Category: Life

The Savage Breed Story

savagebreed

I came across a discussion on Facebook a few months ago about Savage Breed, a book published in 1959, allegedly by a man from Chesterfield County, SC, my hometown county.  I’d never heard of it, but some of the comments intrigued me.

There were hints of censorship.

When I moved to Cheraw all the kids were talking about this book….could not be sold in Cheraw…could not be in the library…..there was talk back then that it was actually written by a woman.

And scandal.

At the time (60’s) I recognized all the characters. It was really the talk of the county!

And more scandal.

I remember being told the young man’s father tried to buy up as many copies as he could, out of embarrassment over the book’s content.

I wondered if there was any truth to the stories that this book referenced places and maybe even people from home.  So being the computer savvy cat that I am, I set up a few eBay, web and Amazon scripts and waited.  It took almost a year, but I got a hit.  Someone had a used copy for sale via Amazon.

So I bought it.  For $20.

Published by Newsstand Library Books in December 1959.  By William K. Douglas.  126 pages.  Originally 35 cents.   No “about the author” paragraph.  It’s pretty clear from the “other books” pages at the back that Newsstand Library Books featured a lot of soft-core pulp and not much high-brow literature.

Nevertheless, I was happy to receive my copy of the much-discussed book.  Here’s the first sentence:

“Luke Saxon turned off the Bloomfield Bypass, and got on Highway number 9.  He was going to Camel, 13 miles away, to pick up Dot Silvens.”  Hmm.  There’s no Bloomfield back home, but there’s a Bennettsville.  At first I thought maybe Camel was a thinly disguised pseudonym for Cheraw, but that turned out not to be the case.  More on this below.

It takes less than 10 pages to get racy.  By page 20, it’s crude and exploitative.  By 2013 standards.  Beyond that by 1959 standards.

First stop, “Lory’s Drive-In.”  Never heard of it or anything similar to it.  Same with “the Hightower,” described as the local beer joint.

In chapter 2 there’s a mention of Winthrop, “the state college for girls.”  I just think of it as one of the many schools to beat Wake Forest in basketball, since Ron Wellman’s ego assassinated the program.  There’s also a mention, in Chapter 2, of going to a Rock Hudson movie in…wait for it…Cheraw.  That is, however, the one and only mention of Cheraw.

Mostly, it’s just one scene after another in which some brothers and their friends do horrible things to weakly portrayed women.  A literary masterpiece, it is not.  “When you had enough beer, you didn’t need a woman.  They could go to hell, and be damned.”

In sum, two brothers and their friends do horrible things.  One brother is a completely horrible person.  The other brother is only around 90% horrible.  90% marries a girl, who has been abused for years by her pharmacist father.  100% impregnates her, while 90% is at work.  An abused farm hand kills 100%.  The abusive father marries the brothers’ young cousin.  At the end, there is some small nod towards resolution, as the remaining family gathers for a completely dysfunctional Christmas meal.  It’s bad, shallow writing, designed mainly to get from one soft-core scene to the next.

The more interesting question is whether any part of this was based on actual events or people from my hometown.  I’d have to say unlikely, as the events are really just your run of the mill horrible acts by your run of the mill horrible people.  Cheraw was mentioned exactly once, and none of the action takes place there.  One existing road (Highway 9) was mentioned.  Other than that, I saw nothing that sounded familiar.

I will say this, however.  To the extent any of these events or people really occurred or existed, there is no doubt that this book would have been extremely scandalous when written.  I also think the author would have been sued, or killed.

Bottom line?  It’s poorly written, trashy pulp, likely authored by someone in or near Chesterfield County, SC.  If any of the events in the book are factually accurate, it would be surprising and likely unprovable.

David Collins Was a Cream Fan!

I am re-watching the entire original Dark Shadows series as treadmill fare.  I’ve watched it twice before, once as a kid when it was on the air and once when it was on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the nineties.  It’s good stuff.

I have been struck this time by the complete lack in the series of any cultural references from the era.  It was mostly set in the late 60s to early 7os.  Other than an occasional reference to seeing an (unnamed) movie, there are virtually no references to music, film or television.  In fact, I can only recall seeing a television in one scene.  A woman’s boarding house room as she was terrorized by John Yaeger.

As a result, I’ve watched closely for any intentional or unintentional cultural references.  I noticed a cardboard animal in David Collins’ room that said “Chicken Little was Right.”  A google search didn’t turn up anything interesting.  There are some interesting posters in David Collins’s room, but until today there was never a close enough shot to see what they were.

But today.

collinscream

There was a scene where I could read this poster.  It says Aug 29 – Sept 3.  I gave google a shot, and much to my surprise and delight it turns out TO BE A CREAM POSTER!!!

cream-fillmore-poster-2

Specifically, a Fillmore poster for Cream’s Aug. 29-Sept. 3, 1967 shows with the Electric Flag and the Gary Burton Quartet.

How awesome is that?

A close look shows that they removed the references to the bands and the Fillmore, but it is clearly the same poster.

Update:

There’s another Cream poster in David’s room too.

creamaug22

This one from Cream’s  Aug. 22-27, 1967 shows with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the South Side Sound System.

Animal Rights Extremism + Duck Dynasty = Hilarity

One of my favorite things is when someone takes a stupid position on something and the rest of the world makes hilarious fun of it.  I do it.  Sometimes it’s done to me.  Either way it’s good.

duckdynasty

Duck Dynasty is one of the best shows on TV.  My entire family loves it, and you can rarely get all of us to agree on anything.  Virtually all of the cast members come across as genuinely good, moral folks.  Things I’ve read and heard about them off-camera are consistent with that impression.  The Smiths were pretty cool.  A long time ago.  Post-Smiths Morrissey, not so much.  So when Morrissey decided to cancel his appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show because the Duck Dynasty crew was appearing, hilarity ensued.

