"Why Not Black Thursday?"

(Disclaimer note to readers: The return of Brad Nelson Here... via Pascal Marco's blog has been rumored for some time now. And that time has come with the conclusion of the most recent Black Friday retail frenzy. In response to this orgy of madness, Brad has dispatched his first op-ed piece in over five years, pleading his former student, Pascal, to oblige him by posting his ramblings right here on this blog. So, until Brad creates (or his fans clamor for) his own personal web log, Pascal is happy to indulge his one time writing mentor.)

Brad Nelson Here...

So, I ask: what's keeping the American consumer from demanding that retailers make available to him and her a Black Thursday?  Why must we wait until the stroke of midnight (please do not read this as "why must we strokes wait until midnight") Thanksgiving evening before we can stampede the doors of our local Wal-Mart or Target store and trample our strange, just-slept-all-night-on-the-sidewalk-with-them, bedfellows?

I, for one, see no reason other than this: Thanksgiving must, more than any other national holiday, remain sacrosanct.  

"Thanksgiving must, more than any other national holiday, remain sacrosanct."--Brad Nelson

That word I use--sacrosanct--is not to be taken lightly. Few things in our wonderful country are still regarded as such. Webster's defines the Latin-derived compound word as most sacred or holy; inviolable;  immune from criticism or violation.  Some very strong language indeed. And I admit I may be pouring the gravy on a bit too thick when I point out that Thanksgiving and the word sacrosanct came into being at almost the identical time in history: the early 1600s.

There is no other holiday, or day for that matter, including the Lord's very own day, that is more revered in the United States than the last Thursday in November. It is the only one of our main holidays that is not prone to float and change its date due to Gregorian calendric adjustments. (I wonder if the Mayans may not have been involved here. Note to self--write future op-ed piece entitled, "Those Crazy Mayans: How Not to Lose Your Head Over Missing an Important Date.") Our national feast day is always the last Thursday in November.  Period.  Gravy spot on the white tablecloth that looks eerily like an exclamation point.

This most hallowed of days is not to be tampered with even by the Almighty (dollar, that is, not God, for Christ's sake!) nor be threatened by the prurient-like pursuit of 2 for 1 Xbox deals or $199.00 48" LCD TVs.  For God's sake, what have we as a consuming people become?  If stores are opening at 12:01am the day after Thanksgiving for this confounding-named day of Black Friday, what's to keep that store from opening right after the last last slice of pumpkin pie with whip cream is served at perhaps 7pm for heaven's sake?

Black Friday Frenzy.

Sacrosanct. Merriam nor Webster didn't make up this word to describe some poorly conceptualized or otherwise frivolous event. No. They've reserved this word for us to use for the likes of describing TV watching. For example, Bonanza on Sunday night (60s), Laugh-in on Monday night (70s), Cosby on Thursday nights (80s)...well, you get my point. It's a word solely set-aside for describing such things as how we should treat the office of President of the United States, or, maybe more accurately, the reason behind why you mustn't wear white after Labor Day (note to self for another topic to post on my pal Pascal's blog--working title: "Labor Day Myths and Legends Debunked!").

But I digress.

Sacrosanct: holy, inviolable. Thanksgiving is a day we should only be thinking about thanking and giving and giving and thanking. Not a day wondering if we should carry pepper spray with us when we make the mad dash for the iPad2s selling at iPad1 prices just in case we need to incapacitate the poor slob who was only there to run push his wheel-chair-bound wife with the cannula stuck in her nostrils while connected to her portable oxygen tank he unselfishly slung over his shoulder whilst pushing her toward nirvana.

C'mon! Can anything be more sacred than that expression of pure love?  Believe me, in my day had anyone suggested that we mess at all with anything related to the sanctity of Thanksgiving they would have been called a Commie. Should anyone out there, even the largest retailer in the world, Sam and his Mart, suggest that we start tampering with the 24 hours devoted to the hallowed sacred rite bestowed upon us by our forefathers...well then by the power vested in me I label them no better than terrorists.

We need more people like Anthony Hardwick to step up to the proverbial feast-filled plate and decry as he has that this most un-sanctimonious of intrusions upon our highest of American holy days must STOP. We are meant--dare I say entitled, although no one can ever accuse me, Brad Nelson of being in favor of entitlements--to feast and then gloat over the gluttony of our happiest of holidays.

Anthony Hardwick--a real American hero.

I leave you with this final thought, speaking of terrorists: as my dear old dad, Farnsworth "Nellie" Nelson, a WWII-decorated-for-heroism-real-Amercian-hero, used to always say right after finishing his last scoop of Neopolitan ice cream before retiring to his Lazy Boy and falling asleep while watching football, "If there was ever a day our enemies should attack us, if they were smart they'd do it on Thanksgiving Day."

Just sayin'.

I Lost My Virginity to 7 Women at Once

Now that I have your attention, what I said is almost true.  As my wife and children like to say, my headline would be considered one of my classic "quasi fatte" statements. I learned this term when I read Joe McGinnis's wonderful book (one of my all time favorites) called The Miracle of Castel del Sangro. In the book, McGinnis documented the miraculous story of a lowly Italian soccer team and their historic climb from the bottom to the top of that country's iconic football (soccer to us American idiotas) league. 

McGinnis used the Italian vernacular of quasi fatte (literally translated as "half or almost the truth or fact") to describe the propensity of the Italians he encountered covering the story to embellish the events of the local team's climb in the ranks of Italy's soccer league from has-beens to champions. Italians are born fictionalizers (some might say womanizers, too) and maybe that's why I had so much fun writing my debut thriller novel, IDENTITY: LOST.

