Tag: writing

Cancer with a Small “c”

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

I have cancer, but it’s only the kind with a small “c.” A very small “c,” thankfully. Basal cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, and evidently the most common type of cancer overall.

It started as a tiny sore on my nose that just wouldn’t go away. Based on pictures, it likely started around the second half of last year. I thought it was just a blackhead/pimple situation. I had more than my share of those growing up, so I was used to contending with bleeding pores on my face. I have bad skin anyway, so this new development didn’t really alarm me.

Because I often work in harsh weather I figured it was just an ongoing skin issue. The tips of my fingers are sometimes chapped and cracked for months at a time, too. In the winter I usually have to bandaid up my fingers like football players do around any nicks or cuts. The air is dry here in the Upper Plains of North Dakota. It can get up to 100+ degrees F in the summer, to as low as negative 60 degrees F in the winter. The wind chill feels like razor-wire pulled across your skin. And then there’s the dust, which in high winds feels like getting blasted with little BBs. You need armadillo skin to endure up here.

So, for awhile, I ignored the little sore on my nose which would heal up, seem to go away, only to come back like an unwanted house guest. But after a few more months of this, I realized it was clearly more than just some temporary blemish. So, I did what any normal person would do–I consulted AI, of course. I fed my symptoms into Grok through my X account, and the very first thing under its list of possible causes was Basal cell carcinoma.

Here’s what Grok said:

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC): This is the most frequently mentioned concern in medical sources for a non-healing or recurrently bleeding spot on the nose. BCC is the most common skin cancer, often linked to sun exposure, and typically appears as a small sore, pearly bump, or flat red patch. It can bleed easily, crust/scab, seem to heal, and then bleed again—exactly matching your description. The nose is one of the most common sites. It’s usually slow-growing and very treatable if caught early, but it won’t resolve on its own and can grow deeper if ignored.

Afterward, I made an appointment with a dermatologist in Colorado. Because it can take six months or longer to get an appointment with a specialist up here in ND, I knew I’d have to go out of state for speedier treatment. My appointment was about a week and a half ago. During which, my derm took a biopsy to send to a lab. Just yesterday the results confirmed what I already strongly suspected thanks to Grok–BCC.

So, big thanks to Grok and Elon Musk. AI does have its uses beyond making atrociously distorted video and imagery slop flooding across social media and YouTube.

The biopsy went pretty quick and easy. My derm used a local ansthetic. I didn’t feel a thing, actually.

I’m having Mohs surgery to remove the cancerous cells from my nose later this month. Mohs is a simple procedure where they scalpel away the skin cancer layer by layer, testing each slice for the presence of cancer as they go, until it’s completely gone. It’s a tedious, long procedure that can take several hours, apparently. But it’s usually not very invasive. Judging from the appearance of my small sore, I’m not anticipating them having to go too deep. I’m hoping it remains superficial without having to remove too much of my flesh. I’ve been researching Mohs and BCC every since my diagnosis. What I have looks pretty tame and mild compared to other cases I’ve seen online. But then again, you can’t be sure until surgery is complete.

I also found, in my research, that Hugh Jackman, aka Wolverine, has had several brushes with BCC on his nose as well. It’s pretty common.

This little medical hiccup caught me by surprise because I take pretty good care of myself. At my physical last year my doctor even said I had a “young heart.” That’s not just sentimental poetry. There is such a thing medically as a young heart, and it has to do with the timing between beats. I regularly donate blood to the Red Cross, as I’ve mentioned before. My last donation was for double red cell on August 11th, in fact. I certainly don’t think I’m invulnerable, though. I’m 44. Something was bound to break by this point no matter what I did. I’ve been very fortunate health-wise for my entire life. That’s largely due to living cleanly, though genes have a lot to do with it, of course. My dad has a resourceful immune system. He’s 80 and still going strong, even after Covid hospitalized him. I always apply a mild sunscreen every morning, and add a stronger type if it’s a particularly sunny day. Even though I work in the sun often, I don’t spend too much time outdoors in it when I’m off the clock. I’m not some avid outdoorsman.

In the future I’ll be more attentive to anything that looks out of the ordinary. I should have made an appointment sooner and had this issue dealt with more promptly rather than waiting thinking it would just resolve itself. You don’t want to play games with cancer, even if it’s the kind with a small “c.”

I’m also real glad we live in a time where I can consult an AI, which actually gave me a solid diagnosis. Not that I’m recommending that anyone rely on AI. Grok is upfront with a disclaimer that it’s not a doctor. Though I keep hearing of AI contributing to medical evaluations. In fact, during my dermatology visit, the doctor, and the PA that saw me, had to gain my consent to record my voice. They employ an AI program that uses voice recordings to construct their notes from the session, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it also suggests diagnoses.

I’ll update following my Mohs surgery, which is scheduled for later this month. Hopefully, it all goes well, and I’m not left with too much scarring. I have enough of that. 🙂

Is ‘Thinner’ Any Good?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

(By Moviegoods.com, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21786900)

I read the Stephen King novella awhile back and remember it being an effective, terse little thriller. King is a classic “over-writer,” often making up for a thin story concept with an encyclopedic catalogue of characters and their backstories, quirks, and then webbing them up in a messy convoluted plot like a cracked out Spider-Man.

Not so with Thinner, thank goodness. That book got right to the point. As if some invisible editor demanded King put his own writing on a diet, and passive-aggressively the Maine horror scribe banged this out in retaliation.

What about the movie, though?

It’s darkly hilarious. Other than that, it’s a mixed bag. King content was all the rage in the ’90s. Every producer in the world wanted to slap out a film adaptation, no matter what the budget or quality. There was the flood of TV movies like The Langoliers, Tommyknockers, The Stand, and IT.

Quick review of The Langoliers, which I also watched recently–actually not as bad as I’d thought it’d be, but that’s not saying much. It’s beyond dated, and not just in terms of it’s CGI effects. It’s also a bit padded out, like it should have been under two hours instead of three or whatever. Not really worth watching anymore, honestly, unless you are some kind of King completionist. I watched it out of curiosity as I’d only ever seen glimpses of the awful special effects (even for the time) for the Langoliers.

