What an evocative, powerful universe of a short-short story. It kind of snuck up on me. I'd been hoping that this pinball wizard was going to be good guy. I guess not all Tommies can be Who we want them to be.
We need a lot more about this character presented by you - whether fictional or documentary or a hybridization:)
It reminded me, though, of the concept/practice of karma. I wonder if he was caught in the middle of some - and had to pay the price of dying young for embodying someone else's malevolence.
Heard your great conversation on House of Strauss. You have to go back and talk more hoops/culture/politics - and about the divinity of SALMON:)
I played ( against Rod Strickland, Harold Pressley, Ed Pinckney in high school) and coached myself... for a long time - including several NBA players (Carlos Arroyo and JJ Barrea). I was a Puerto Rican kid recruited to suburban white Catholic schools to play hoops - so much of your background resonates with me ( one foot in two different worlds?). Puerto Rico - where I spent many summers - is another colony/ghetto set up to exploit resources (San Juan is the glitzy tourist area promoting the idea of island prosperity, but it's a Smoke Screen:) I actually stopped coaching at a fork in the road: coaching at a D1 in Florida - or have my first stage play produced. I chose the latter, moving on to write film (SMOKE SIGNALS was one of my first inspirations to start to write film, and then TV as well). I lived in Hollywood for six years, and yes, it's WORSE than Las Vegas! Choosing to write more than X's and O's on a chalkboard has "made all the difference" - at least, to ME.
(Though point guards in the U.S. are less skilled and knowledgeable because of my hanging up my sneakers/clipboard!:)
Sorry, just seeing this - didn't get notification (I'm new to substack and the settings I've not yet configured, ahem, correctly!).
The play was entitled CROSSING CURRENTS - and it starred Berto Colon ( currently star of TV series GHOST: POWER BOOK TWO),Rudy Valdez ( who won a Directing award at Sundance two years ago) and Rene Rosado (Major Crimes, The Conners, and Filly Brown -also a Sundance darling a few years ago).
The play won me a spot in the NHMC TV writing Fellowship - which was co-sponsored by NBC/ABC - a few years ago.
I'm in Florida in pre-production on the film version - entitled 98.6 Miles.
It's a very edgy father-son drama.
More exciting than that though - is a scripted TV series I've developed with a basketball patina. Imagine the hope of Friday Night Lights - with the gritty societal commentary of Breaking Bad/The Wire - set on the hardwood. It's called Shooting Stars - and just so you don't think it's too on the nose (lol) - the title has 4 layers of meaning! No spoilers yet on all four - but here's one: Puerto Rico is called the "star of the Caribbean")
I could share the log line - and something I'm really proud of that we just finished: a compelling PITCH VIDEO. I'd love to get feedback from someone who has both a basketball passion, artistic insight and gravitas - and a sophisticated macro view of the world - which you obviously do - and I'm not blowing Smoke (Signals:)
Hint: even without a basketball jones, I feel millions will find the character palette and thru line stories - quite compelling - as will you.
If you love what you see and are inspired, perhaps we could have a discussion about you being part of the writing producing team? The pitch video shows some of the major talent that already attached. And I'm a huge fan of yours.
I had a tormentor in elementary school, a hulking monster who terrorized me along with a lot of the smaller kids. He was cruelty personified. One time, he caught me right outside the gymnasium on the night of my first school dance. I was dressed in my Sunday suit, corsage in hand for my first girlfriend. She was so pretty. I was in love.
Raymond was lurking in the shadows and cornered me before I could reach safety. He did the usual shakedown, a few hard shoves into the wall, a slap or two, a couple of punches to the gut. The normal routine. But then he saw the flowers. They were perfect fodder. Something beautiful to destroy. I can still hear his leering, “Flowers for your girlfriend?” As he crushed them in his meaty, wet paw. Just a few minutes was all it took. The night was ruined, along with my first chance at romance. It’s hard to impress a girl when you’re sobbing and broken.
