Posts Tagged ‘Crusin’’

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Let’s Talk About Sex!

Tuesday, April 24th, 2018

Last time I discussed why I use clothing and setting descriptions for characterization, as well as to let the reader know how I see things. This was in response to complaints from readers who are bored by such material, and apparently have not developed an ability to skim.

The other complaint I’ve been getting lately – and not until lately, which is interesting – are the sex scenes in my books. Here are some typical Amazon complaints (turds in the punch bowl of many positive reviews) of Quarry’s Climax.

“As one might expect from the title, this is 33% story and 67% 14-year-old’s wet dream. If you’re 15, and still reading this stuff, better get checked out for some syndrome or another…”

“I’m a fan of the Nathan Heller series but this book was not written with an adult audience as it (sic) target. High school boys will love it; the rest of you, not so much.”

Several others took a similar tone.

Before we discuss, I request that you look at the cover of Quarry’s Climax and then read the back cover. Presumably this material was available to prospective buyers. Amazon includes the back cover copy, for example, on their listing.

Back already? Okay. Can anyone tell me why this cover, part of line famous for politically incorrect retro covers, would be on a book that lacked sexual content? How about the back cover, which tells prospective readers that the book is “raunchy,” and is about the publisher of a pornographic magazine who also runs a strip club? Any possibility, do you think, that the story within will have sexual content?

But there are actual reasons for the sexual content that have nothing to do with fairness-in-packaging. Like clothing and setting descriptions, sex scenes in my novels have to do with characterization, both of Quarry himself and the individual women.

For example, in The Wrong Quarry (perhaps my favorite Quarry novel), Quarry has affairs with an older woman and a young, wild one. Actually, the older woman is initially wild too, but as she and Quarry start having a, shall we say, loving relationship, their sex becomes rather conventional…married people sex, you might say. Meanwhile he is seduced by the young wild woman in a sex scene of flashing black lights and a waterbed and, well, you see the difference.

The other big factor is the story itself. When I conceive a story, it’s not out of whole cloth. I find a premise I like, think about it at length, then gradually put together an outline of sorts, which changes and grows as the novel is written. I know who did it and why, where the murder mystery is concerned, but the rest has a certain freewheeling quality. For example, in Quarry’s Climax, our “hero” has an oral sex encounter fairly early on with a stripper, which was not planned. Call it organic.

So the subject matter creates a landscape where different sorts of scenes occur. In the Nathan Heller novel, Better Dead – which has two novella-like sections – Nate encounters a beautiful female Commie in part one, and Bette Page in part two. Do you suppose that Nate gets laid at all in that novel?

But in the recently completed Do No Harm, there’s only one mild sex scene, with a recurring love interest of Nate’s, because the investigation of a brutal murder that is in part a sex crime does not lend itself to sexual shenanigans in Heller’s doings. It didn’t feel right for the tone of the book, or where Heller’s head was at. But back in Better Dead, when Bette Page gets frisky, you can bet Nate is interested.

I understand that in the Me Too era, things have gotten weird. I find it telling, and a little sad, that many of the complaints about sex in my novels clearly come from millennials and whatever the “gen” after that is called. Once upon a time, old people frowned on my smut. Now it’s smug kids who have lived very little. (I’ll pause while my son decides whether or not to edit that out.) That we’re also in the era of Fifty Shades of Grey does confuse the issue some. Are sexy books for women okay, but for men are objectionable?

Those who assume I include sex for gratuitous reasons may be partly right. As a youth, I learned from Spillane and Fleming, and they always had sex scenes sprinkled in as spice. Connery’s Bond always bedded three beauties. But what interests me most is how nobody complains about the violence. I have had not a single one of these sex complainers object to Quarry’s wholesale homicide. Heller’s, either.

Or as the Frankenstein Monster might say, “Sex baaaad, violence goooood.”

