a publicity still of her reading the audio version.  (How do you record something you don't read?)  

Well, after a number of media interviews, almost all of them scathing (when Newsmax tells you you're not on the VP list anymore, you're in trouble), she did a classic runaway, worthy of Monty Python:  cancelling her appearances on Fox News and CNN because of snow back in South Dakota.  LINK 

 (NOTE:  Some snow fell in the Black Hills May 6-8; they're used to it, and some folks went snowmobiling. By May 12, the weather was in the 60s, and the streets were clear.) 

Oh, and Fox News host Greg Gutfeld responded to her cancellation with a brutal interview of her anyway, with Dana Perino taking Kristi's role.  I think she's toast at Fox, too. (LINK)

SEVEN OUT OF NINE!

And finally - yes, Governor Noem has now managed to get banned from seven out of the nine Native American reservations in this state. Crow Creek, Sisseton-Wahpeton Lake Traverse Indian Reservation and the Yankton Sioux Tribe are the latest three to get thoroughly fed up with interviews like this one:  (LINK)

Kristi Noem and Elizabeth Vargas on News Nation, May 8th, 2024:

“But we have the cartels set up in South Dakota,” said Noem.

“They are set up?” asked Vargas.

“They are set up in South Dakota,” said Noem.

“How do you know that?” asked Vargas.

“Because I’ve seen the pictures, and our investigators have interacted with them,” said Noem. “In fact, we had a cartel member kidnap an FBI officer just last week. You know it is well known, and they are able to operate on those tribal reservations because they are protected.”

Now, granted, it may be top secret and all that (and if so, what is she doing talking about it on national news?), but nobody up here has heard anything about an FBI officer being kidnapped in the last two weeks.  But two weeks before that, a Rapid City judge did sentence three people to federal prison for carjacking/kidnapping an FBI agent (not knowing that he was an FBI agent) in 2022.  Does that count?  (LINK)  Yet another unforced error… 

No, you can't make this stuff up, but I wish you could.

LESSON OF THE DAY:

When you have a nice little political career going,
don't take it to the gravel pit.

MEANWHLE, BSP:

My latest new story, "At the Dig" is in Black Cat Weekly #138. (HERE)

And let's not forget the wonderful anthologies, Murder Neat, and Paranoia Blues, both available on Amazon.com which have, respectively, my "Bad Influence" and "Cool Papa Bell" in them:

  (HERE)

   (HERE)

Enjoy!