I had a chance recently to be invited to appear at my first book club.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  About nine months ago, not long after finding out my novel would be published by Oceanview Publishing, I took the liberty of interrupting a rather beautiful woman reading a rather large book in a restaurant I like to frequent called The Herb Box located in Scottsdale's DC Ranch area. I asked this lady what she was reading, she told me the title (which we've both seem to have forgotten today) and I took the liberty to let her know that I had a novel that would be released in the summer of 2011.

Her name was Cindy and she was quite impressed and asked me for the name of the book. I gave her my card, pitched my story, and she immediately inquired if I'd be interested in talking about my book at her book club after the book's release.  I agreed and this past Sunday I was welcomed by the seven gorgeous members of The Reading Divas Book Club of North Scottsdale.  I really didn't know what to expect when I arrived but Cindy had prepped me well, telling me the gals in the club were voracious readers, all with ravenous appetities for fiction works like mine. Quite luckily for me, they all loved my book.  I had died and gone to book club heaven.

The READING DIVAS (l-r) Judy Breshears, Sheila Vadovicky, Jill Murphey, Alison Prevear, Mary Ferro, Paula Stone and Cindy Quirarte, seated.

Simply and seriously stated, my experience with the Reading Divas came as close as I'll ever come to experiencing my own fantasies of valhalla.  The girls expertly concocted a baseball theme, complete with Cracker Jack coordinated place settings, baseball jerseys and hats, and a Chicago Vienna hotdog menu to boot, complete with poppy seed buns, celery salt, and sport peppers.  These contagious-spirited women knew the most direct way to this man's heart:  baseball, great ballpark food, and making me feel and believe as though I was in the center of my own personal harem of devoted fans.

But don't even think for one minute that I'm trivializing anything or making diminutive in any manner the almost three and one-half hours I thankfully spent with some of the most fascinating people I've ever met. All were accomplished professionals in their own right, covering fields from optometry and Alzheimer's research to uber event planning and real estate marketing. 

But their greatest gift was their frankness about my writing and how it had touched and moved each of them in very intimate and personal ways.  Finding out that my words had the power to bring forth so much emotion from complete strangers is a very special gift received indeed.  I really have nothing to compare it with except maybe the depth of emotion brought forth from the shared intimacy of lovemaking or the experience of witnessing the birth of human life.  It was really that kind of experience.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that my encounter with them would enrich me so much as a writer; to listen to them share with me how intimately engaged they had become with the characters I had created and how involved they became with their own emotions about the premise of my story and the consequences of your actions was a gift I'll not soon forget.

The Divas each added their autograph to this official Major League baseball and gave it to me as a parting gift.  Little did they know that their gift of gab about my book was a present that will remain with me forever.

Thank you, Reading Divas.  You touched my heart and now have a place in it forever and there's no way to be quasi fatti about something like that.

Poisoned Fiction Review: HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK by Pascal Marco

Poisoned Fiction Review: HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK by Pascal Marco: "Signed copies available from www.poisonedpen.com As of last month, my debut thriller novel, IDENTITY: LOST has been available in Ha..."

PASCAL MARCO: Back From ThrillerFest; Into The Arizona Heat

PASCAL MARCO: Back From ThrillerFest; Into The Arizona Heat

Back From ThrillerFest; Into The Arizona Heat

ThrillerFest was an amazing event for me again this year.  My third time attending the fan, hopeful author, and published author convention, now in its sixth year, I was once more overwhelmed by the generosity and warmth of a community of writers and authors of whose success I can only begin to imagine having a thumbnail of myself.

Take for instance Gayle Lynds.  Gayle has written nine novels and has been called the "queen of espionage" in the thriller writing community.  I was lucky enough to sit next to Gayle at a table where authors signed their books for attendees of the convention only because "Ma" came next after "Ly" in the alphabetical scheme of things that particular day.

Her chair remained unoccupied for most of the 40 minute signing session (as did the chair to my left, planned by the place card sign in front of the empty space to be occupied by Steve Martini. I was very fortunate that within those first few minutes to have one fan come up to me and ask to have my book, IDENTITY: LOST, which she had just purchased, signed.


The "Queen of Espionage"

I was ecstatic. A fan bought my book at ThrillerFest in New York City.  Is this really happening to me? It was only one book but I figured one is better than none. I inscribed the book to the new fan, Paula Lanier, who told me she "devours books." I'll never, ever forget her.

The very next moment Gayle Lynds came around the corner, looking for her seat.  I recognized her because, well, after all she is a best-selling author, and, as well, I had befriended her on Facebook a while back and knew her from her profile pic.  I pulled out the chair for her and gushingly said before she could even put her seat in it, "Hi, Gayle. You don't know me but we're Facebook friends."

Talk about stupid is as stupid does.  Forest Gump here couldn't take back his words, wanting to reel them back in like a fishing line that had snapped after losing the proverbial big one. But Gayle was gracious. She asked me my name as she pulled my place card toward her, saying, "Oh yes, Pascal. I know you. Great writer's name."

Did Gayle Lynds actually just say she "knew" me? She was being kind, I know, but it still sounded wonderful, warm, and so gracious.  She may as well have said, "Welcome. Welcome to the family!" That's how good her greeting made me feel. A fellow ThrillerFest author, welcoming me to the gang.

"I just sold a book," I told her. Okay, Forest, you're gonna run out of fishing line. 

"That's fantastic," she replied. "It's 100% more than what I've sold today."

Once again, grace from Gayle while under socially dysfunctional fire from moi.

"So, tell me about your book."

"My book?" I asked.  I felt another line snap. Nice going, Pascal!  Thank God you've got that great writer's name because your ThrillerFest social skills really suck.  "My book?" I began again. "Yeah, well my book is about a boy who is the sole witness to a crime in Chicago's Burnham Park in the late 1970s but the cops and the Cook County States Attorney's Office bungle the case and he's put into witness protection in Arizona.  The book starts thirty years in the future, the witness now a ruthless Maricopa County prosecutor and he crosses paths with the killers once again."