Recently working on polishing and completing the ‘50s novella “A Bullet For Satisfaction” (featured in The Last Stand, and developed from unpublished material in Mickey’s files), I edited out a sex scene. Imagine! Why? The characterization was off.

“A Bullet for Satisfaction” appears to be a collaboration between Mickey and one of his writer pals, unidentified. I doubt Mickey would have made the mistake that I had to rectify – a mistake of characterization. A beautiful woman and hero Rod Dexter go to bed (like Connery’s Bond, Rod beds several beauties in the novella), but it’s out of character for both of them.

So out it went.

I will admit to one thing. Often I have told Barb, “I’m not sure Quarry (or Heller or Hammer) and the love interest will wind up having sex in this one.” But almost always, they do. Barb’s patient smile when I raise the issue indicates she already knew the answer.

* * *

Here are more, better pics from the recent Crusin’ gig in Wilton, Iowa, at their annual all-classes reunion.

* * *

I am sorry to report that Super Troopers 2 is terrible. I love the Broken Lizard guys, and have liked every other movie of theirs, including of course the first Super Troopers. Barb and I were looking forward to this perhaps too much, and I will give it another try on home video release.

But the timing seemed strangely off, the jokes and situations not terribly funny (unless you’re into the comedy stylings of Rob Lowe), particularly the endlessly mined central gag of Canada being stupid or something. We spend a bunch of time with a trio of Mounties who are doggedly unfunny, even Mad TV’s Will Sasso.

Didn’t walk out, though.

I hope this doesn’t spell the end for Broken Lizard, whose members are very talented and likable. We saw them in person at Iowa City a few years ago and they were terrific, and met them after, finding them friendly and down to earth.

As for Super Troopers 2, maybe you can’t go home again. Or maybe middle-aged men acting like the young bucks of the first film just doesn’t work the same way.

* * *

Here’s a nice interview with me on the upcoming Mike Hammer mini-series (the four issues will be collected as a graphic novel).

And Publisher’s Weekly is interested in the Hammer mini-series, too.

M.A.C.

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Put Some Damn Clothes On!

Tuesday, April 17th, 2018

Below is an excerpt from a review of The Bloody Spur from the Western Writers of America Roundup Magazine. It’s what you’d call a mixed review, on the patronizing side, and is mostly a plot summary, which I’ve skipped. But it raises some issues I’ve been wanting to talk about.

“There’s an overdose of descriptions of setting and clothing, and characters are stereotypical. But it’s enjoyable in a conventional-Western way, and the murder mystery has some intriguing twists.”

Let me get the stereotypical charge out of the way first. Yes, the characters established in Mickey’s 1950s screenplay are stereotypical – the stranger in town who becomes sheriff, a beautiful dance hall girl, a blind rancher, a lovely tomboy, and a cantankerous coot who becomes a deputy. There’s also a local doctor. What Mickey did, and what I have continued to try to do, is make these types specific and sometimes surprising in their characterizations, and to bring a gritty, even shocking amount of Spillane-style violence to the party as well as a mystery/crime element.

I don’t mean to respond to the reviewer, just to make clear where Mickey and I are coming from.

What I want to discuss is the charge that I do too much description of setting and clothing. I have always done a good deal of that, but it’s only in recent years that the occasional reviewer (particularly the Amazon variety) has bitched about it. The same is true of the sexual element, but that doesn’t apply too much to the Caleb York novels, so I’ll save that for a future discussion.

From my point of view, too many authors send their characters running around in books stark naked, and I don’t mean in sex scenes. I view clothing as a tool of characterization. The clothing a character wears tells us who this person is, and how these characters perceive themselves, and wish to be perceived.

Setting is the same. A description of a house, interior or exterior, tells us who lives there – a bedroom, particularly, is revealing of character.

Any reader who thinks I can on too much about clothing or setting is free to skip or scan. No harm, no foul.

