I met a reader this week who is unfamiliar with Mr. Cormac McCarthy…that is to say, heard of him, never read him. I judged their bookie level high enough to appreciate the border trilogy, so I ordered it up as a gift – they’re real cheap on Amazon. Not that I’m any great judge of anything, particularly intelligence, but you know, if I can introduce someone to a great writer whom they’ll cherish the rest of their life, I feel like I’ve really accomplished something.

However, at what point do you spring Blood Meridian on the unsuspecting? Is the Border Trilogy enough to prepare for Blood Meridian? Because I think that’s one of the greatest novels ever written, and should be read by everybody. it needs the proper preperation, though, I think. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing stopping my recommendee from diving right into it, is there?

I’m on record for both Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove as literary genius. They’re basically two poles that define the sphere of great American writing, for me. All else falls in there somewhere.

I really need to re-read Suttree, too.

OK, then, that was rambly. I’m thirsty for some book talk. Winter, you know…gets dark early. Lots of reading.

…as sung by angels, even.

At least, the way I think angels would sound.

Merry Christmas, yall. Thanks for sticking around this dusty corner of the interweb. Enjoy your eggnogs.

A trip report from the El Cortez. I know that, just like me, you’ve wondered if the ElCo is even barely habitable for those quickie poker-junkie weekends we all love so much. Well, you make the call.

Impressed as we were by our $30 a night hotel, we were eager to head back up Fremont and hit a casino where the grim specter of Death didn’t haunt our every echoing step.

Don’t you wish you could write that good? It’s worth noting that Pedro payed $30 per night on Rodeo Opening Weekend. That. Is. Cheap. And really – who got $100 worth out of their room at the IP?

But wow, regardless. First ElCo trip report ever. I’m kinda diggin’ $30 per night.

The greatest radio station I ever listened to is brought low by cocaine. And I can say that as a Day 1 P1.

All good things come to an end, and Greggo getting rich, snorting it up & calling in the lawyers is perfectly fitting. Sounds ridiculously familiar, even.

Oh, the radio station will stay around with lesser lights filling in, but the fun part of the Ticket was the OGs. With an integral member of the founding team gone, the cracks show, the strain grows, and the money-whipping won’t work much beyond what it’s done so far. It barely holds together any more, any way.

Still, thanks for two decades worth of genius, boys. That’s more than I got out of the Zoo (and that’s why they’re #2.)

I am not on board with the NFL stringing games out all week long like some kind of Pee-Wee league trying to make up a rainout weekend.

Hollywood writers reject award shows

The Writers Guild of America, West, will not allow its members to write for the Golden Globes on Jan. 13 nor the Academy Awards on Feb. 24.

I hope this holds. I salivate at the thought of deejays, talk-show nerds, and every other specie of boring not having the awards show convo-crutch for a year.

5-word movie review: Not nearly enough zombie killin’.

I am still a boy at heart, so frankly, I expect even a good-hearted, self-blaming, forward-thinking Last Man Standing to do some more damage to the mutant hordes. Dude, he was an Army colonel — Helll-looo, keys to the arm-o-ry! Instead, he got keys to the Ford dealership, and three years on, still doesn’t know how to hunt frikkin’ deer. That’s moh-ron blue-state Hollywood, though, I guess.

Two Shiners out of five — that means matinee dollars, not full-price dollars.

Dang – I got the dreaded ‘You still alive?’ callout in the comments.

Just busy, folks. Covered up in all manner of crap, so not particularly inspired. The most inspiring thing I can think of that’s happened lately is old Fred Thompson refusing to do a hand-puppet game for the editrix in Iowa. That’s faintly sad, don’t you think?

I’ve been on the road a lot, too. I-35 is grinding me down, and I’ve got at least one more truck trip before the end of the year.

Some good news…I made the monthly strip-club free-roll Tournament of Champeens. Big whoop – the payout for the winner is far less than I spend on booze playing in the freezeouts to get there. But when you’ve got the poker jones, any poker will do. At least until I find a solid cash game somewhere local.

Outside of that, it’s busy-bee-busy-bee with dang few chances to look up. Or reasons to, for that matter.