No reply form the Queen of Espionage. My story sucks. What was I thinking?

After her pregnant pause, Gayle speaks.  "Wow! That's a fantastic premise.  I really like that. What's the title?"

"Identity: Lost."

"Great title.  Are you writing a second?"

"Yes, I'm six chapters in."

"Well let me know when you're done with it. I'd like to read it. I'd love to give you a dust jacket blurb."

The "Queen of E" and "Forest"

Okay, this isn't really happening, is it?  Gayle Lynds offers to read my next manuscript, sight unseen?  Even though I'm now a published fiction writer, I can't make up stuff like this.  I've spoken again and again, here within this blog and at every book event I have had to date about the miraculous, serendipitous journey of "coincidences" I have experienced since the day I decided to write a novel.  (Hear that, Oprah?)  Her majesty, Lady O, is right--there is no such thing as coincidence.

Now if she can only figure out how to shorten the Arizona summers. Then she'll be a shoe in to become our first female president. 

Hmmm...maybe I've stumbled upon an idea here for another book. Coincidence?

MysteriesEtc: Review: Identity: Lost by Pascal Marco

MysteriesEtc: Review: Identity: Lost by Pascal Marco: "Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Oceanview Publishing (June 14, 2011) Language: English ISBN-10: 1608090159 ISBN-13: 978-160809015..."

The Road to IDENTITY: LOST

It's now official. The national hardcover and eBook release of my debut thriller novel, IDENTITY: LOST is here. To say I'm living an incredible dream is an understatement.  This journey has been one remarkable serendipitous event after another.

I've had fun while promoting the book quoting Oprah's  mantra, "There's no such thing as a coincidence" and I will tell you I have fully embraced this belief with Lady O.  She has been the world's #1 proponent (besides my own personal life coach and wife, Karen) of the belief of the power of intention.

I had long believed that imagination was best left to children and seldom harnessed in adulthood.  But then my belief system all changed about five years ago.

Things started to happen that felt coincidental but had a distinctly stronger message for me than just mere happenstance.   One of the first was when I attended Game 5 of the 2005 ALCS Championship when the Chicago White Sox visited the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  If my White Sox won this game then they would be playing in their first World Series in 46 years. Chance got me and a friend not only into a game when we were told no tickets were available but had us sitting in the opposition owner's box seats with his family.
  
The White Sox did win and that event spurred me on to write a story about it. That story turned into half-a-dozen more I wrote over the next year on a White Sox fan web site. By this time my desire to write seriously had been rekindled and I began to think about this story I had locked away for over twenty-five-years.  Back in the '70s when I was a young father, living in Chicago, a boy had witnessed a murder on the lakefront and decided to come forward.  But, tragically, his desire to do good turned into a life-changing situation, ultimately ending with the loss of his home and breakup of his family.

I plunged headlong into finding newspaper clippings of the details of that crime that had been committed along the shores of Lake Michigan in Burnham Park. Along the way, I discovered this rich, long forgotten history of the area where the crime was committed. That took me down another road and re-ignited my love of history, especially the local history of Chicago and Civil War history.  I was completely hooked and spent every moment I could researching and writing and reading.

It was at about this same time I stumbled upon (notice the phrasing I used) the Scottsdale (Arizona) Writers Group. At the time, I was involved in keeping afloat an Internet business I had started and this was taking up the majority of my time. But I was too deep into my pledge to myself to not quit on this dream of writing something about this story.  So, with a fair amount of trepidation, I walked into the group one day and announced I'd like to join.  I was welcomed with warm smiles but more so by such an unselfish group of people who were willing to help me (as well as themselves) develop their writing skills and story ideas.

After two years of bringing in a new chapter every other week, I was done, and my novel was complete.  How naive I was because from that point forward the real work had only just begun.

That was in March, 2008 and about two months later I had another serendipitous event occur that would change my life forever. I was summering in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and one day saw a small poster at a local library announcing that New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor would be in a nearby town, signing his latest book.  I had never heard of Brad Thor but a little voice inside me told me I had to go to this event and meet him in person. When would a budding novelist like me you ever expect to meet a NY Times best-selling author?  So with my wife and brother-in-law in tow, both writers in their own right, we went to meet Mssr. Thor. 

It was an intimate, informal book-signing for his latest book, THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, and that fact gave me an opportunity to speak a bit with Mr. Thor.  I told him I had never heard of him but that as a writer I felt compelled to meet a real author, let alone a best-selling one. The words gracious and warm don't do justice to describing Brad's demeanor with me that day and when I told him I had a completed manuscript he immediately recommended I attend ThrillerFest in NYC to pitch it. He even told me if I got it published he even consider reading it for me.

When I got to my computer and investigated this event, I was blown away at the cost.  It was less than two weeks away and putting a last minute trip to NYC for an event of this magnitude was a financial challenge. We were stretching dollars (squeezing the more appropriate word) at this point and as far as I was concerned, if there was a definition of a trip I could not afford, this was it.  But Karen scoffed at me, dismissing the idea of not going.  "If you really want to get this manuscript publish, you have to go."  Then she reminded me. "And, you're forgeting, Brad Thor invited you!"

So, I went to ThrillerFest. I paid the last minute airfare, booked the mid-town Manhattan hotel, sent in my non-member attendee fee. When I landed at La Guardia I hailed a cab.  I met my eventual publisher at AgentFest there and here I am now a published author with my novel on bookstore shelves across the country.  And, true to his word, Brad later read my manuscript and gave me a wonderful blurb for my book jacket.

There are no coincidences anywhere in this tale. It is just a story of a naive guy who grew up on the southeast side of Chicago who always kept believing even someone like him could make his dream come true through the power of intention.