In an historical novel – which westerns like the Caleb York books are by definition – setting is particularly important. It is also a big part of my 20th Century-set mysteries. If I take Nate Heller to a Hooverville or a strip club, you can bet I’ll give you chapter and verse about those settings. If Heller – in a 1960s-era story, when he’s become prosperous – is something of a clothes horse, that speaks of character, of who is and what he’s become. He’s rather shallow in that regard, frankly – part of his characterization.

In a Caleb York story, if I take my hero into an apothecary or a general store, you can bet I will describe the damn thing, and in some detail. York isn’t walking into a Walgreen’s or a Safeway, after all. Part of this is taking what is a mythic western – having to do with movies and ‘50s/’60s TV, more than the reality of the west – and giving it some verisimilitude. By keeping the underpinnings real, making the setting authentic, I can get away with the melodrama.

And what I do is melodrama. Nobody uses that word anymore, at least not correctly. But much of what I have done as a writer for over forty years is present a realistic surface on which to present my somewhat over-the-top stories.

Again, feel free to skim or skip passages that bore you. Elmore Leonard, great writer that he was, pretty much left you on your own. What he did worked for him (but his “rules” of writing are worthwhile only if you want to be Elmore Leonard when you grow up, and we already have one of those).

I am well aware that I am involved in a collaborative process with the reader. It amuses me when two readers argue over whether a book is good or not, as if they shared the same experience. Obviously they didn’t. Sometimes the play or movie mounted in a reader’s mind is a big-budget, beautifully cast affair; other readers are capable only of amateur night productions.

Leonard and others may wish to cede their stories to the whims and abilities of their readers. I know to some extent that is inevitable – because no two readers will have the same experience reading fiction. But I believe in controlling the narrative to the fullest extent that I can. I consider a chief responsibility of my job is doing my job – to do the work for you, where setting and clothing are concerned and much more.

I understand and accept that I’m blessed and sometimes burdened with readers who are my inevitable collaborators. But I want them to come as close to experiencing the movie I saw in my head, and put down on paper for them, as I possibly can.

* * *

This past Saturday, Crusin’ played the first gig of the season (defined as: not winter, though we were somewhat double-crossed by April sleet and snow). We performed for the Wilton, Iowa, High School Alumni banquet, a very well-attended event that had been going since five p.m. when we went on stage around nine-thirty. We held a good share of the audience for two sets (we took no break) and debuted a lot of new material…well, old material, although a new original was included.


L to R: M.A.C., Joe McClean, Steve Kundel, Bill Anson and Brian Van Winkle.

It went well, and our old friend Joe McClean, a Wilton area boy, joined us on several numbers. Joe was the heart and soul of the great Midwestern band the XL’s, who are also in the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

Our new guitar player, Bill Anson, is doing a fine job, as are longtime drummer Steve Kundel and our bassist Brian Van Winkle, the “new guy” who has been with us seven years.

It felt great playing again. Loading afterward, not so much. And two days later I still am in anybody-get-the-name-of-that-truck mode.


M.A.C., Joe McClean.
* * *

My Scarface and the Untouchable co-author, A. Brad Schwartz, has written an op-ed piece for the Washington Post that has just appeared. Though I didn’t co-write it, I did some friendly editing and the piece beautifully discusses the somewhat facile comparisons being made of Trump as Capone and Comey/Mueller as Eliot Ness.

Wild Dog is back on Arrow this year. I haven’t watched the previous year yet.

Here’s a great review by Ron Fortier of the complete version of the Road to Perdition novel published by Brash Books.

Here’s where you can get signed copies of my books, including Killing Town and The Last Stand.

Road to Perdition the film is number three on this list of the best twelve Jude Law movies.

Finally, thanks to everyone who responded to the book giveaway posted last week. The books went quickly, and my apologies to those of you who missed out. Another will follow before too very long!

M.A.C.

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Mike Hammer Goes to Florida

Tuesday, January 16th, 2018

This week I will be on hand for the premiere night of Mike Hammer: Encore for Murder, Thursday, January 18, in Clearwater, Florida. Get the details for attending here.

