BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Or, so she would have you all believe…

Now, before you die hard “Morrisonites” go nuts and threaten to burn me at the stake, read on, digest the evidence, and THEN make your decision. I suspect you will reach the same conclusion as I.

Now, to understand exactly WHY I am calling her friendship into question, we must begin with Chicken and Dumplings. Why Chicken and Dumplings you ask? Well, for starters, C&D’s are pretty darned good. Especially to folks who are Southerners like Morrison and me. C&D’s that aren’t totally screwed up (i.e. all mushy and gloopy) are comfort food to the Southern palate. They harken back to mama’s kitchen, the big cast iron kettle on the stove, and the wonderful and peppery aroma of stewed hens fresh from the yard combined with the tender and flavorful dumplings that have simmered in the lovely juices. (Damn…now I want a plate of them…*wistful sigh*)

But, to continue, they are a meal that sticks with you for just the right amount of time– they warm you and they even carry the right combination of enzymes to make you feel better when you have a cold. In short, they are one of the most perfect foods on the face of the earth.

Where the hell am I going with this? Read on…

Now, there is something else you should know about Chicken and Dumplings. If you pull into any Cracker Barrel in the United States, they will have a big ol’ pot of C&D’s simmering away in the kitchen. Now, while it is romantic to think they have a replica of mama’s kitchen back there, complete with the cast iron pot, I know better. It is a commercial kitchen, and the C&D’s are more than likely bubbling away in a big stainless steel stock pot, or in a tray on a steam table. But, that’s okay. They learned how to make C&D’s the right way. I even watched a show on Food Network where they talked about learning how to do it properly from a Southern Gramma, so there you go. All I can say is that I’ve had them on countless occasions, and they are VERY good. Damn near the way mama (and, my Grandaddy Babb, who owned a diner in Fulton, KY where I’m from) used to make ’em.

And, of course the point above is that they are already on the stove…What does this mean? Simple – Pull into a Cracker Barrel, and if you’re in a hurry, order the Chicken and Dumplings. They’ll be in front of you FAST, they’ll be good and filling, and you’ll be back on the road in no time.

I know, you still have no clue why it is that I think Morrison is actually evil and out to get me…Keep reading, you’ll understand soon…

So, as you all know Morrison and I tour together quite a lot. And, as I have talked about in the past, book tours encompass many modes of transportation. One of the primaries, however, is still the good old automobile. So, this means that be it my truck, her Jeep, or even a rental car, we cruise the highways and byways of the U.S. much like Tod and Buzz on Route 66. (Yeah, I’m dating myself again, but that’s not the point here…)

Now, being hard working authors, we get hungry. Powerful hungry in fact. Meaning, we need to eat. However, you must remember that there are times when we are doing multiple stores in multiple cities all in one day. So, we are doing a lot of driving and rushing about to get to places on time. Stopping to eat requires that it be QUICK, reasonable, and since we both like for it to be at least halfway decent, Cracker Barrel has literally become the “Official On The Road Restaurant of all Morrison-Sellars Book Tours”… Now, THEY might not know this, but we do…(Hmmmm…maybe we should tell them…That way maybe we’d get some kind of endorsement contract or something…Maybe even some free Chicken and Dumplings…)

Anyway, now I am digressing…

So, here’s the thing. Whenever we stop at Cracker Barrel, since the Chicken and Dumplings are so quick to be had, this allows Morrison an opportunity to shop (let me tell you, this is something she does like a maniac. It’s just plain frightening)…Anyway, so she shops in the “Country Store”…Thus far, she hasn’t forced me to strap a rocking chair to the hood of the vehicle or anything, but she has actually done far worse…

You see, the folks at Cracker Barrel sell some pretty odd crap. Everything from the nostalgic candies of my youth to John Deere hats. However, they also sell silly mechanical noisemaking animatronic bizarro holiday oriented thingywhatsits.

AHA! Now we have the evidence!