Back to Thinner, this tiny little nearly-forgotten almost-gem of a flick from 1996.

Thinner tells the story of fatass scumbag attorney Billy Halleck, who accidentally plows into an old gypsy lady while his wife is giving him road head, and then, after using his courtroom connections to escape consequences, suffers the wrath of the woman’s father, some kind of super gypsy, named Tadzu, who curses him to the ultimate pre-Ozempic weight loss program. Getting thinner by the day until he completely wastes away. Also getting the gypsy curse treatment are the judge, who becomes a lizard creature, or something, and a police officer who helps cover up Billy’s culpability, who becomes a boil-covered mess.

Gypsy curse films are a sub-sub-niche unto themselves. Like, there may only be a handful. Drag Me to Hell, Sam Raimi’s 2009 horror about a bank manager who gets cursed to eternal damnation when she doesn’t extend some poor old gypsy lady’s mortgage, is one of the others. Actually, that’s the only other one I can think of.

True to King’s style, the story progresses in all sorts of absurd macabre ways as Billy attempts to undo the curse, leading to an escalading series of confrontations with the gypsy chief and his itinerant tribe. At about the midpoint, likely sensing that he was almost running out of story, King reintroduces the mafia don (seen earlier when Billy gets him off on murder charges), who decides to go on a one-man crusade against the gypsies to try to force the old man to take back the curse. The lawyer’s wife also starts cheating on him for some reason, inviting Billy’s wrath. It all comes together in a sick, sad, and twisted final ending that, let’s just say, leaves almost everyone getting their just desserts. Except poor Billy’s teenaged daughter, though.

I like these dark minimalist “morality thrillers” that stick right to the point. Not just watching, either. They are the kind of things I enjoy writing the most. I’ve also tried my hand at a curse story, too. Only it centered on a witch who curses a drunk driver who hits her daughter by making everything he tries to drink turn to blood until he completes a special 12-Step Program she devises. It turned out a bit whackier than it should have, though Thinner was a big inspiration for it.

Thinner is an almost-cult classic. Just not quite there. The film is unfortunately rather shoddy in places. Which is okay in some instances. Sleepaway Camp wasn’t the most photogenic, but its clever conceit overcomes it. With a bit less daftness, Thinner might have emerged like one of John Carpenter’s lesser films. Like Prince of Darkness. Likable enough, warts and all. But it just doesn’t quite come together. Then there’s the contemptible main character. No one is really likable at all in this film. So it’s no surprise it slipped off the radar when it dropped in the mid-90s.

Despite its flaws and flagrant simplicity, I still liked it. It has some “memeable moments.” Moments that stand out due to shock or outrageousness. And I’ll never not think of the gypsy chief’s recurring address of the lawyer as “White man from town.” The book is a fun read. I just wish the movie clicked along in the same way.

“The World Is Tough on Beautiful Things”

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Just a brief rant. This might constitute reason #874 for why I hate country music.

I’ve been traveling recently. And one night I happened to stop at a Dickey’s Barbecue. Dickey’s is a chain BBQ place with a Southwest vibe. There are wagon wheel chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and other Old West-style decorations and paraphernalia. I ordered a brisket combo, which was okay. The sauce was decent.

I sat in the back completely alone. Well, that was until one of the workers started sweeping and mopping and setting up chairs on the tables in preparation for close. It was only around 7PM, and they closed at 9pm. More than enough time to NOT have to be kicking up dust and dirt around me while I ate. But whatever, I guess a two-hour head-start should be commended.

Naturally, there was country music blasting from the speakers. That’s another pet peeve of mine. Loud music playing in an enclosed space, or just music being played loudly at all. That it was country made it even worse. But at least it wasn’t rap or death metal or something.

Anyway, I’m sitting there just trying not to let the many annoyances of the ambiance get to me when I hear what might possibly be the stupidest lyric in a song ever:

“The world is tough on beautiful things.”

I’m not sure who the singer or band was. It was just some country crooner twanging to some sweetheart, consoling her, evidently, over her hard life, which was due to her being beautiful. At least, that’s the gist I kind of picked up on it.

As I sat there trying to finish my brisket, with the employee sweeping right in front of my feet, I thought, well, if that isn’t the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my 44 years of life.

The world is tough on beautiful things. What? It’s the complete opposite. The only thing the world is nice to, period, is beauty. Beauty is loved, cherished, protected, guarded, admired, and preserved. Ugliness is reviled and disregarded. Why is the Mona Lisa hanging behind bulletproof glass, with armed guards surrounding it? Because it’s a hideous example of artistic talent? Look at all the national parks like Yellowstone. Why are those natural formations preserved under Federal law? Because they are just so wretched to look at? What kinds of attractions do people travel thousands of miles and spend thousands per year to see? Are people crossing oceans to see a pile of garbage or something like Niagara Falls?

Well, wait a minute, I thought. I tried to wrangle out what this guy might have been getting at. Maybe he had a point, and I was just missing it. What if he meant “life is tough on beautiful things” in the sense that an attractive person has to deal with the pressure of attention and optionality in terms of mate selection. Hmm…is that really tough, though? That’s the definition of a privilege. Nobody would consider my life tough if because I was such a hot guy that I had to choose between dating three supermodels who were into me. Nor would they say some cover model’s life is tough if she had to choose between a millionaire, an astronaut, or a Harvard-trained surgeon to marry. That’s not really a tough life there.

Beauty is privilege, power, and often compels people to preserve and protect it. I mean, sure, it comes with some baggage. Some unwanted attention here and there. But I don’t think anyone, if they could choose their looks, would choose to be unattractive. Make-up and fashion are two billion-dollar industries devoted to helping women and men look good. People spend six figures on nose jobs and surgeries to look younger. There’s a whole looksmaxxing obsession going on right now. Is that because if you look better the world will be tougher on you? Are people trying to look better so that their lives will be harder?

Attractiveness is nothing but an asset. You’ll have an easier time socializing and making friends if you are good-looking than if you are not. Especially growing up in school. You’ll have it way easier dating. People are more apt to trust an attractive person than an unattractive one. Being hot is like living in a higher dimension almost. There is virtually no downside.