And this article from the Tampa Bay Times will give you the rest of the story.

Plus here is an interview with Encore’s Mike Hammer – Gary Sandy (who some will recall was a star of my film Mommy’s Day, in which he appeared with Mickey Spillane).

The play runs through February 3rd, and kicks off the Mickey Spillane centenary year in a big way.

Here’s more on the show right here.

* * *

Check out this Publisher’s Weekly rave for Mickey’s final solo book, The Last Stand.

This is a nice Will to Kill review, with a look at the paperback’s cover.

Here’s another nice write-up on Crusin’ getting into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

M.A.C.

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Crusin’ to the Hall of Fame

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

I am very pleased to announce that my band Crusin’ has been named to the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. The current line-up will be inducted on Labor Day Weekend at Arnold’s Park, Iowa (more on this later). My previous band, the Daybreakers, which performed from 1966 through 1972, was inducted to the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

That both of my bands have been chosen for this honor means a great deal to me – just having two bands from Muscatine, Iowa, in the Hall of Fame would be impressive. That two members of the first band (myself and the late Paul Thomas) formed the second one is really special and an accomplishment I’m proud of.

I have requested that all of the past members, as well as the current line-up, be inducted into the Hall, and that request will be honored.

Here is a new bio of Crusin’, for those of you who came in late (or who have memories like mine).

M.A.C.

CRUSIN’ TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE IOWA ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HALL OF FAME

Steve Kundel, drums; Bill Anson, guitar; Max Allan Collins, keyboards; Brian Van Winkle, bass.

The Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Association’s Hall of Fame will include Crusin’ in its class of 2018. The band will perform at the induction concert on September 1 in Arnold’s Park, as will others of this year’s honorees.

Crusin’ was among the first — if the not the first — ’60s-revival bands anywhere. The band was founded by keyboard player/lead singer Max Allan Collins, leader of the Daybreakers, the celebrated Muscatine, Iowa, combo (1966 – 1972) whose cult single, “Psychedelic Siren,” is one of the most anthologized garage-band recordings of the 1960s. The Daybreakers were inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

Led by bestselling mystery writer Collins (Road to Perdition), Crusin’ continues to present its engaging mix of classic rock and their own ’60s-style originals. The current line-up includes Collins and longtime Crusin’ members, drummer Steve Kundel and bassist Brian Van Winkle, with recent addition guitarist Bill Anson. Bill is a veteran Muscatine musician who over the years has been in groups with Crusin’ members Chuck Bunn, Steve Kundel and Jamie Hopkins.

Crusin’ began in 1974. After the Daybreakers broke up in 1972, several members continued recording together and occasionally performing in coffee houses. Meeting socially, Collins and Paul Thomas (bass player in the final Daybreakers line-up) bemoaned the disco and other unappealing music then on the radio. Both expressed an interest in starting up another rock band, but neither could tolerate the current fare.

The success of the film American Graffiti and of such 1950s acts as Sha Na Na seemed to indicate that a Sixties revival band might also do well, even though that decade was only a few years in the past. Collins and Thomas brought in drummer Ric Steed, veteran of a number of area bands, and guitarist Lenny Sloat, who had been in two well-respected Muscatine mid-’60s combos, the Coachmen and Depot Rains. Their first performance at Muscatine’s popular disco, Warehouse 4, was a smash, with the band immediately booked back on a regular basis.

The quick, surprising success of Crusin’ at local clubs inspired the band to go fulltime, and Sloat opted out. Bruce Peters — the Daybreakers guitarist thought by many to have been one of the Midwest’s greatest rock showmen — was appearing as a solo act at the Improv and other clubs in LA when he wasn’t filling in with Van Halen and other top West Coast bands. Collins and Thomas convinced Peters to come back and join them, and the result was explosive — audiences who had enjoyed the band’s oldies were knocked out by the showmanship and charisma of the new line-up.