Yes. Morrison, being the good “Aunt” to my child that she is, has found it necessary on such occasions to purchase, for my child, these bizarro animatronic whatsits.

We currently have a Parrot which digitally records 5 seconds of sound, then morphs it through filters and replays it not once, but three times in succession at high pitch, high volume, and high speed. However, the thingywhatsit that triggered this particular blog is this:

This damn Easter frog thingywhatsit is currently sitting in a chair in my dining room. As you can see, it ain’t exactly small. On top of that, it is wired with both sound and motion sensors. Now, the thing about these sensors is that they are selectively operating sensors. What this means is that if you for some reason, (like you’ve had a few too many and have lost your mind) actually want to show someone how it works, you can jump up and down in front of it, shout, clap, and even fire a gun next to its friggin’ head and it will just stand there staring at you. (and yes, I’ve always checked to make sure it is switched on.) However, if it just happens that someone’s cell phone rings three blocks away, or a drosophila melanogaster (aka fruit fly) flies past the window, this freakin’ thing starts waving its arms and babbling in a high-pitched, childlike voice- It’s the best Easter ever! Time for an Easter egg hunt! It’s Easter time! Hooray for Easter! ad nauseum…

And that, my dear friends is why I am convinced that Morrison is not really my friend, but actually someone sent by a foreign espionage type agency on a mission to drive me insane.

And, you know what else? I think Kristin Madden is her partner.

Murv

No. I have not forgotten how to spell. Yes, I do perpetrate a typo now and again, but don’t we all?

The title of this blog, in point of fact, means something. (No, not like Roy Neary in Close Encounters running about screaming “this means something”…Nor the spoof, Closet Encounters and Roy Dreary…Betcha’ thought I wouldn’t know that one didn’t you? Uh-huh…)

So, anyway, today’s babbling is about vernacular, accents, and “how ta’ tawk rite.” Those of you who are familiar with the Rowan Gant series know that everyone’s favorite 6 foot 6 cop, Ben Storm, has a tendency to clip his speech, and pepper it with expletives. In order to get it across to the reader, some of his dialogue is intentionally misspelled, or words are truncated by omitting letters and adding that wondrous little thing called the apostrophe. This is NOT something I did because I thought it was cool. I did it because the real life cops upon which he was based in part, actually talk that way. The one and only way to make the dialogue read the way it should sound is to truncate and generate my own phonetic spellings.

Now, those of you who have been following the series right up to the cliffhanger ending of All Acts Of Pleasure also know that Rowan is no longer in Saint Louis. No, he hasn’t moved, but he did have a need to go to New Orleans, which is where a modest portion of The End Of Desire actually takes place. This is what brings us to “tawkin’ rite.”

There is a particular bent to the New Orleanian mode of speech that you won’t find anywhere else. Having been there on more than one occasion, I know this to be true. And, no, I am not talking about Justin Wilson. From what I’ve been told, his accent wasn’t really that thick. He was just a hell of a showman. Either way, folks in New Orleans actually do have a particular mode of speech that will not be found anywhere else.

In social anthropology texts that deal with regional dialect and linguistics, the New Orleanian accent is often described as Brooklyn meets the deep south. Additionally you have a blend of French, Jamaican, Italian, Irish, and just about everything else in between making up the dialect.

So, why am I running off at the mouth about this? Like I said, a modest portion of The End Of Desire occurs in New Orleans. Therefore, in order to set the scene and be true to the region, I have had to not only recall my times there and spend time emailing a dear friend who lives in NOLA (Thanks Velvet!), but I have literally had to learn NOLAspeak in order to write the dialogue for a few of the characters.

Let me tell you…It REALLY is almost like learning a second language.

At this stage of the game there are still some tweaks that may be necessary to the incidental dialogue, however, don’t be surprised if The End Of Desire comes equipped with a one page glossary appended right in the front.

(Actually, not really…But, it crossed my mind )

That’s it for now…Time for some sleep, a couple of nightmares, and then back to writing!

MR/Murv