In the last two months, I have:

• Reduced my Marlboro consumption by 80%
• Incorporated a 45-60 minute walk into my daily routine
• Quit playing all-night poker games, whether live or online
• Reduced my alcohol consumption by 90%
• Added a daily green salad to my diet
• Increased my sleeping time per night by 30-50%
• Lost 20 pounds and a pants size

As a result, I

• Have a continuous head-cold with stuffy, runny nose
• Have another damned blood pressure pill to take
• Am sleepy and unfocused from 3pm till I fall into bed sometime between 10 and 11pm
• Have lost the feeling in my right hand, except for the tingling in my fingers and intense shooting pains from my wrist up to my elbow (makes it fun to shave every morning — nothing like a 4 razor-blades on your neck held by an insensate appendage)
• Experience random but short-lived headaches right behind my eyeballs

In short, I feel like hammered whale shit. I’m going back to the three-packs-a-day, Whataburger triple-triple at 4:30am on top of a belly of beer after a night of tight-strong hardball pokerin’ if this crap don’t stop soon.

I’ve been owing this review to Sgt. Mom for a much longer time than I like to owe things to good folks. Life kind of got in the way of reading first, and then dang if it didn’t do the same thing again when it came time to write my little review. But, I’ve knocked out a few things that needed knocking and here ya go.

I know Celia thru the internet as Sgt. Mom, posting at the Daily Brief. As a non-Texas native resident of San Antonio, I’ve always been fascinated in her lengthy posts about historical Texas. Most Texans, sadly, don’t know as much as Sgt. Mom does about the early days of the Great Republic, and I found I was always learning something new every time she posted one, as well. It didn’t take long to strike up a virtual friendship, being as I’m a pretty provincial Texan (I’m not sure if you’ve noticed that or not.) Anyway, to make a long story short, after I moved to San Antonio, it wasn’t long before Celia’s first book, To Truckee’s Trail, was ready for selling, and she was kind enough to even drive a copy over and drop it off for me. The basis for the book is the Stephens-Townsend wagon train from Ohio to California — a short way of saying thousands of miles of walking, riding, and Conestoga-wagoning through high plains, deserts, mountains, and finally what is modern-day Sacramento. The cool thing about the book is that it uses the diary of Dr. John Townsend as a jumping-off point for the fictionalized part of a true story.

As a fan of the American West, and always eager to understand what it was that drove regular Americans to pull up stakes and head for the frontier, I found To Truckee’s Trail fascinating from the start. There is a bushel-basket of characters and personalities to get to know (and if there’s one complaint I have, it’s that there might be too many), and the motivations for each one of them to make the trip. The technical details all ring true, as well. I’ve personally never been on a wagon train that crossed the Sierra Nevadas, but everything that happened in the book jibes with everything else I’ve read about the challenges and difficulties of making such a journey. Celia does a fine job of illuminating the difficulties the early settlers and the migrants in their wagons faced while marching across Indian territories that had only rarely seen the white man, and when they had, they were generally either the US Army or a random crazy trapper/mountain man. In other words, not normal people like doctors and blacksmiths and farmers just trying to get to the Promised Land.

The bottom line is that I really enjoyed To Truckee’s Trail. If you enjoy anything of the American West, the frontier, the folks who opened it and made it our home, I bet you will, too and I recommend this book to you very strongly. You can get it here at BookLocker, so chop-chop. At the very least, if you’re reading this dusty capped-off dry-hole of the Internet tubes, you’ve got someone on your Christmas list who will enjoy it.

FWIW, I’m looking forward to her next book, too, which she describes thusly – “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Sidearms.” My understanding is that it is set in Texas, is about 2000 pages, has cattlemen and Injuns and tons of forgotten Texas history and of course lots of sidearms, so…you know, what’s not to look forward to? We need more of that, to my mind.

Evel Knievel is dead?

That sucks goat balls, but then, we all know we all gotta go sometime. I’m starting to hope my time is soon, because I don’t know if I can stand to watch all these guys go. Don’t even want to think what that might indicate of the mess I’ve made of my life, thanks.