Alex Carrick’s Blog

Since video book trailers are now all the rage, the following is the script for the first foray into the field by Donna and myself.

This is a little self-serving, no doubt about it, plus there is some catharsis.

The camera starts rolling.

ALEX: Hi everyone, my name is Alex Carrick and I’m here to tell you about my new book, “Three Scoops” Is A Blast! It’s the sequel to my first book, “Two Scoops” Is Just Right.

To help with descriptions of my writing, I’ve brought along an impartial reader, my wife Donna. Go ahead, sweetheart, tell viewers how much you enjoyed Two Scoops.

DONNA: I absolutely loved your book. I’ve already made two of the dishes you set out, a lemon meringue pie and a Baked Alaska.

ALEX (looking disgusted): It’s not a recipe book and you know it. Now stop kidding around and tell viewers how good Two Scoops is.

DONNA: It was so exciting. The main characters were racing all over Europe trying to solve puzzles and the authorities were chasing them. I couldn’t put it down

ALEX: You’ve just described The Da Vinci Code. It was a huge bestseller. My effort was more modest.

DONNA: Really? I thought it was your book.

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Here are sixteen new highly-sophisticated road jokes.

(1) Why did all the world’s politicians cross the road? The bridge? The highway? To take credit for the infrastructure work.

(2) Why did Jack Bauer cross the road? He finished torturing all the terrorists on this side.

(3) Why did Gregory House cross the road? To avoid walking under a ladder, a black cat crossing his path and Number 13.

(4) Why did the “tweeter” cross the road? It was less than 140 paces to the hottest new trending topic.

(5) Why did the family cross the road? To log on to a better Internet connection.

(6) Why did the people of LOST cross the road? Why not? They’re lost, aren’t they?

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For all her flustered outward appearance, Jilal was a deep thinker. Single, aged 32, a brunette well-above average in appearance and living in an eco-friendly home halfway between the citizens on ground level and those perched high above, she was having a typical day off.

Mid-morning and her heart was already pounding. Too much to do. She’d be meeting Bobex in an hour to hook up with friends and attend the big game. After that would be a sumptuous meal in some new hot spot within the trendy entertainment district. It was nice to have a break from the work week but the racing only banked around a corner, it didn’t stop.

Yesterday, her control freak of a boss pushed too hard. Jilal could deal with her employer’s tirades under most circumstances, but the recent episode shifted the problem from being at the fringe to taking over centre stage. It would need to be dealt with.  The thought of the coming confrontation made her stomach rumble. A hard lump of consternation sat undigested in her gut.

Then there was Bobex. He was a nice guy, but was that enough? He was already the sixth serious relationship in her short life. He was too heavily into sports. Bobex had another problem she wasn’t supposed to know about, gambling. She’d learned of that flaw from a friend of a friend of hers. Jilal wasn’t above tossing the dice herself. She might do better with a lucky seventh.

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As a special favor, Louise Traynor was escorted to a couple’s table in the trattoria’s alcove by the establishment’s executive chef and owner late into the luncheon sitting. The faux Italian décor was complemented by Dean Martin crooning in the background. A tiny fountain listlessly gurgled in the centre of the room. Other diners noted the procession, passed a few words back and forth, but quickly returned to their meals. The linguine Bolognese was especially superb.

Louise was as polished as burnished marble. Black tailored business suit, wispy bangs curled down over a high forehead and blood-red lacquered fingernails made her an eye-catching presence. Her lithe frame was a stark contrast to Police Chief Baylor’s heft as the other member of the dining duo. The chief’s six-foot-five frame of mostly muscle rose skyward to a pumpkin-sized head topped with a steel wool thatch of hair. No slouch in the deportment department, Chief Baylor had come directly from a massage and manicure. His eagerness to talk threw off a barely muted incandescence.

CHIEF (standing to greet Louise): Lovely of you to join me Mrs. Traynor. With your husband so wrapped up in running for governor, I thought it would be easier for the two of us to have lunch together. I have something important to discuss with you.

LOUISE:  (shaking the chief’s hand): My pleasure, Chief, glad to be here. You’ve certainly aroused my curiosity. Hope I can be of assistance.