IDENTITY: LOST
National hardcover and Kindle release date: June 14, 2011
From Oceanview Publishing http://www.oceanviewpub.com/
www.pascalmarco.com
@fansofpascal 
Facebook: Fans of Pascal Marco
Cover by: Foster Covers

Oprah's Day May Have Been Great, But Mine Was Better

So there are times in one's life as you look back and you think, "Wow, that was really a great day."
Well, yesterday was one of those days.  Actually, I've had quite a few of these great days recently over the last few weeks.  And each one has been just a little more special than the last.

But yesterday, three things stand out.  It's amazing how happy people have been acting when they found out that I actually can show them my book, IDENTITY: LOST. The morning was a perfect example as illustrated by a guy I've come to know real well by the name of Tony Tremonto.



The author (l) with his Italian buddy from Chicago's Taylor Street, Tony Tremonto.

 Tony was beside himself with joy when I showed up this morning at his shop, Studio ADT, to show him a copy of my book. I didn't think I'd get that sort of reaction but as I walked out of his studio I thought to myself, how cool was it that Tony was just so genuinely excited and happy for me.

Alphagraphics' Eric Adams.

The same can be said for a similar experience I had later that afternoon, when another business associate, Eric Adams, beamed the widest smile when I asked him if I could take a picture of him holding  my book for my Facebook page.  His smile lit up his entire Alphagraphics showroom.    

But most rewarding was my final smile of the day, brought to me by none other than my daughter and her son, my grandson, Anthony, as they held my book in their hands and smiled so proudly that it made my heart leap with joy as I snapped away.

Della's parting words to me tonight, "Go ahead, dad, and use that on your Facebook page. You have my permission. And make sure to tag me." 

This made me very happy.  A great end to a great day.

I will and I did Della. Because today my heart was tagged, too, by the joy of my friends and family over how happy they are for me.  Now I know what Harry Bailey meant when he told his brother, George, he was the richest man in town.

IDENTITY: LOST
A debut thriller novel by Pascal Marco
Released by Oceanview Publishing, June 14, 2011
Cover by: Foster Covers

PASCAL MARCO: Counting Down to Publication--Thanks, Kids

PASCAL MARCO: Counting Down to Publication--Thanks, Kids

Counting Down to Publication--Thanks, Kids

June 14, 2011 seemed very far off when Oceanview Publishing told me they wanted to publish my debut novel, IDENTITY: LOST. That was back in March 2010 and their publication date of June 2011 seemed like ten years away.  How would I be able to wait that long?

Bucolic Burnham Park, Chicago, Illinois
and scene of the crime in Identity: Lost.

Well the day has almost arrived as I prepare to start my book tour to promote the release of my thriller novel.  The first stop on the tour will be at two great bookstores in California--pages, A Bookstore (Manhattan Beach) and Diesel Bookstores (Brentwood).  Both store owners have been very gracious in allowing me to promote and sell my book in their respective independent bookstores.

You may not know it but a lot of indie bookstores are struggling, like many other small businesses today.  Competition from "big box" stores is part of the problem but the economy and online giants like Amazon have also taken a chunk out of the hides of some of the fragile mom and pop stores.  Although I am having two signings with Barnes and Noble (one in Kierland Commons in Scottsdale, AZ; the other in downtown Chicago at the B&N--DePaul Bookstore), I have made a definite attempt to promote my book at independent stores.

The perfect world for an author, I suppose, is that all different types of stores compete on equal ground together, each carving out their respective niche in their local neighborhood.  Either way, having the opportunity to meet people in person at the local bookstore or library is extremely exciting for me.  Frankly, it’s nothing short of a dream come true.

My three girls...Irish-Italian beauties.

Driving me to the fulfillment of this dream I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my children. Each of them in their own way has motivated me to follow my dream toward publication.  I think they were also excited (more thankful) that their dad had found an outlet in which to create and one in which to use his vivid imagination, since hundreds of times they have told me I take much too long to tell a simple story and am prone to embellish it whenever possible.

The author (l) with # 1 son.

We laughed uncontrollably years ago when I shared with them a book entitled The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by one of my favorite writers, Joe McGinnis. In the book, McGinnis retold the story of the miracle soccer team from Italy that progressed from the lowest rung of the indomitable national Italian football league to its miraculous journey to the top.  The ever-entertaining Irishman McGinnis shared with readers Italians’ propensity (I call it a fondness) for practicing the art of quasi fatti – literally translated as “half-truths” or “almost the truth.”

Once my kids heard this Italian phrase they had an “aha” moment, realizing for the first time that it’s in their father’s DNA to make things up, creating a challenge for them the listener to figure out what the real story might be in his storytelling techniques.  They believed I had found a perfect outlet—the writing of fiction—for my own propensity in unknowingly practicing the fine art of quasi fatti, obviously an inherited character trait deeply entwined in my DNA.

So, I hope they're happy that their old dad found an outlet for his "almost the truth" style of storytelling.  I share with you very soon the result—IDENTITY: LOST.  Available in hardcover and Kindle, June 14 from Oceanview Publishing. Cover by Foster Covers.

IDENTITY: LOST, available wherever fine books are sold, June 14, 2011.

Satisfying Retirement: Becoming a Published Author

Satisfying Retirement: Becoming a Published Author: "Then, it took another two years to find a publisher for the manuscript."

The Power of Intention

It's now less than two months away until the official national hardcover and Kindle release date for my debut thriller novel, IDENTITY: LOST.  To say I'm excited is an understatement.  This journey has been one remarkable serendipitous event after another and if I don't believe in the power of sending positive energy and thoughts out into the universe after what's happened to me, then I never will.

I've had fun quoting Oprah's "There's no such thing as a coincidence" mantra and I will tell you I have fully embraced this belief with Lady O.  She has been the world's #1 proponent (besides my own personal life coach and wife, Karen) in the belief in the power of intention.