“But beauty is in eye of the beholder.” GTFO with that. Yes, some women might find Danny DeVito cute, sure. But no guy wants to look like him. And even fewer women would want to fuck him. They’d pick a guy who looks like Brad Pitt or Chris Hemsworth a hundred million times before DeVito.

No, it’s just a stupid lyric. Quite possibly the stupidest one ever, too. And I’ve heard a lot of stupid lyrics over the years. But now I have even more reason to hate country music. Because it isn’t beauty the world is tough on. It’s stupidity.

The Feminine Paradox

On By Dean Brooks1 Comment

The Lindsay Clancy mistrial, while disturbing, is not really surprising.

A sweet moment between mother and child, or a monster preparing to snuff a helpless victim? You decide. Photo by Варвара Курочкина from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/mother-hugging-her-baby-10935456/

There is a thing in science called the Fermi Paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi. Basically, it relates to the contradiction that although there is likely a highly statistical probability that alien civilizations are out there (and in abundance), there is a complete lack of evidence for any of them. 

Similarly, there is the Feminine Paradox. The fact that while it is highly certain that female violence occurs regularly, there is somehow a complete unwillingness by society to acknowledge the evidence that proves it exists. Or at least it’s something that society would prefer to treat as myth or legend. Like Bigfoot, or alien abductions. 

Female violence is like the daily horoscope in the newspaper. Given some press, taken seriously by few, but regarded as fantasy B.S. by most.

Male violence, on the other hand, is more like the weather report. Far more concrete and threatening. Something of which to furrow ones brows and be deeply concerned about. Often accompanied with prognostications, predictions, or even a unique name if it’s severe enough, as in the case of hurricanes. 

For sure, male violence is obviously far more prevalant. Comparing it to female violence is a bit like comparing cancer to dog attacks. 

But still, we usually put dogs down that bite people, right? It’s not like we let wild dogs loose to bite again because prostrate cancer is just so much worse. 

I find myself complicit in the strange social behavior of turning a blind eye to female violence. I’ve actually paid little attention to the Lindsay Clancy trial, depsite its grisly details. I don’t find the final result of a mistrial that surprising at all, actually. 

It’s funny. I grew up with a mother who was physically and verbally abusive. She would fly into these sudden rages over the slightest of provocations or misbehaviors. Inadequately raking leaves in the yard. Spilled milk. You name it. She preferred hitting me in the shoulder, though kicking me also became a specialty. Yet whenever I’d mention it to friends I’d either be ignored or it was laughed off as common. “Oh, yeah, my mom does that to me too sometimes.” 

Even funnier, every PSA I watched in school about child abuse always featured a man as the perpetrator. As a kid, I would sit there and think, well, that’s a little one-sided.

My mother went to twelve years of Catholic school. The nuns there were abusive to her, and liked hitting with a ruler to correct misbehaviors. So, she suffered herself at the hands of socially acceptable female violence. It’s understandable she grew up primed to continue the cycle onto the next generation. I don’t hate the lady. I try to understand her. I love her, in a sense, despite her abuse. Strangely, I have more contempt toward my step-dad, who never laid a hand on me, for being a bum, than my mother, who did. Such is the different and unfair standards by which we judge men vs. women. 

Currently, former Wheel of Fortune announcer Jim Thornton is getting excoriated online for being caught in a pedophile chat room. This after being fired by Sony. Meanwhile, Lindsay Clancy has a you-go-girl fan club, despite having killed her three little children. 

Here’s a thought experiment. If Thornton had previously changed his gender from male to female, then subsequently murdered three babies, then blamed feminizing hormonal therapy for her homicidal outburst, would she be deserving of exoneration? More importantly, would she still be announcing prize results on a daily word puzzle game show?

What is postpartum depression? Basically, hormonal shifts that affect mood and behaviors. Teenagers undergo vast hormonal shifts, too. Should they be held to account for any misdeeds? Some men have an excess of the hormone testosterone that compels them to violence. In fact, testosterone is often linked to violence and criminality. If a mother suffering from bad hormones can’t be blamed for slaying her offspring, can wife beaters be absolved because of too much testosterone in the blood? 

Just think of all the implications if one can’t be blamed due to hormones. What a real can of worms.

Is ‘Heat 2’ going to be Michael Mann’s ‘The Irishman’? Or ‘Gladiator 2’?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment
Heat 2

For those unaware, Michael Mann is planning to direct Heat 2. He also co-authored the novel with Meg Gardiner that is, of course, a sequel to the classic 1995 hit Heat starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and the late great Val Kilmer. The book is centered on the character of Chris Shiherlis, who, you’ll recall, was the lone surviving member of the ace criminal squad.

Heat is a fantastic fucking film, it goes without saying, featuring the classic shootout in downtown L.A. following the McCauley gang’s ingenious bank heist.

But what about Mann’s 2022 novel? Does it live up the legacy of the crime thriller drama that spawned a million imitators and inspired the style of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight?

Well, to quote the wild Detective Vincent Hanna, “This book has a great ass, and I’ve got my head all the way up it! When I think of great books like Heat 2, something comes out of me.”

Okay, okay, I’m not that crazed. But yeah, I liked this book a lot.

And I’ve been on a thriller novel kick lately. I recently finished The Taking of Pelham One Two Three by John Godey (Morton Freedgood). I’m currently reading Death Wish by Brian Garfield.

I also liked The Irishman, the 2019 gangster flick, if at times it felt more like Scorsese was just playing his greatest hits. Plus it was ridiculously long, slow, and heavy to watch.

I haven’t seen Gladiator 2, and I doubt I ever will. I find it a little odd, this latest trend of big directors returning to the well of their best works and putting out a sequel decades removed from the original. The Irishman is not a sequel, but it feels like the spiritual successor and final missing piece to the Cinematic Universe of Goodfellas/Casino. Gladiator 2, I felt, was a strange sequel to make. What’s next? Braveheart 2?