They get a few more pleasantries out of the way and order from the menu before chewing on the true heart of the occasion. A couple of glasses of Valpolicella arrive with the gazpacho. The moment finally arrives for the Chief to be forthcoming.

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My name is Earl Thomas and I’m a reporter with the Tombstone Tabloid. Every week we try to bring our readers an interview with one of the Wild West’s more prominent citizens. This week we have “One Shot” Calhoun in the Hot Seat in our saloon studio. One Shot, as surely everyone knows, is the notorious gunslinger and part-time Texas Ranger that everyone is talking about.

EARL: How are you doing today, One Shot?

ONE SHOT: “I’m very well, thank you. How ‘bout you?”

EARL: Just great! You can probably tell how excited I am to finally meet you. Let’s get this interview underway quickly. For starters, how did you get the name One Shot? Because you’re so deadly accurate with a gun?

ONE SHOT: Funny you should ask, Earl. People are always getting that wrong. No, it’s because I only drink one shot of whiskey before I go out and face a man. One shot is good for the nerves. More than one shot slows the reflexes.

EARL: Isn’t that interesting. And of course, it makes perfect sense. How many men have you shot over the years?

ONE SHOT: Well of course I don’t keep track of every one. But there are 35 notches on my gun. That’s the same number as my age.

EARL: 35? That’s an amazing figure.

ONE SHOT: Yes and it doesn’t include lawyers and politicians.

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The following is an edifying tale wherein a king learns a valuable lesson from his queen and the whole nation is better off as a consequence. The court jester plays a pivotal role as well, although he probably came to wish he’d stayed out of it.

There once lived a king who was always mad. Not mad like crazy, but mad like angry. He was angry about everything. As a result, all of his chief ministers were angry. So were his peasants and so were his dogs. And on and on it went in a downwardly cascading catastrophe of annoyance. The land was always in turmoil.

It wasn’t as if the king didn’t have a sense of humor. The queen once asked him why he was so angry at neighboring realms, since they lived in relativeley peaceful times, for the thirteenth century that is. The king’s answer was revealing.

“It’s because they have more wealth than I do. They have richer fields and more abundant natural resources. They can finance better armies.  If they want to, they can overrun my kingdom. I agonize about my vulnerability all the time.”

“Come to think of it, though, there is another side to this predicament. Should the day ever come when my shiftless peasants fail to meet their crop quotas and I have to sell a castle or two to meet my regal payroll, it will be good to have some other royal dupe out there with enough coinage or cattle to buy my assets.”

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Note: This story received an honorable mention in the 2010 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.

The man, his son and his daughter had a routine when they went for a bike ride. Taking point position would be the son, about to turn age 12, on a medium-sized bike. In the middle would be the daughter, just short of eight years old, on a small but not too small bike. Bringing up the rear and keeping an eye on the whole convoy, the 50-something aged man was on the biggest bicycle of the three.

They would ride in tandem down the street that ran past their cottage and up and down the undulating hills that made their little community such a pretty place in which to live. White pine, spruce and cedar mainly hid the oak and maple that came to the fore in the fall when the leaves changed colour. Multi-hued and variously-sided cottages were set back on sandy soil.

There was one biggish hill they liked to pretend was a monster. They called it San Garganza for no particular reason, except it sounded like the kind of place where the souls of dead bikers might have made their heads-over-heels exits. It was fun to pretend they were scared by the place. The pot-holes on that particular stretch of pavement were a bit of a safety hazard.

Most often, the rides were pure enjoyment with not a lot to upset the pleasure of the experience. There were a few cars and trucks that would drive past and sometimes annoyance was expressed when it was obvious someone was driving too fast through what was basically a residential community with quite a few kids. All in all, the man knew his children would remember these rides with fondness when they grew up and had families of their own.