I guess it's really all about letting go and having fun. Children embrace this belief by playing and using their imaginations.  I was once like this with my own creative imagination, many, many years ago.  But for various reasons (some valid, some purely weak excuses) I hid and buried my desire to create.

Then it all changed about five years ago.

Through a series of remarkable, serendipitous events, things started to happen that felt coincidental but had a distinctly stronger message for me than just mere happenstance occurrences.   The first was when I attended Game 5 of the 2005 ALCS Championship when the Chicago White Sox visited the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.  If the White Sox won this game then they would be playing in their first World Series in 46 years. Chance got me and a friend not only into a game when we were told no tickets were available but had us sitting in the opposition owner's box seats with his family.



The author, sitting with the siblings of LA Angels owner, Art Moreno, October 16, 2005.


The White Sox won and that event spurred me on to write a story about it. That story turned into half-a-dozen more I wrote over the next year on a White Sox fan web site. By this time my desire to write had been rekindled and I began to think about this story I had locked away, figuratively and literally, for over twenty-five-years.  Back in the '70s when I was a young father, a boy had witnessed a murder and decided to come forward as a witness.  But, tragically, his desire to do good turned into a life-changing situation; one not so good for him and his family.

I had recently sold my business, which provided me with a very modest profit, not enough to retire on but enough to possibly give me a brief amount of time to not have to work full-time, at least for a year, maybe two. I took that time to find my notes I had kept along with newspaper clippings about that story only to find that after moving a few times over those 25 years I had misplaced the documents.  The power of the Internet and the help from a friend's daughter who attended a Chicago university, allowed me access to the Chicago Tribune's historical archives.



Bucolic Burnham Park on the near south side of Chicago, scene of the horrific crime. 

 I plunged headlong into finding the details of that crime that had been committed along the shores of Lake Michigan in Burnham Park. Along the way, I discovered this rich, long forgotten history of the area where the crime was committed. That took me down another road and re-ignited my love of history, especially local Chicago and American history.  I was completely hooked and spent every moment I could researching and writing and reading.

It was at about this same time I stumbled upon a brochure (yes, a printed brochure) inviting would-be writers to join the Scottsdale Writers Group, which held its meeting every other Tuesday. I was now back to work, keeping afloat a fledgling Internet business I had started on the side and this was taking up the majority of my time. But I was too deep into my pledge to myself to not quit on this dream of writing this story. So, with some trepidation, I walked into the group one day and announced I'd like to join.  I was welcomed with warm smiles but more so by such an unselfish group of people who were willing to help me (as well as themselves) develop their writing skills and story ideas.

After two years of bringing in a new chapter every other week, I was done, and my novel (with the working title "The Murder of Manny Fleischman--Last of the Black Sox") was complete.  How naive I was because from that point forward the real work had only just begun.

That was in March, 2008 and about two months later I had another serendipitous event occur that would change my life forever. I was summering in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and one day saw another small little poster at the local Fontana, Wisconsin Public Library announcing that New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor would be signing his latest book.  I had never heard of Brad Thor but I knew I had to go to this event. When would you ever expect to meet a NY Times best-selling author in Fontana, Wisconsin?  So with my wife and brother-in-law in tow, we went to meet Mssr. Thor.

It was a very small book-signing for his latest book, THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, but that fact gave me an opportunity to speak with Brad.  I told him I had never heard of him but that as a budding writer I felt compelled to meet a real author, let a lone a best-selling one. The words gracious and warm don't do justice in describing Brad's demeanor with me that day and when he found out I had a completed manuscript he immediately recommended I attend ThrillerFest in NYC. He promised me if I attended to "look him up" and he'd be happy to help me in any way he could.

When I got to my computer and investigated this event, I was blown away at the cost. Of course, it was less than two weeks away and putting a last minute trip to NYC for an event of this magnitude added to the financial challenge. We were stretching dollars (squeezing a more appropriate word) at this point and as far as I was concerned, if there was a definition of a trip we could not afford, this one was it.  But my muse, Karen, scoffed at me, dismissing the idea of not going.  "He invited you, didn't he?" she reminded me.  "If you really want to get this manuscript publish you have to go."

Well, that was just the beginning.

I went to ThrillerFest in July 2008. I paid the last minute airfare, booked the mid-town Manhattan hotel, sent in my non-member attendee fee, landed at La Guardia, and hailed a cab. And here I am now, less than two months from seeing my novel on bookstore shelves across the country.

There are no coincidences anywhere in this tale. It is just a story of a naive guy who grew up on the southeast side of Chicago who always kept believing even someone like him could make his intentions come true.

Personal Memories of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recently, someone asked me what my strongest memory was from the 60s. With the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King tomorrow, the answer I gave below comes to mind...



The street by my house where Dr. Martin Luther King
marched in Chicago, during the summer of 1966.



That is a very hard question to answer, since I have so many. If I start to recollect them, I may never stop. But I do recall one that’s very vivid, though, and that was when The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march right down a street behind where I lived. The buzz this caused in the neighborhood was quite palpable; electrifying to say the very least.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people turned out and lined the sidewalks as the marchers came right down the middle of 107th and Avenue M. People were shouting at him, some people yelling terrible things. One man came out on his front porch with a rifle and threatened to shoot him. The homeowner was immediately swarmed by Chicago police. I’ll never forget that scene and how brave those cops were, running up on that porch and wrestling the gun from the enraged man.
It was summer and I had just graduated 8th grade. Everyone really got caught up in the excitement, just trying to grab a glimpse of this man, King. I really just wondered if he looked like he did on TV, but I knew somewhere down deep in my own soul this was a momentous event I was witnessing. I was fascinated by his bravery to walk through a crowd who obviously hated him so much and all he stood for.



Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, avoiding
rocks being thrown at him
during one of his marches.