It’s usually not best for an aging director to return to the world of their previous hits, especially this far out from the OG. However, Heat 2 definitely landed for me, and if the film is able to capture the book well enough, it should make for a fantastic sequel.

:::spoilers incoming:::

Therein lies a huge challenge. Heat 2 is basically three stories in one. Which works fine for a novel. I’m not sure how successfully that will translate to film. You have a “present” timeline set in 1995, right after the bank robbery and shootout, with Chris’s escape to Paraguay and his attempt to move up in a new crime organization. There’s the past storyline in 1988 with criminal mastermind gigachad Neil McCauley getting the band together for its first gig, and running afoul of psychopath home intruder and rapist Otis Wardell. Then you have the “future” timeline in 2000, with Chris’s return to L.A. to set up some illegal biz with weapons systems shipments or whatever with his new partner and girlfriend Ana, who’s trying to branch off independently from her crime family. All culminating in a final clash with Vincent Hanna, who’s still chomping at the bit to put bad guys six feet under and wants Chris like a junkyard dog wants a trespasser’s throat.

Well, I shouldn’t put that there is a “clash” with Hanna as he never even knows Chris is back in L.A. until the very end, and only after Chris escapes again. If I have a criticism, it’s that I would have liked to have seen more of Hanna hunting Chris.

Look, if you told me Heat 2 was going to be six hours long, I’d freaking love that. This flick is going to be The Phantom Menace for middle-aged dudes. But I’m not general audiences. I don’t see how this is going to get cut down to a coherent 2.5-3.5 hours without removing a TON. You have three movies here, really. The Paraguay stuff was less interesting to me, and frankly, a little hard to follow with all the backstabbing and double agent stuff. You have to have the 1988 sequence to introduce McCauley to set up the daughter of his girlfriend Gabriela, as she returns for the third act showdown with Wardell. So my guess is Paraguay will get cut down to make room for L.A. 2000, which will likely take up the whole second half.

Then there are the set pieces. If you thought the downtown shootout in the OG was awesome, the sequel has SIX shootouts. Yes, six. I think. I might have forgotten one or two. You’ve got Wardell’s home invasion, which turns into a shootout and car chase with Hanna and the cops. The first highway shootout in Paraguay. A cartel base robbery shootout. A shootout near the U.S.-Mexico border between McCauley and Wardell’s gang. The climactic highway shootout between Wardell and Chris. Then there’s a last-minute factory shootout. Yes, this book is packed with so much there’s even a lengthy shootout in the last THREE PAGES. Good lord.

Mann is going to have to go Avatar 2: Way of Water on this deal to fit everything in, and it looks like Amazon is going to carte blanche him. It worked out great for JC, we’ll see if it works for Mann.

Overall, I enjoyed the book a great deal and would highly recommend it. It kind of reminded me of Tom Clancy with all its globetrotting, multiple interweaving plots, and timeline shifts. Or the first half of Inception when Cobb is getting his team together across countries. Leonardo DiCaprio is perfect for this as Chris, a role he’s finally just confirmed taking. Though personally I find Neil McCauley the more interesting character. A shame he’s only in the ’88 stuff but obviously he didn’t make it past ’95. I’d like a prequel just about him.

As much as I know I’ll enjoy this coming film, I can see it getting dinged for its plot excess. Hanna is somewhat underutilized, though I think Christian Bale is a solid Pacino replacement for Hanna. Yes, Hanna is just as insane in this as he was before, and it’ll be interesting seeing Bale channel some of Al’s signature spastic energy. I’m not sure about the guy doing McCauley, Stephen Graham, but he was pretty good in The Irishman. To be fair, nobody can replace DeNiro, but we also don’t want to see a de-aged Bob like in The Irishman. I’ve heard Adam Driver is possibly doing Wardell, but I don’t see him in that role at all. And the latest is Inde Navarrette is in talks to join, so she’s either Ana or Gabriela, and I’m thinking it would be Ana. A great choice there as she was pretty iconic in Obsession.

If anything, I expect Heat 2 to serve as a strong sequel to Mann’s 1995 masterpiece. Will it break the Curse of the Underwhelming Long-Awaited Successor To A Big Director’s OG Classic that seemed to befell Gladiator Dos and made theaters allergic to the lengthy The Irishman (it premiered on Netflix)? Time will tell.

Thoughts On Adapting My Slasher Novella Into A Screenplay

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

So, a while back in October last year, I mentioned how I had written my first slasher novella since high school. It was a fun little project titled Cutthroat. Here’s the updated synopsis:

A group of job applicants arrive at a highrise for an interview, only to find themselves trapped and fighting for their lives against a psychopathic recruiter known as Cutthroat, who wields a briefcase full of nasty weapons and is out to kill all of them.

Cutthroat is a dark comedy/splatter horror in the vein of Happy Death Day, The Monkey, Evil Dead, or Peter Jackson’s all-but-forgotten gross-out ‘80s slasher Dead Alive. It’s bloody, profane, sickly humorous, and was a hell of a lot of fun to write.

I recommend cutting loose once in a while and writing something like a wild and crazy slasher. Especially if you get in one of those creative ruts, which I’m prone to myself periodically. Slashers may not be the most artistically satisfying things to write—God forbid we take time away from working on the next Finnegans Wake or Infinite Jest. But sometimes the writing equivalent of junk food just hits the spot.  

After finishing up the latest draft of my novella sometime in December, I decided to let the project rest for a bit. Then afterward, I thought why not go ahead and adapt it into a screenplay? I’ve been dabbling in screenwriting since around 2012. But admittedly, the format is not really my forte. There’s something I find very constraining and limiting about screenwriting. It doesn’t let you ruminate or really get into the heads of your characters. It’s like trying to pack ten pounds of material into a five-pound bag. Stuff has to get cut. Scenes truncated. Characters condensed or written out altogether. It’s tortuous, really. Which is why I stick mainly with novels and short stories.