I told my friends about it, and they decided that he’d finally crossed the line, so we hatched a revenge plan. I would be the bait. The three of them would hide in bushes and rush him before he could get to me. As soon as I saw him, I yelled and called him an asshole. He was caught off guard by my insolence, but quickly regained his bearings and lumbered towards me, angrier with every step.
The plan was perfect in theory and execution. They caught him just inches short of my destruction and drug him to the ground. It’s been five decades, and I can still see his eyes bulged with fear as he realized what was happening. We lit into him like piranhas and extracted our revenge in brutal and creative fashion. We unleashed years of pent up humiliation, fear and rage and left him in a quivering heap on the edge of the playground. He never touched me again.
Yes, I remember hearing the phrase “playground justice” in a song by one of those Texas songwriters. (Guy Clark, maybe?) And thinking that’s exactly what he was talking about.
I think every emotion is always bubbling close to the surface for me. I've learned over the last five years that I'm an unhappy person. Unhappiness is my default mode.
I'm curious about characters that recur in your stories. Thomas Runner's name reminds me of Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Does he also have a source in your past? I always thought that both Victor and Junior are your alter egos.
Sacrilege! Colette, please find a 3 dimensional, hands-on pinball machine. Nothing matches the tactile feel of the flippers on the metal ball or the joy of getting just the right "bump" on the machine to get more points without "tilting" the machine!
I have always believed fear causes bullies. The few I had to deal with growing up, all feared their fathers, the ones that made them afraid, made them bullies. And thanks for John Wayne's Teeth. I'm going to pullout my "Smoke Signals" dvd to watch one more time.
Wow Sherman. You just blew my mind. I hadn't consciously realized that. That in order to fight the monsters you run the risk of becoming one. Now that would be an interesting story. The choice to self sacrifice to either not become a monster. Or the choice to become one but still deep inside remembering who you were and be able to make the right decision later on when it comes down to it. Oh! I just realized. That's what happened in Indian Killer, ennit?
As a current pinball enthusiast, I probably have played that table (I’d guess a Gotlieb) at some point. Someone bought that table was it for spite, a joke, or just what was available?
Anyway, I encourage everyone to play pinball it’s good for the soul and most of ‘em aren’t going to trigger bad memories.
This post (and any post) about pinball get my approval.
Probably not too relevant but the last “cowboy” pinball table I played had no Indian imagery I can recall. It was stuff like, “shoot the bottles” or “high noon showdown.” It was Cactus Canyon: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/cactus-canyon
Hey, I think I found the right one. It wasn't called Wild West. It was Quick Draw. I'm maybe 60% sure this is this the right machine. https://youtu.be/aUNC0LDCvjA
I wouldn’t be surprised if they have that at my local arcade but I will say this about z those old Gotlieb tables: they’re hard as shit! Way harder than the modern tables. The flippers are shorter, and the out-lanes are merciless. That kinda makes Tommy even more badass in my book.
We all have these monsters in ôur pasts. The Inde' (Apache) have stories of our beginnings. The biggest and best is about two brothers, Born for the Water and Monster Slayer, and their mom Changing Woman. There's no dad really. Because their mom was hot and very special indeed. She got pregnant by the Sun and Water once bathing in a stream. Anyhow I guess there was monsters all over the place eating the people. (It's a long story about men and women arguing that we don't have time for.) The mom was able to hide the two boys from the monsters. But when they were teens they started wanting to get them monsters. A friend of mine made this story into a comic book. In it Monster Slayer is on his own. Except he's begun to lose it from all the bad stuff he's seen done to his mom, his people. Through his eyes he sees those monsters just as he heard the old people describe them on the rez, a giant eagle who could see you wherever you hid and swoop down and swallow you in one gulp. The thing was the monster was just some dude who did evil things. Monster Slayer walked in both worlds and because of it, he was crazy. But it didn't matter. Coz monster or evil guy, Monster Slayer killed 'em. And the world was a better place for it. He even had like a team. A guitar player who was a combination of Prince and Hendrix. A girl who Monster Slayer freed from an evil white man who wanted to eat her soul. This was back before they were mining the comics for blockbuster films. It woulda been a killer movie. Haha! So I don't know if the pain broke him or if he transformed it into something else. It's that true? Do people really turn the pain into something else that can help, that is good?