We had no black people living on the East Side (the name of our neighborhood) at that time. Few worked there and if they did it was mostly at the local steel mills. There were no blacks who actually worked in any of our local stores. So seeing a black man in person was relatively new for me. The only time I had actually seen anyone who was black was when I went to Chicago White Sox baseball games. Some of the players were black then, not many, but a few. And there were black people, of course, in the stands.

This interaction through major league baseball, coupled with my dad’s introduction to an old black man by the name of Walter Washington, was my first exposure to African-Americans. Walter “lived” in the coal yard next to where my dad worked and my dad used to feed him and care for him, especially during the winter. As a matter of fact, one time during an especially cold winter, Walter had become badly burned when he had fallen asleep between two coal-fired salamanders. My dad found him outside when he came to work one day, laying there severely burned. Walter was taken to the Cook County Hospital Burn Ward and my dad visited him every day until Walter recovered and came back to live in the coal yard. I’ll never forget my dad’s compassion for this black man, something relatively unheard of at the time, or at the very least not something he boasted about to his friends, since my dad loathed those who participated in self-praise.

When King marched it was as if an unlit stick of dynamite (maybe more like a case) had been thrown into the middle of our neighborhood. We all watched, waiting to see who was going to light the fuse certain to spark a riot. It was nothing less than electrifying and became an indelible memory of an event I’ll never forget. Dr. King went on to march in a number of other areas in and around Chicago during this time. He would go on to say in a later interview after those marches were over that he never had feared more for his life than when he marched in Chicago and had never experienced more hatred and bigotry than that showered down upon him there, hatred he had never before experienced even in the deep South.

I always felt a bit ashamed of that statement he made, always feeling like a black eye had been placed upon Chicago and with it our East Side. The irony of it all was that as kids growing up we always felt our neighborhood wasn’t anything very special in terms of its desirability to live in, so many of us used to wonder why anybody, even blacks, would want to move to the East Side, a part of the City of Chicago neglected by city mayors for so long a time. We always felt like we were second-class citizens of the Second City.

But the day King marched I'm sure the eyes of the whole world were upon us.

Dinner Time Growing Up

I met John Lescroart, a well known author of outstanding legal thrillers, at the 2010 ThrillerFest held in NYC last year. John is a very affable guy, very down to earth, as I have experienced a couple of times now when he's done book discussions and signings at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ.

I became a fan of his on Facebook and recently he posted an interesting little note about his youth and dinner experiences at the family supper table.  This prompted a rush of memories as I made a comment on his Note page that said this:

Dinners were not only sacred in our family but regimented. A family of 6, we sat at a round kitchen table in a Cape Cod style home, whose kitchen was probably the tiniest room. We sat in the following order: Dad at High Noon, oldest brother 1 o'clock, next oldest 2 o'clock and so forth, until my mom who rarely got a seat or waited for one of us to finish then sat down. Dad always took the first helping, then oldest brother, and so on. You get the picture. You did NOT miss dinner. If you did, not only did you not eat but there would need to be a very strong explanation given. Meals were only "saved" on the stove top if you were involved in some type of "organized, legitimate" activity, like Little League practice. Saying you were late because you were playing ball in the street and forgot what time it was never won you a left over meal or alleviated the wrath of dad.

 

A couple of John's fans posted that they "liked" my comment and it made me wonder how many more people had vivid memories of their dinner time as children.  As I said above, ours were definitely sacrosanct and very regimented.  When dinner was served we were expected to be seated at the table.  My dad was usually already sitting down as most times he often would walk in the back door off the kitchen and, after washing up (which he never failed to do) he'd take a seat at his spot at the tiny, round kitchen table in our very cramped kitchen.

 

He's usually start off with a beverage: shot and a beer if summer; homemade Italian red wine if winter. One drink all he had and then he was ready to chow down.  My brother. Mickey, sat to his right, at what I referred to as the "1 o'clock position" above in my Lescroart post. Then came brother, Ed, then me, then my sister, Mary Ann, then my mom.  Food went in that order too.  My dad loved chicken legs so when mom served this dish, he usually grabbed two chicken legs, or maybe a chicken leg and breast. My brothers then had freedom to choose their favorite piece. One piece, not two. I then served myself (I loved the wing) but they were so small that one would barely hold me. So, if you took a wing you were allowed to have two. Mom loved wings too so I'd pass on taking one, but she'd encourage me by saying, "Go ahead, Pat, take a wing, I'll split them with you. I know you like them." This then allowed me to take two pieces, adding a prized thigh to my plate. (To this day my favorite choice in chicken pieces is a wing and a thigh.)

 

It was such a magnanimous gesture. She was always so unselfish when it came to sharing but also preparing our food. I'd often wonder why she just didn't by a couple more legs or even a few more wings. But in those days you bought a whole chicken and made that go as far as it could.

 

It's funny how these memories come rushing back after this innocent little prompt by Mr. Lescroart.  Food has a power that is somehwat overwhelming when it comes to creating and keeping memories strong.  To this day, whenever we eat chicken with my own family I always am reminded when dishing out the food how my dad liked the legs and my mom liked the wings.  Dad's no longer with us but mom is.  She'll be ninety soon and when I have the opportunity to eat a chicken dinner with her at my home or hers I always offer her one of the wings.  And she still replies to this day, "You take one, and I'll take one."

Cops Shows--Life Imitating Art or Vice Versa or What's In A Name?

I'm one of those people who's convinced that if you really like great fiction stories look no further than real life.

Although I'm enjoying the new Fox TV show "Chicago Code" I find that it's probably a really difficult task for their very talented staff of writers to conjure up fantastic stories each week that must first be dramatic (or melodramatic as the case may be) and more importantly entertain the masses.