Now, it’d been a while since I’d even written a script. My last attempt was in 2019, another horror, centered on an orphaned deaf girl who has to fend off her foster parents when they go psycho on her due to becoming influenced by a weird signal from outer space. Sort like a Twilight Zone episode meets The Shining. It predates Pluribus, the Vince Gilligan-created show on Apple that’s also about an extraterrestrial crank call from space turning everyone into zombies. While it’s a script I’m proud of, it didn’t go anywhere, and so it put me off trying again for a while. Though perhaps I’ll expand that into a short novel at some point. I’ve written twelve screenplays in total. A handful of them are worthy candidates for literary expansion.

Cutthroat the novella stands at a trim 73 pages, and just over 32,000 words. A typical screenplay of 120 pages will be about 20,000 words. Slashers have no right being any longer than 90 minutes (and preferably shorter), so you’re looking at 15,000 words, or even shorter. Most horrors are pretty Ozempic, textually speaking anyway, favoring propulsive cat-and-mouse type narratives. You’re not going to have too many, if any, dense paragraphs.

Well, you can already see an issue with the mechanics. I had to cut my story in half to make it fit.

Sounds pretty simple, right? Just take what you’ve got and divide it. Well, like those two mothers who went to Solomon arguing over custody of their baby, cutting your offspring in twain is harder to do than it looks—and I’m a very protective mom, er, dad, when it comes to my stories.

How do you decide what stays and what goes? How do you cut a nice, juicy conversation that goes on for two single-space pages in the book down to just a bite-sized half a page in the screenplay? Think of all the nuance you’re leaving on the table. Think of the plump details you’re trimming. That one banger line. Gone. Oh, man, the picking and choosing of what lives or dies on the page–that’s the true horror of adapting a horror script.

Well, turns out, it can be done, if you focus on one important thing—moving the story along as reasonably quick as you can. That’s kinda the whole point of a screenplay. It’s even in the word movie—to move. As in to zip along quickly. Even “slow” films move at light speed compared to their novel source material. Especially horror stories. We’re not digging into deep existential questions here. We want to move from one grisly slaying to the next as fast as possible.

You have to cut to the heart of the scene. Hit the broad strokes. Choose your best line or best sequence of lines that convey everything necessary and then move on.

If writing a novel is like preparing a huge rest stop buffet for hungry highway motorists, writing a screenplay is like making one specific dish, and the food critic waiting at the table is Gordon Ramsay. 

In the first draft I actually overdid the cutting, to the point that I wound up with a script at a super lean 82 pages, i.e. 82 minutes of screen time, give or take. While such length is fine and dandy for a Friday the 13th sequel (really, I have no idea how those films filled even 50 minutes, much less 80-something), for the next draft I added some more muscle and tissue to my skeletal framework. I was even able to add a few good lines here and there. As such, the screenplay version of Cutthroat and its novel source constitute two distinct visions of the same story. An unexpected and strange result considering I wrote both. I guess it’s a bit like having twins. They look the same. They share the same biology. But one’ll be an athlete obsessed with lacrosse while the other is content to spend the day watering their geraniums.                     

The latest “final” draft clocks in at a modest 88 pages. Just about perfect as far as slasher length goes. Borrowing from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, there’s a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene, including sequel-bait. I have plenty of ideas for additional installments in the wacky, wooly world of Cutthroat. Except, like I mentioned, slashers aren’t exactly the most calorically nourishing for the soul. Much less irreverent, darkly comic, cynical ones like this one. Time will tell whether I will revisit my psycho recruiter fiend who likes to butcher desperate job seekers in various macabre ways in the future.

For now, Cutthroat the Screenplay makes for a fine regular entry into screenwriting contests. It’s short, brutal, and to the point. It’s my attempt at making a modern “iconic” horror movie villain like Art the Clown or M3gan, by tapping into the current zeitgeisty Gen-Z terror of jobseeking by introducing the “recruiter from hell.” At some point I’ll put the novella out on KDP. I’m still tinkering with it. I may hire an artist to make some mock-up renderings, or even do an audiobook of some kind. We’ll see about all that.                             

Is Speed Dating Worth It In 2026?

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment
Photo by Katerina Holmes from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/happy-couple-enjoying-romantic-moment-in-cafe-5911168/

(NOTE: The above does not typically happen during a speed dating event.)

Yesterday, I attended my first speed dating event in nearly 15 years. To put that in perspective, in 2011 we were only on the iPhone 4S. Bitcoin was as low as thirty cents. I hadn’t even moved out to the frozen hellscape of North Dakota. I was still living in the greatest city on earth–Philadelphia.

Fifteen years is a long time. I don’t know what prompted me to revisit the strange practice involving sitting across from strangers of the opposite sex for an hour and pretending to hear them in a loud, caucophonous setting, but I figured why not try it again.

Unlike my last two speed dating events, which took place in Philly, this one occurred in a town called Regina, which is in the Canadian Providence of Saskatchewan. I’d never visisted Canada, despite living near the border for almost 14 years, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and check out “America’s hat” while also trying my hand at speed dating again.

By the way, the town name Regina is not pronounced like how you pronounce a woman’s name. It rhymes with vagina. Just fyi.

Speed dating, in case you’re unaware, is an event often held in a restaurant/bar with a group of ten or so men and women, wherein you get to have a “date” with each person for about five minutes. For this event, the time limit was six minutes, a one-minute increase from my Philly ones. I guess it’s like those “Seven Minute Abs” videos back in the ’90s–just enough time to give you a workout with just good-enough results. Who says you can’t size someone up as a potential life partner in less time than it takes to make a Hungry-Man microwave dinner? We are in the Age of Snap Judgments, afterall.

I’ve already written on my misadventures in speed dating in an article, “Why Don’t Men Attend Singles Events?” linked here. And I went into this new foray bearing what I’d written in mind. But thankfully, this go-around was slightly better overall.

To begin, the proportion of men and women was almost the same. There were ten men and nine woman, as one apparently cancelled at the last minute. This was way better than two I did in Philly, where it was supposed to be 15 men and women, but wound up being like 12 women and 15 men. I don’t know where the idea came from that men don’t attend these sorts of events. There are always plenty of dudes for these things.

The age group for the event this time was 34-46, as opposed to 25-40 or something for the ones in Philly I did. It’s been awhile. So, what’s changed? Is speed dating worth it in 2026? Is it even worth it at all?