Here’s the thing.  Animal rights activism suffers from the same malady politics and gun control debate suffers from.  There are very few logical, middle ground voices to be heard in the chaos of stupidity and extremism.  I am generally inclined to favor reasonable animal rights.  It doesn’t mean I’m not going to eat some of them (though close to half my meals are meat-free), but I generally get it.  Nothing, however, makes me want to shoot some animals as badly as 99% of the things PETA publishes.

So props to Jimmy and the Duck Dynasty crew for making fun of Morrissey.  I get it.  If you’re going to cancel this appearance because hunters are appearing, you better have a very small circle of friends and business associates, because if these guys violate your sense of righteousness, so does most of the rest of the population.  On the other hand, if the cancellation is really just about you being you, maybe it doesn’t matter so much.

So It Turns Out that Your Cash May, in Fact, Be Nothing but Trash

First, a musical interlude.

I remember singing that song on Sugarloaf Mountain when I was a kid.  I have no other context to that memory, but there you go.

nocash
On airlines this is trash

I’ve been under the deeply held misunderstanding that all commercial endeavors were required to take cash.  You know, money.  I’ve actually yelled at people who wouldn’t take my legal tender, in lieu of a credit card that inserts banks, merchant charges and interest rates into my desire to acquire.

Whoops.

Turns out that they were just kidding about that legal tender for all debts, public and private stuff:

[The Coinage Act of 1965] means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.

I don’t drink much or buy overpriced headphones ever, so while I have noticed the airlines announced no-cash requirements, I’ve always thought that if the need to booze it up overcame me on a plane, I could force my will and logic and dollar bills on them.

Thank goodness I never decided to try.

Trees and Water and Saving the Planet

savetheplanet
mercy, mercy me

It’s still heartbreaking to drive around in Bastrop and see all the dead trees, from the 2011 fire.

Today I read about an effort by Texas A&M students to replant trees in the area.

Fire-ravaged Bastrop State Park and its fabled Lost Pines area got a big boost this weekend on a quest to regain its lost beauty and ecological vitality, thanks to hundreds of Texas A&M University students who came to plant pine seedlings — thousands of them — under the watchful eyes of Texas A&M Forest Service and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department personnel.

This is truly awesome.  I hope planting trees becomes a big thing, across all of fire and drought plagued Texas.

While we’re saving the planet, I also read an interesting article today about how much water can be saved by simply turning the faucet off while you’re brushing you teeth.

What if we turn off the tap while brushing, turning it on only to wet the brush and then to rinse? Say 15 seconds in all?  Under these assumptions, you would only use 230 gallons per year, a savings of 1170 gallons per year or 84%.  Now, what if all 314 million of us – today’s population of the United States – changed our behavior?  Whoa. All of a sudden, we’re talking about saving 370 billion gallons of water a year.

Between my concern for both ends (well and septic tank) I always turn off the water at the farm.  In town, not so much…until now.  I’m in, and I hope you are too.

Evening Reading: 1/30/13

I can, sort of, understand why someone might voluntarily choose an Android phone over an iPhone.  I have a harder time understanding why someone would voluntarily chose a Windows Phone, but I can get there.  But I cannot in my wildest dreams understand why someone would voluntarily choose a Blackberry. Here’s a good review of the new (years too late) handset.

I gave up my virtualization software when I finally admitted that my Windows Live Writer days were behind me.  But if I hadn’t, I would read every word of this.  If you have a Mac and want to run Windows programs, start there.

I guess there’s some part of me that is a little old lady in disguise, because I have to tell you that I would never, ever buy something off of Craigslist.  Sorry, but the whole place seems like a scam for all.

spacemonkey

So Iran sent a monkey to space.  Space monkey, space monkey, whatcha doin’ up there….

My buddy Will wants to go hunting, but he doesn’t like guns.  So he wants to use a slingshot.  OK.  We can do that.  Here’s one.

Here’s some dude named Abe’s list of 50 essential science fiction books.  I can’t list 50, but the Hyperion Cantos, the Pelbar Cycle and Star Man’s Son would be at the top.

Evening Reading: 1/28/13

I don’t always want to be a cat, but when I do, I want to be a Canada Lynx.

Speaking of cats, my cat  wouldn’t cross the street to come back to us (literally, I’m not kidding), but this cat travels 200 miles?

It’s been a long time since I played computer games, but I can tell you that I’m intrigued by the forthcoming SimCity reboot.  SimCity was one of the first computer games that really got me hooked.  Actually it was the mostly forgotten SimFarm first, and then SimCity.  The fact that the new version will be released on Mac doesn’t bode well for my free time.

I was a boss sim farmer
I was a boss SimFarmer back in the day

RIP Leroy Bonner.  When my kids want to talk to me about the non-music they listen to and how lame daddy’s music is, I make them watch this.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, on the radio today rocks like that.

Speaking of old things.  I am bewildered by the gems that Raiders of the Lost Walmart uncover.  My first digital camera was a Sony Mavica.  You can have your own, for a mere $269.  You’ll also need an ancient computer with a floppy drive.

If there is one thing that should never be consumed, it’s non-diet soda.  I go postal on the rare occasions when my kids ask me if they can have one.

I’m sure internet dating is a little scary.  Getting stabbed 10 times while on an internet date is probably really scary.