I think of all the people on my rez who were and remain good, good people despite the individual and collective pain, despite the call to become monsters in order to fight the monsters. I think people are incredibly resilient.
I think you need to talk to Jordan Peterson. Because he said something about needing to make the right sacrifices to God. That is what the Cain and Able story is about. I think Peterson would learn something important from what you say to him.
What an evocative, powerful universe of a short-short story. It kind of snuck up on me. I'd been hoping that this pinball wizard was going to be good guy. I guess not all Tommies can be Who we want them to be.
Great Who pun!
It's just the way my mind works. Thanks for your work!
You're welcome.
This is a powerful TEASER!
We need a lot more about this character presented by you - whether fictional or documentary or a hybridization:)
It reminded me, though, of the concept/practice of karma. I wonder if he was caught in the middle of some - and had to pay the price of dying young for embodying someone else's malevolence.
Hahahahah! A coming attraction! I think perhaps some of my shorter Substack pieces might become longer when I publish them in traditional book format.
Heard your great conversation on House of Strauss. You have to go back and talk more hoops/culture/politics - and about the divinity of SALMON:)
I played ( against Rod Strickland, Harold Pressley, Ed Pinckney in high school) and coached myself... for a long time - including several NBA players (Carlos Arroyo and JJ Barrea). I was a Puerto Rican kid recruited to suburban white Catholic schools to play hoops - so much of your background resonates with me ( one foot in two different worlds?). Puerto Rico - where I spent many summers - is another colony/ghetto set up to exploit resources (San Juan is the glitzy tourist area promoting the idea of island prosperity, but it's a Smoke Screen:) I actually stopped coaching at a fork in the road: coaching at a D1 in Florida - or have my first stage play produced. I chose the latter, moving on to write film (SMOKE SIGNALS was one of my first inspirations to start to write film, and then TV as well). I lived in Hollywood for six years, and yes, it's WORSE than Las Vegas! Choosing to write more than X's and O's on a chalkboard has "made all the difference" - at least, to ME.
(Though point guards in the U.S. are less skilled and knowledgeable because of my hanging up my sneakers/clipboard!:)
Wow, you and I do have some resonance in our lives. What an amazing story you have! Have you written about it? And what was your stage play?
Sorry, just seeing this - didn't get notification (I'm new to substack and the settings I've not yet configured, ahem, correctly!).
The play was entitled CROSSING CURRENTS - and it starred Berto Colon ( currently star of TV series GHOST: POWER BOOK TWO),Rudy Valdez ( who won a Directing award at Sundance two years ago) and Rene Rosado (Major Crimes, The Conners, and Filly Brown -also a Sundance darling a few years ago).
The play won me a spot in the NHMC TV writing Fellowship - which was co-sponsored by NBC/ABC - a few years ago.
I'm in Florida in pre-production on the film version - entitled 98.6 Miles.
It's a very edgy father-son drama.
More exciting than that though - is a scripted TV series I've developed with a basketball patina. Imagine the hope of Friday Night Lights - with the gritty societal commentary of Breaking Bad/The Wire - set on the hardwood. It's called Shooting Stars - and just so you don't think it's too on the nose (lol) - the title has 4 layers of meaning! No spoilers yet on all four - but here's one: Puerto Rico is called the "star of the Caribbean")
I could share the log line - and something I'm really proud of that we just finished: a compelling PITCH VIDEO. I'd love to get feedback from someone who has both a basketball passion, artistic insight and gravitas - and a sophisticated macro view of the world - which you obviously do - and I'm not blowing Smoke (Signals:)
Hint: even without a basketball jones, I feel millions will find the character palette and thru line stories - quite compelling - as will you.
If you love what you see and are inspired, perhaps we could have a discussion about you being part of the writing producing team? The pitch video shows some of the major talent that already attached. And I'm a huge fan of yours.
Love to email you the pitch video link.