Well, for starters, in both of my iPhone 4S-era events, I never matched with anybody. And in this last one, I didn’t either. This is largely my fault, as I’ve always been notoriously selective. I think it was Billy Crystal who said when it comes to how the sexes choose mates, “Women need an excuse, men just need a place.” Well, what the hell does the guy who starred in City Slickers know about anything? Not a damn thing.

There is a clear bifurcation in the age group 34-46 between those who are serious and those who just there because. It’s palpable. Whereas in the 25-40 groups most of the women were just there pregaming before a night out, or fooling around with their besties. Nobody was taking it seriously then. But in the older group, everyone’s a lot more business and frank. So, in that sense, it was better, because at least you know everyone was kind of there purposefully.

Like I mentioned in my previous article, as I entered, I immediately employed my male gaze “Terminator vision” to search for potential mates, and instantly I realized there would be likely none. Look, it’s tough out there no matter where you look–dating apps, churches, the corner bar, etc.–I blame romantic comedies for psyoping everyone into thinking “love” just falls in your lap. In reality, you’ve probably got about the same odds as winning $500 on a scratch-off lottery ticket. Like, it happens often enough. You’ve heard about it happening. You probably have a family member who won as much. But you could visit every gas station in the state and buy ten tickets from each and still end up broke.

Anyway, after a cheesy ice breaker involving some stupid bingo game, our group was ready to begin. I took my seat at table number 2. We were all given little lists on a clipboard so we could write down someone’s name if we matched with them. Even though it’s only been 24 hours, I don’t even remember the first woman I sat across from. She was not a match, obviously. It’s weird. Anymore when I talk to people, I tend to really only hear key words. It’s like my brain has been Google-ized. This goes doubly so for whenever I’m talking to a woman. Soon as I hear things like “my kid(s)” or they start ranting about politics (more on that later), that’s it, I’m out. I no longer give a shit what they have to say. It’s not that I really care about someone’s politics. It’s just that I don’t like people who make poltics their whole identity, especially when they’re just like a boring office worker. And I don’t date single moms for the same reason I don’t visit Chernobyl or eat out of the dumpster.

The first woman I can remember mentioned that she hadn’t tried speed dating before, but had done “speed friending.” This was new to me, as I wasn’t aware such a thing even existed, as obvious as it sounds. But she had just moved to the Regina area, and it was a way to meet some new people. Not a bad idea, I thought.

The next woman I recall was a lawyer. She wasn’t really a match, but she was cool to talk to. She had a sleeve tattoo. I asked her if she was concerned about AI stealing her job. She wasn’t because AI gets a lot of legal stuff wrong. It’s useful for very basic stuff, but it can’t replace the human connection that clients need. Just as things were getting interesting, the bell rang, and it was time to move on.

The event organizer called for a ten-minute break afterward, which gave me some time to chat with two women at the next table over. One didn’t want kids and the other was um, “plus-sized”–so, neither were matches, needless to say. It was fun talking to them, though.

Next came another gargantuan single mom (this was to be a recurring theme at this event) who happened to be a Canadian Royal Mountie. I would have loved to learn more about that job, but unfortunately, she kind of buried the lead and only mentioned it right as the six-minute timer sounded. It’s all’s well, though. She probably wouldn’t have appreciated me asking if she looked up to Dudley Do-Right as a kid.

Because of the one woman who cancelled last second, I had a table all to myself at the next switch. But afterward, I met with a Nigerian lady who had moved to Canada years ago and was working as an accountant. Very nice woman. Sweet. Attractive. Not a match for me, sadly, as I am not into Black women. I felt deep sympathy for her, though, as I know that Nigerians are very family-focused. It’s part of the reason why Nigeria is one of the only places on earth right now having a population explosion. She was stuck in dreary Saskatchewan away from her family in Africa, in a place she probably had little real chance of meeting available Nigerian men, or Black/African men whatsoever. All while being too educated to just go back home and find a husband there. That’s a tough spot to be in. Regina seems like a liberal place, but interracial relationships are actually still quite rare, despite what the media may have you believe. I wish “Daisy” well.

The next potential partner became anything but very quickly as she asked me point blank if I was visiting Canada to “escape the Trump bullshit.” Now, like I said before, I don’t really care about a woman’s politics, but I really don’t like it when someone has no decorum and immediately starts spouting obscenities like we’re at a frat party. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. It’s best to be polite and well-mannered at first, at least. Especially from someone who was at least in her mid-30s. It’s quite rude. However, I can’t resist winding such a person up, so naturally I assumed the role of being the world’s biggest Trump supporter, telling her I had forgotten my MAGA hat in my car, and had wanted to wear it in to the event. This prompted her to go on a screed about the Epstein files, and how Trump had forced a 13-year-old girl to give him a blowjob, and how this girl had bitten his penis. To which I replied that none of that had been verified, and in fact Trump’s only mentions in the Epstein files had to do with him and the dead former socialite creepster douchebag crossing paths on occasion at parties and such, nothing to do with underage sex or trafficking or visiting the infamous island. We went around and around. She was very impressed with the penis-biter, even wishing she could have been that girl so she could have been the one to bite Trump’s penis. An odd thing to aspire to, I thought, but whatever. We parted quickly enough. She, too, was not a match, just in case you were wondering.

The next woman, and the last one I recall, was one of those strong and independent types who had traveled to like 25 countries. I figured as such when I saw the short hair and the sleeve tat. They are usually a dead giveaway that one is in the Don’t Need a Man Camp. But she seemed very self-aware and accepting of the fact that she was set in her ways and not changing, and didn’t see a place in her life for kids or a family. That’s the nice thing about this age group. They tend to be honest and upfront, at least.

Aside from the assortment of characters I met, the venue proved the worst part of the event, as the acoustics were absolutely horrendous. Like, I could hardly hear what someone was saying sitting right in front of me with everyone else talking and their voices bouncing off the hard walls. This is the third time I’ve run into this issue, as my last two speed dating events in Philly suffered from the same problems. It makes for a very frustrating experience. But for $25, what can you expect? High-definition doesn’t come that low priced.