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Paying attention to detail solved the case. There were several abnormalities to note about the two-foot-tall fish tank. A small amount of water had been displaced, as if someone’s arm had been inserted all the way; the ceramic castle on the bottom appeared to have been moved on its granular base, possibly for aesthetic reasons; the mosquito larvae and black worm food weren’t in their usual spot on the shelf; and the gold and silver angel fish were still active and alert quite a while after the estimated time of death of the corpse in the condo’s kitchen. None of these was conclusive on its own. The owner and chief fish wrangler could have performed these acts just before the last roundup, but the investigator on the case was used to following his hunches.

It seemed the murderer might know and love cichlids. A shared interest with the victim could explain the lack of forced entry. A beam of light shone on one particular suspect. Further investigation revealed motive and opportunity. The healthy fish were the dead giveaway.

Felix Bender punched the control button to turn off the police drama. Watching crime-solving shows was his chief form of relaxation. He particularly liked it when one particular clue, left behind by even the brightest of criminals, led to an arrest. This was the kind of attention to detail Felix wished he could summon up in his own life. But Felix was weak on the finer points. It wasn’t that there were many limits to his intelligence. Rather, he was readily distracted. Felix had big dreams and it was easier to fantasize about success than to do the grunt work.

It had been weeks since Felix truly relaxed. Not after his wife Charlene announced she was leaving him. For what must have been the hundredth time, he reviewed his life. His shortcomings in the matter of detail had been a curse, a blessing and then a curse once more.

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The following are the jounal entries of Mr. Justin Smythe, a gentleman hobby farmer living outside the lovely theatre community of Stratford, Ontario where a widely-known Shakespearean festival is held each year. Mr. Smythe’s life proceeds quietly as he tends his cattle and occasionally takes walks in 30 acres he has set aside on his property for Christmas tree cultivation. Evergreens are the best shelter from the sun to spur on the growth of mushrooms, which are harvested in October. 

October  10, 2000: I hate mushroom pickers. They come onto the property and create nothing but trouble. They litter. They toss away beer cans and candy wrappers. They pop up in unexpected places. Often they discard matches and cigarette butts, posing a fire hazard. Some even walk around with rifles taking shots at imaginary targets, scaring the bejeepers out of me. They don’t realize I’m working on the property. They tear down “No Trespassing” signs faster than I can put them up. But today, I met a couple that was a complete surprise to me.

Mushroom pickers are usually of mid-European birth, with thick accents. They’re the only ones who know what they’re doing. Mushrooms can be dangerous. Eat the wrong ones and they’ll kill you. I sure don’t know anything about them, but apparently my property is ideal for their propagation. Every year around this time I have to fend off unwelcome visitors by the car-load.

George and Hannah are completely the opposite of what I’m used to encountering. They’re young, attractive and articulate. I think they might be brother and sister. They look so similar and they don’t interact like husband and wife. They own a little shop in town and serve baked goods as well as light meals to tourists and theatre-goers attending the main festival and other events.

They asked if I would be willing to let them grow mushrooms at the farm. I couldn’t resist. They were so charming. They offered to pay for the privilege, but I said there was no need. It will be nice to see them around from time to time. Hopefully we can get together and chat some more.

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Chief Inspector Beige was never more glad to be home. He’d spent three days entangled in the lives of the rich and famous and was more off-balance than at any other time in his 45-year-old life. It had been a roller-coaster ride that lost its amusement appeal long before the final plummet.

Beige’s detective career spanned ten years. He was recognized as Toronto’s finest when it came to solving crime. That’s why he had been assigned to investigate the mysterious disappearance of paparazzi-favourite Shirley Soames, girlfriend of hockey legend Robert St. Pierre. Possible victim and villain were too high-profile to risk ham-handed treatment by anyone else on the force.

Shirley had been missing for four days when Beige was put on the case. The public relations firm she worked for contacted the police because she failed to show up for several key client meetings and there was no answer either at her home phone number or on her cell. She was a rising star with the firm and this kind of disregard for her responsibilities had never happened before.

There had been considerable coverage by the media of the fiery public spats that St. Pierre and Shirley engaged in. Their relationship was a volcano that often erupted and the lava outpouring would ignite many a social gathering. What was it doing to the feelings the two principals had for each other? How long could such volatility be sustained without serious trouble?

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