I had a tormentor in elementary school, a hulking monster who terrorized me along with a lot of the smaller kids. He was cruelty personified. One time, he caught me right outside the gymnasium on the night of my first school dance. I was dressed in my Sunday suit, corsage in hand for my first girlfriend. She was so pretty. I was in love.
Raymond was lurking in the shadows and cornered me before I could reach safety. He did the usual shakedown, a few hard shoves into the wall, a slap or two, a couple of punches to the gut. The normal routine. But then he saw the flowers. They were perfect fodder. Something beautiful to destroy. I can still hear his leering, “Flowers for your girlfriend?” As he crushed them in his meaty, wet paw. Just a few minutes was all it took. The night was ruined, along with my first chance at romance. It’s hard to impress a girl when you’re sobbing and broken.
I told my friends about it, and they decided that he’d finally crossed the line, so we hatched a revenge plan. I would be the bait. The three of them would hide in bushes and rush him before he could get to me. As soon as I saw him, I yelled and called him an asshole. He was caught off guard by my insolence, but quickly regained his bearings and lumbered towards me, angrier with every step.
The plan was perfect in theory and execution. They caught him just inches short of my destruction and drug him to the ground. It’s been five decades, and I can still see his eyes bulged with fear as he realized what was happening. We lit into him like piranhas and extracted our revenge in brutal and creative fashion. We unleashed years of pent up humiliation, fear and rage and left him in a quivering heap on the edge of the playground. He never touched me again.
Oh my God, that's terrible on many levels and also a tale of justice, I think. Damn, damn, damn.
Yes, I remember hearing the phrase “playground justice” in a song by one of those Texas songwriters. (Guy Clark, maybe?) And thinking that’s exactly what he was talking about.
I'm gonna find that song!
It’s from Stuff That Works by Guy Clark, but I misquoted it. He sings “She's got a playground sense of justice, she won't take odds.”
Wow, John Wayne's Teeth! That's why I always try to listen to your writing...for little gems/earworms like that!
Also, I want to say something about the use of anger/hate in your stories...It's such a strong emotion...is it easy to write about?
I think every emotion is always bubbling close to the surface for me. I've learned over the last five years that I'm an unhappy person. Unhappiness is my default mode.
Well, that is a heck of a thing to learn. Hope the knowledge of it makes you more powerful.
I wish you Peace
I don't know if it gives me power. But it helps me understand myself better. Is that power?
Absolutely! Understanding yourself helps you better understand how/why you relate to everyone/everything else. My humble opinion, of course.
A true to life ‘Pinball Wizard’, and what a marvelous tale of twisted lights, bells, and cowboy ghosts. And under anger, sadness.
Thank you, Jeff.
"...every piece of anger has a creation story." It's truths like this that knock me speechless the first time I read them.
Thank you!
I'm curious about characters that recur in your stories. Thomas Runner's name reminds me of Thomas Builds-the-Fire. Does he also have a source in your past? I always thought that both Victor and Junior are your alter egos.
I used Tommy, echoing Thomas Builds-the-Fire, to reiterate that it was an alias.
Brilliant. Especially the spit turning into bloody monsters. I am going to try that!! P S...never played pinball!!
Thank you, Colette, there are many pinballs you can play in your phone!
Aha! You just opened up a can of worms! I am addicted to Wordwipe but probably need some variety!!!!
Sacrilege! Colette, please find a 3 dimensional, hands-on pinball machine. Nothing matches the tactile feel of the flippers on the metal ball or the joy of getting just the right "bump" on the machine to get more points without "tilting" the machine!
Oh I just read your comment! Well I guess I have to find a way somehow to do both now! It may take me awhile but it sounds pretty worth it!!!
The Holy Pinball Machine!
Hahahahahahahahaha
I have always believed fear causes bullies. The few I had to deal with growing up, all feared their fathers, the ones that made them afraid, made them bullies. And thanks for John Wayne's Teeth. I'm going to pullout my "Smoke Signals" dvd to watch one more time.