But as much as I want to like the show and its almost life-like Chicago characters (Jarek Wysocki is the name of the leading character on the show, only one consonant off from the Wylocki family I knew growing up with on the southeast side of Chicago), I find the other characters and their names a bit of a stretch. His partner has a first name of Caleb. Nobody in Chicago I ever knew had the first name of Caleb. (Then again, I guess one could make an argument that my first name, Pascal, is just as odd.)

Whenever I talk to people here in Arizona, where I've lived for the last sixteen plus years, I mention in stories I tell about my days growing up in Chicago some of the names of the guys I grew up with. My AZ listeners shake their heads and smile, many times commenting how "Chicago" they sound.  Strong, tough, ethnic names like Lou Bufano, Ivano Menconi, Johnny Montalbano, Randy Zawis, Jimmy Stablein, and George Rydberg, to name but just a very few.  They wonder if I'm reading off the list of some possible cast names for a Chicago version of The Sopranos.

And it wasn't just the guys. The girls had just as strong and colorful names like Wartak, Sniegocki, Gaskor, Slattery, and Caputo.

But this was all normal.  And the stories of growing up there seemed normal too. I had a friend named Johnny Goshen. He and his family of about twelve people (I never knew exactly how many brothers and sisters he had) lived upstairs of his aunt's tavern called "Wilma's Tap." John took me and Ivano into the basement of the tavern one day where all the beer and liquor was stored, definitely an area off limits to the three high school freshman.

I was in awe.  I had never seen so much booze in all my life. Boxes of liquor were stacked so high in the room that they blocked almost all the light coming in from the two, small basement windows that barely lit the dank room that smelled of stale beer. (Later, this experience helped me write a scene in my novel, Identity: Lost, where my hero, Stan Kobe, was being held hostage in a liquor storage room underneath a southside Chicago bar and restaurant.)

Johhny offered me and Ivano beer, of course, and we gladly indulged, chugging as mch beer as we could in the few brief minutes our host thought were safe to stay down there.  The dilemma came when we wondered what to do with the empty beer cans. Johnny told us not to worry and showed us his secret of how to dispose of them. He pointed to a three-inch diameter hole in the low-hanging Masonite ceiling and proceeded to shove the beer cans up through the hole.

I was mesmerized and asked Johnny how many cans he thought were up there. He shrugged and gave me that devilish smile that made him such a likable friend and proceed to thump the ceiling with his fist.  It sounded as if a hundred beer cans rattled above our heads.  I laughed, feeling the high of the hops, a result of drinking my beer in two minutes. We then got out of there before his Aunt Wilma discovered our mischievous ways (as if she didn't know already).

These are the types of stories that need to be worked into shows about Chicago. Just one of thousands that are probably so common to my fellow southeast siders yet so outrageous to outsiders. 

So how about a scene in an episode of Chicago Code where Cubs fan Caleb has to a drink shot of Amaretto each time a Chicago White Sox player gets a hit against his hapless Cubbies during a Crosstown Classic game? Caleb would become shitfaced within three innings. Now that would make a good Chicago cop TV show great.

Selling Out is What We Called It

Brad Nelson Here...

This one's too easy. As I sit watching the Grammy's and am glued to the screen, mesmerized with Lady GaGa's hip-grinding "I Was Born This Way," I couldn't help but think how far we've come in terms of what's now thought of as "acceptable" by TV sensors.
Lady G's lyrics, crying out her anthem to accept her (or "Him") or us as they are while androgynous dancers twirled in an hypnotic 2011 version of a whirling dervish about her, sent a message to at least this baby boomer that we've come a long way baby indeed.
I wondered at that very point what the long-forgotten silent majority might be thinking, or possibly Tea Party members, as GaGa and her "protruding bulbous" as the Church Lady might have aptly described her, ground her hips oh so closely against her sexily clad dancers.
When the spectacle came to a ecstatic climax, the censors didn't totally sway as close-ups (that have taken on a whole new meaning in HD), confirmed pasties covering Ga's almost certain to be erect nipples under her sheer chiffon costume.
I cheered for this modicum of decorum she must have agreed to or else would not have been able to perform at all I presume. Thank you, Lady G. Seeing your nipplelus erectus at that point I'm sure would have seemed anti-climactic, would it not?
We've come a long way, baby, indeed. So far so that right after her act we saw an ad for the ever-present and necessary iPad, promoted by a tune throughout by none other than one Lou Reed. Sweet Lou, one of the original gender bending musicians who along with his Velvet Underground (now I know what that means), serenaded us in the early '70s with cross-dressing songs like Sweet Jane and Take a Walk on the Wild Side.
How ironic that my beloved Mr. Reed should sell out to now main stream corporate giant Apple, isn't it? Had it not been for Lou Reed, Lady G's act never sees the light of day or Grammy night. Ultimate proof that the music biz today is 110% all about the money and not the music.
Neil Young, where are you when we need you? Let's just hope Bobbie Dylan doesn't do the same as I await his "featured" performance, along with no other than the Devil himself, Mick, "making his very first Grammy appearance ever."
Janice, Jimmy, Jim, we need you back.

"Hey, Dad. You would have really loved Facebook."

My late father-in-law, John Cronin, was a man very much ahead of his time. Born in 1921, I started dating his daughter when he was 48. I thought he was old, of course. After all, he was a father of nine children and he looked (and was) tired all the time.  A high school teacher, he taught sociology. I thought he was the coolest guy his age I'd ever met.

We'd sit for hours, usually in the twilight hours as I waited in the living room for my date to come down from her room, ready I hoped to leave for the movies.  While I sat with him, Dad (though I called him Mister Cronin then) and I would talk about school, my schooling in particular, and what I planned to major in college.  "Mass media," I'd say, and he'd then tell me about Marshall McLuhan and the global village.

"Wouldn't it be neat (his favorite word) one day if you could access computers somehow from all over the world and read information shared on those computers?" he asked me once.  Then we went on to discuss a wired-world where freely sharing between anyone "connected" to this phantom network could do research on term papers, or research of any kind.