In the mid-to-late ’70s, Crusin’ was perhaps Eastern Iowa’s most popular band of any kind, playing to packed houses at such notable clubs of the era as Muscatine’s Warehouse 4, Grandview’s Talk of the Town, Burlington’s Ramp, Davenport’s Al’s Lounge, Conesville’s Thirsty Camel, and especially Dodgeville’s Pub, where for several years Crusin’ played every other weekend to capacity crowds on both Friday and Saturday nights in the Pub’s cavernous “Old Town” setting.

When health problems took Peters out of the group, Iowa City guitarist Rob Gal came in, infusing the group with his New Wave sensibilities. And when Collins left for a time to better pursue his blossoming writing career, the band continued as a three-piece, first as Crusin’ and then as the Ones. This version of the group was enormously successful on the Midwestern college circuit, releasing an LP that won heavy college-station airplay, with the group several times voted Iowa City’s most popular band in radio station competitions.

In the late ’80s, Collins returned and the band appeared under both the Crusin’ and Ones names — depending on the venue. “I Feel Better,” a Gal-penned tune from this period, became a regional hit thanks to Iowa City exposure.

Shortly thereafter, Gal moved to the Atlanta area, performed and recorded with the nationally known band “The Coolies,” and became a successful record producer. Collins and Paul Thomas kept going as Crusin’ with various members — including original Daybreakers bassist Chuck Bunn (who passed away in 2011), but always with Collins and, until his death in 2006, Thomas. The band has performed not only in Eastern Iowa but in Omaha, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Oakland, and Chicago, opened for national acts at Davenport’s Col Ballroom, and twice appeared at the famed Williamsburg, Iowa, World’s Biggest Beach Party.

Over the years, the band released three vinyl LPs, a gold-vinyl EP, and three CDs, most recently a live CD, Rock ‘n’ Roll Happened. Crusin’s recording efforts have been widely praised by music-magazine reviewers: Goldmine called the band “eminently danceable and always listenable”; and Option (reviewing their 1991 CD, Bullets!) raved of “a breezy pop-rock sound that recalls the best of the late ‘6Os.” Their track (“Little Bit Me, Little Bit You”) for Here No Evil, the nationally released 1992 Monkees tribute album assembled by old bandmate Gal, was singled out for praise by reviewers. They frequently performed live on Muscatine FM station KFMH for popular, controversial DJ Steve Bridges (a 2017 Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee).

In recent years, Crusin’ has contributed around a dozen original songs to Collins’ independent feature films Mommy (seen on Lifetime TV with Crusin’ performing on camera), Mommy’s Day, and Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, all available on DVD.

Crusin’ has appeared in concert with such nationally prominent acts as the Turtles, the Young Rascals, the Buckinghams, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Grass Roots, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Mary Wilson and the Supremes, Bobby Vee, Peter Noone, Chubby Checker, Freddy Cannon, Tommy Roe, the Kingsmen, Johnny Tillotson, Rare Earth, the Crystals, the Mamas and Papas, Bo Diddley, Iggy Pop and the Romantics.

Their current show is a fun, unusual mix of classic rock, delving deeper into the ‘70s and ‘80s than before, with a sprinkling of originals spanning the group’s many years and many recordings.

Several other talented musicians have been members of Crusin’. Andy Landers, rhythm guitar, is a fulltime performer and recording artist as both a solo act and leader of Mainstreet Struggleville out of Olympia, Washington. Stellar guitarist Jim Van Winkle took over for the late Paul Thomas and was with the band for over a decade. Dennis Maxwell, now in Scottsdale, Arizona, was one of the original Daybreakers; for several years he played bass and guitar with Crusin’. Father and son DeWayne and Jamie Hopkins were both drummers with the band in the ‘90s. DeWayne is the only member of Crusin’ to go on to be mayor of Muscatine.

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