Thanks, Steve! It just felt right to include "John Wayne's Teeth" with a Wild West pinball machine.
And Nietzsche's abyss. Stare into the abyss too long and you become the abyss.
Wow Sherman. You just blew my mind. I hadn't consciously realized that. That in order to fight the monsters you run the risk of becoming one. Now that would be an interesting story. The choice to self sacrifice to either not become a monster. Or the choice to become one but still deep inside remembering who you were and be able to make the right decision later on when it comes down to it. Oh! I just realized. That's what happened in Indian Killer, ennit?
That is indeed Indian Killer.
As a current pinball enthusiast, I probably have played that table (I’d guess a Gotlieb) at some point. Someone bought that table was it for spite, a joke, or just what was available?
Anyway, I encourage everyone to play pinball it’s good for the soul and most of ‘em aren’t going to trigger bad memories.
This post (and any post) about pinball get my approval.
I don't know how that pinball machine came to the rez. But, hey, as the poet James Welch wrote, "Indians make the best cowboys."
Probably not too relevant but the last “cowboy” pinball table I played had no Indian imagery I can recall. It was stuff like, “shoot the bottles” or “high noon showdown.” It was Cactus Canyon: https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/cactus-canyon
Anyway... is this the game you remember?
https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/wild-wild-west
Hey, I think I found the right one. It wasn't called Wild West. It was Quick Draw. I'm maybe 60% sure this is this the right machine. https://youtu.be/aUNC0LDCvjA
I wouldn’t be surprised if they have that at my local arcade but I will say this about z those old Gotlieb tables: they’re hard as shit! Way harder than the modern tables. The flippers are shorter, and the out-lanes are merciless. That kinda makes Tommy even more badass in my book.
He was magical. He could almost lift that thing and it wouldn't tilt!
No, that's not the one. Our Wild West had much more traditional art. Like the cover of a western novel.
We all have these monsters in ôur pasts. The Inde' (Apache) have stories of our beginnings. The biggest and best is about two brothers, Born for the Water and Monster Slayer, and their mom Changing Woman. There's no dad really. Because their mom was hot and very special indeed. She got pregnant by the Sun and Water once bathing in a stream. Anyhow I guess there was monsters all over the place eating the people. (It's a long story about men and women arguing that we don't have time for.) The mom was able to hide the two boys from the monsters. But when they were teens they started wanting to get them monsters. A friend of mine made this story into a comic book. In it Monster Slayer is on his own. Except he's begun to lose it from all the bad stuff he's seen done to his mom, his people. Through his eyes he sees those monsters just as he heard the old people describe them on the rez, a giant eagle who could see you wherever you hid and swoop down and swallow you in one gulp. The thing was the monster was just some dude who did evil things. Monster Slayer walked in both worlds and because of it, he was crazy. But it didn't matter. Coz monster or evil guy, Monster Slayer killed 'em. And the world was a better place for it. He even had like a team. A guitar player who was a combination of Prince and Hendrix. A girl who Monster Slayer freed from an evil white man who wanted to eat her soul. This was back before they were mining the comics for blockbuster films. It woulda been a killer movie. Haha! So I don't know if the pain broke him or if he transformed it into something else. It's that true? Do people really turn the pain into something else that can help, that is good?
I think of all the people on my rez who were and remain good, good people despite the individual and collective pain, despite the call to become monsters in order to fight the monsters. I think people are incredibly resilient.
I think you need to talk to Jordan Peterson. Because he said something about needing to make the right sacrifices to God. That is what the Cain and Able story is about. I think Peterson would learn something important from what you say to him.
I'd love to talk with Peterson about our agreements and disagreements.
Me too. I hit my stride about 7 minutes in! LOL!!!
Edmund Fitzgerald forever!
Let’s do lunch at Alice’s Restaurant!
Full disclosure... you need to know, that came from someone who has written songs that feel like essays!
Oh, get me the wordiest song possible! I'm not a dance guy. I'm a sing-me-a-story guy.
Whispered in darkness
Spoken in stealth
He prayed for the father
He saw in himself...