Most of the women were pretty nice. Many were intrigued that I was from the U.S., but other than the Anti-Trumper, I didn’t get any comments, negative or positive, about my American-ness.

—

Some final thoughts. Speed dating is really no better than any other type of matchmaking or social event like going to a bar, as far as I can see. It’s only advantage is that it obviously involves real human interaction in a controlled environment. But you’re actually just as good on the dating apps, believe it or not. I suppose some people have had luck with speed dating. For me, I really just look at it as a fun social exercise and a way to improve my communication skills. When I can actually hear people, that is. But due to the bad sound acoustics, I find myself just sliding into that “smile and nod” routine where you can’t tell what the hell someone is saying and you’re trying to be polite. That’s uncomfortable and kind of ruins the whole scene. I think if speed dating is to be improved, it needs to be held in a place with seperate booths, or maybe outside if the weather is nice. Someone where you can actually speak at a reasonable volume and hear the other person clearly. I would go again. But it’s not like I put any stock into it as a viable means of meeting a partner. For me, it’s just a fun diversion for an hour or so.

Thoughts On Writing A Slasher

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Recently, I completed the first draft of a slasher novella I’ve titled CUTTHROAT that I began in early September.

The premise is stupifyingly simple, though, like many of my works, it’s riddled with satiric malice and dark humor:

 A group of job applicants arrive at a sleek highrise for a coveted position, but find themselves trapped and fighting for their lives against a psychopathic assessor known as Cutthroat, who wields a briefcase full of nasty weapons and is out to kill all of them.

This first draft clocked in at around 31,000 words, and it proved to be both exhausting and grossly liberating at the same time. This was one of those “cutting loose” sort of writing experiments, where I didn’t feel bound by the ordinary constraints of storytelling. Though there are two character arcs, a strong mid-point shift, a late reveal, and a twisty plot with some inventive kills. Thematically, it’s centered around the tortuous difficulties attendant with job hunting, with the whole ugly process personified in the form of a psychopathic killer known as Cutthroat, who poses as a job recruiter performing interviews, only to hack his unawares applicants apart. I really tried to go for the economic malaise zeitgeist’s jugular here that mainly desperate jobseeking Millennials and Gen-Zers are suffering through or at least might relate to. Armed with briefcases filled with all kinds of nasty weapons, Cutthroat sadisticallly plays his own twisted “assessment” games with the group of twenty-somethings, and it’s up to the protagonist to figure out a way to stop him, or at least escape with his life.

Writing a slasher is brutish work, to say the least. I’ve written my share of horrors, such as The Devil’s Throne, released a few years ago, but a slasher is another beast altogether. Slashers, obviously, are less known for their elegant exploration of human themes through a lens of supernatural or psychological chills like traditional horrors, and more about delivering a certain graphic and visceral effect on the reader/viewer.

Cutthroat is sort of “Terrifier in a business suit,” as I’ve come to refer to it as a means to sum up its ethos in a pithy “elevator pitch” manner. The slasher franchise set around Art the Clown is a real phenomenon for its cult following. Walk by any Hot Topic store in a mall and you’re bound to see Art T-shirts and other merch. He’s as big as Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees were in their day. I’ve only seen the second film and the first half of the first one. That’s literally all I could stomach. From a writer’s perspective, I found them shockingly bereft of any “story,” even for a slasher series. The Terrifier films are more a bunch of gory vignettes strung together. A bloody highlight reel of makeup and special effects. Even Friday the 13th, with all its clumsy and meandering “plots” had a semblance of mythology what with Jason and his mommy issues. Not so for Terrifier, which seems content to just freak out audiences with new methods of bodily mutilation. Hellraiser seems tame by comparison, which seems not possible.

Honestly, I found writing my first slasher disappointingly mundane. How many ways can you really butcher human beings on paper? I found myself straining to somehow “make it more interesting.” I did this by interjecting a backstory for the villain in order to make him believable, and by adding humor wherever possible. At one point I gave up for a few days, put off by the whole thing. Only to return days later determined to finish the task.

Now that it’s done, like often happens when I’ve finished a writing project, I find myself wracked with a post-partum malaise. Though there is always the long and tedious editing process.

I remember reading about how John Carpenter, while struggling to write Halloween II (1981) hit some bad writer’s block. I wondered how in the hell could that happen. We’re talking Michael Myers here. Pehaps the most simplistic masked killer there ever was. Just set him loose in a school so he can stalk another group of dumb horny teenagers. How hard could it be, right? But after writing my first slasher, I can see where he was likely coming from, and how unfulfilled he probably felt trying his hand at the sequel. It’s no wonder he wound up throwing in the bogus development about Laurie Strode being Michael’s sister as a way to liven things up and add motivation. Something he later regretted adding to Michael’s “mythology” due to its inherent silliness. The whole point of Michael Myers is that he doesn’t need a “motivation.” That’s what makes him scary. But I can see how sheer boredom probably drove Carpenter to want to throw in anything, no matter how nonsensical, to make the writing process more palatable for him. At least The Thing had the intricate puzzlebox mysteries of “Who’s the Thing and who’s not?” “Who can you trust?” With Halloween, it’s more just about coming up with new ways Michael can kill people.