We didn't know it then but Dad was actually describing the Internet and the World Wide Web. These conversations happened regularly for about four years, until the day I asked his his permission to marry his daughter. His reply? "It's about time."

Dad would have loved Facebook.  He died in 2004, so he was able to see the birth and growth of the information highway.  But remarkably his enthusiasm for it wasn't as high as I assumed it may have been.  I assumed it was just because he just didn't have time for it, spending almost all his waking hours devoted to charity work, helping those less fortunate than him.

But I'm convinced he would have loved social networking, since that's what he was, a sociologist. He would have observed it with much interest, and we would have devoted many hours to discussing its use and how it affected people interacting with each other.

He loved expressing his opinion and loved sticking up for the underdog, against the bully, championing the rights of the common man.  When I told him one day that our junior college was going to start a student paper to act as an open voice for the student body he loved the idea.  I told him of my desire to write a column that would comment on the daily goings on, observing the wrongs and rights of the tumultuous times.

We thought the op-ed feature we be the most fun if we patterned it after a couple of Dad's writing heroes--Mike Royko and Studs Terkel.  We played around with pen names as we felt that the anonymity we wanted the author (me) to have was critical to my ability to write and express freely what was going on at the time on college campuses all over the country.

But this column would take on the voice of the commuter college student, living, working, and studying in the City of Chicago.  That voice became Brad Nelson.

So in honor of my father-in-law and his love of the Internet and the world wide web, where here more than ever the medium is the message, Brad Nelson has been resurrected.  Thanks, Dad.  I'm sure you're in heaven online, typing away on your PC because I know you're not a Mac guy.

Who is "Brad Nelson?"

Back in the early 70s, I wrote under the pen name of Brad Nelson.  I chose to do so because at the time I was a student at a community college in Chicago and wanted to remain anonymous as I wrote scathing anti-administrative and politically incorrect op-ed pieces for a struggling student publication called the Southwest Journalism Review, SWJR, for short.
I still have some of those articles I wrote and am fond to this day of the work I did. 
My column was entitled, "Brad Nelson Here..." and today I proudly revive Brad Nelson's persona in this blog.
Brad will tackle a variety of subjects.  I hope you'll enjoy what he has to say.

Me and Snow

I'm an apologist. I want you to know that right from the start. I apologize for moving from the Snow Belt.

It's been almost seventeen years since I was last in a snowstorm, or snow for that matter--that is if you don't count the latest snowfall on record in Arizona I drove in the following year on my birthday--April 20, 1995. But that's another story.

The date I was last in snow was February 14, 1994.  It would be called by the media, "The Valentine Day Snow Storm," the second one on that very same day in four years.  In the first, it took me nearly seven hours to drive from Lincolnwood, Illinois (roughly Devon and Lincoln Avenues) to Munster, Indiana.

That was usually a one hour drive, forty-two miles door-to-door, to Munster, a community hugging the border between the Prairie and Hoosier states.  That day was almost unimaginable.  The snow was relentless, driving speeds literally crawling to as slow as 1-2 miles per hour at times. I would have gone mad had it not been for the shock jock radio duo of Steve Dahl and Garry Meier. I was in the car for their entire drive time shift and then some. They lightened the load off my mind, saved me from losing my sanity.

Then four years to the day later I end up in an even worse storm, driving up from sales calls I had made that day down in Indianapolis.  As I headed northeast up the I-65 corridor the snow came harder and faster and faster and harder until I got to the West Lafayette exit and found out that the Indiana State smokies had closed the Interstate north. I was directed off the road and headed to find a hotel room and found the last one at the local Holiday Inn.

That was it, I told myself. Maybe my wife's idea of moving to Arizona was a good one after all. Our trip there two years earlier, scoping out the place, dreaming (more her than me) about the possibility of living there someday, was now looking like a rather grand idea.

As I look back and reminisce I feel for all those people on the roads today in Chicago, my former home town. Those stuck on Lake Shore Drive for four, five, or six hours, trying to get home to their families, or just home.  I'm sorry you had to endure all that. Really sorry.  The Blizzard of 2011 will certainly leave its mark on your psyche.

I'm sorry for that and I apologize for not being there with you, toughing it out like any good Chicagoan does and knows how to do. 

Stay warm my friends.

Brad Nelson

********

IDENTITY: LOST by Pascal Marco
Release date: June 14, 2011
Oceanview Publishing

That's What Friends Are For

It's one of the great surprises of my life to have friends express happiness for your good fortune. We all are blessed with these types of friends. People who truly feel happy that your life is going well, maybe even when their's isn't.

Friendship is a mysterious thing. At least it has been for me. I admit, I make friends easy. My friends (once they become friends) tell me how easy it is for me to talk to people and become friends with them. I am always amazed when I hear this because I don't think I'm always the easiest person to like and be friends with. Just ask my wife.

So, there must be something I don't see in myself that others see in me. Is it loyalty? (Maybe.) A good sense of humor? (I've been told many times how "funny" I am but think about Joe Pesci in Goodfellas when I hear this.) My generosity? (Probably low on the totem pole, unfortunately.) Some weird cosmic intangible? (Perhaps.)

Most likely, though, I think it's some combination of everything above, plus one other thing--love.

I love my friends. I love them in so many ways, like a million little pieces of sunshine, all wound together in a big fuzzy ball of yarn. (Well, that's a bit corny but it's what I felt right when I wrote this.) But one thing I do know for sure is that they give me strength. They give me the power to continue to believe in myself. I know with all of their support I can''t (no-I won't) let them down. Not now; not ever. Amen.

Brad Nelson
********

IDENTITY: LOST by Pascal Marco
Release date: June 14, 2011
Oceanview Publishing