On the surface, writing a slasher is “stupidly easy,” sure. Kind of. We’re not writing a dense Cormac McCarthian Western here, even if Anton Chigurh is like a Mexican Michael Myers with a shotgun. But it takes a piece of your soul. There are also the tricky mechanics of coming up with a bigger than life villain. Something iconic. A Nightmare on Elm Street, to me, is the gold standard when it comes to slashers. It’s probably the most intelligent of them. Certainly it’s the best high-concept horror idea. A killer that stalks you in your dreams. The kind of idea that makes you go, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Overall, I enjoyed attempting the slasher genre, though it’s not one I’d quickly want to return to. Technically, it’s not actually my first stab at it. I handwrote a short story about a group of masked killers stalking a school way back when I was a teenager in high school. It was a story obviously ripped off of Halloween as I’d just seen that film on cable, though I added a “clever” twist by not having one, or two, but three killers. Genius, obviously. With this latest attempt decades later, I like to think I’ve grown and matured. I feel I made Cutthroat suitably gory and satisfied the demands of the genre with all the requisite tropes, while putting my own touch on things and bringing something new. If anything, it was a fun writing exercise that felt perfectly appropriate with Halloween right around the corner. 🙂

Links To My Recent Articles, A Quick Comment About Medium, and Other Updates

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-vintage-typewriter-163084/

Here are links to a bunch of articles I’ve written on Medium but just haven’t cross-posted here on my personal site. In order of recency:

Women Are Willing To Sell Their Bodies To Pay Off Student Loans

“You Must Be This Tall To Ride This Ride”

Some Very Disturbing (And Gross) Stats About STDs, Especially When It Comes To Black Women

River Is A Solid Bitcoin-Only Exchange

Three Cold Hard As Fuck Truths For Why You’re Single

They Sang Along To Ye’s “Heil Hitler,” Now They’re Getting Doxxed, Harassed, And Threatened

She Calls A 5-Year-Old ‘N-gger,’ Now May Cash Out With A Million Dollars In Online Donations

Medium

Medium continues to be a massive disappointment this year. Due to either an algorithm change or some kind of shift in how it distributes traffic, I barely get the engagement in years prior, and substantially smaller payouts and fewer followers, consequently. Though some of my articles caught on in Google’s rankings, I see zero money for non-Medium members who read my stuff. That’s really frustrating, as some of my “stories” (as Medium likes to call them) have caught tens of thousands of views.

It’s not that I soullessly write for money. It’s just that I would like to see commensurate compensation for when I do write something that lands.

Still, I’ve kept plugging away. Either foolishly or just out of stubborn persistence and the desire to maintain stasis. Medium is a solid platform, for sure. But it has a low ceiling. Whereas a platform like YouTube will (assuming you are monetized) at least pay you for ALL the views you get, not just Medium members. As such, YT has basically uncapped potential, though it too has its issues.

YouTube

As much as I love YouTube and the idea of being a YouTuber, I don’t know that it’s the right venue for me, either. Nor do I care to contort myself into the tortuous content creation pretzel shape that YT demands if you want to have a shot at gaining traction. YT seems to favor TikTok-style shorts anymore, and such snappy, soundbite quippings are not in my wheelhouse. The few videos I’ve posted this year are long, thoughtful, and reflective, which is not really conducive to YT’s dazzling discothèque guppy-attention-span content that seems to predominate on there.

I’m a writer at the end of the day. A fiction writer, specifically. I try to be. While I like dropping spicy op-eds from time to time, Medium and this whole “content game” thing often just proves a procrastinative distraction and a futilely unfulfilling endeavor. I get so little satisfaction out of writing even a “banger” article that gets a good traffic spike it’s not funny.

Whereas, a good fiction writing session puts me on cloud nine.

I don’t care to just crank out a bunch of noise, trying to surf the trend waves. I’d rather spend the time on my books. I have a lot of them in various states of editing, and I have a lot of ideas for more.

My latest will be out soon.

Conundrum

Which brings me to the conundrum. To be a successful fiction writer, you need a platform to help market your work. But to get a platform, you have to play the mind numbing algo/traffic/pretzel twist game I just talked about. A successful writer is a successful salesman, not just a good tapper of keystrokes. Like many writers, this rustles my introvert jimmies. I hate “putting myself out there,” though I’m not a wallflower by any means.

I see many other writers, especially self-published ones, market themselves via YouTube and social media, either by book or movie reviews, or by being (usually godawful) cultural critics and posting daily ragebait commentary on whatever headline caught their ire that morning. I don’t care to waste the time being a “culture warrior.” That’s very cringy to me. And there are frankly certain audiences I just don’t care to attract.

I will never be a fucking “writing coach.” I will never sell a fucking course or some bullshit consulting like so many of those hustlers out there do. No. Just no. I will never make “writing about writing” my thing. Never going to happen. I don’t care to waste the time, and I sure as hell don’t need to do it for the money.

I could see doing long form book or movie reviews, however.

And even though some of my finance-themed articles have actually performed the best, I think I’m done with that niche. Save and invest your money. Stay out of debt. Control your spending. Slow and steady (i.e. boring) compound gains will make you wealthy, not get-rich-quick crypto/stock/real estate/side hustle schemes. Stop listening to stupid influencers and their bullshit products. There, what the hell else needs to really be said?

Conclusion

As a compromise, I’ll keep posting non-fiction stuff, but likely just focusing on books, movies, and shows. Since Medium has proven near pointless to continue with, I may just go old school and post stuff on here exclusively instead. I blogged a lot way back in the day, and I see that era of the internet returning. Content has become far too siloed on digital slave farms like Facebook and other social media. It’s time for it to decentralize like it used to be. A.I. slop has ruined a lot of content sites also. In fact, I think A.I. is part of why the algo machine has completely broken down across the web.

I’ll invest more time interacting with social media in a qualitatively productive manner. I’ll also continue to experiment with YouTube. Perhaps there are actually people out there who’d rather look at my face and hear me talk than read my stuff. Hey, it’s possible.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I’ll have more updates for you soon, including my latest book. See you in the sun. 🙂

Chuck Dixon’s ‘Levon Cade’ Series (‘A Working Man’) Is Inspiring

On By Dean BrooksLeave a comment

Eleven books produced in one year. Holy shit balls.

Source: By Amazon MGM Studios — https://www.vitalthrills.com/a-working-man-trailer-featuring-jason-statham/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78846003

I’m a recovering “beat-em-up” fan. Back in the day as a teen I used to love those terrible Steven Seagal films like Above the Law and Marked For Death. Or Jean-Claude Van Damme stuff like Bloodsport and Death Warrant. They were constantly on rotation on USA and TBS and other freemium cable channels in the late ’90s. Films that were passably entertaining for immature adolescent minds, but in retrospect are ridiculously cheesy and absurd. But hey, if you haven’t seen Seagal break a Jamaican dude’s arm in half or Van Damme roundhouse kick a guy into a furnace, you haven’t lived.

Nowadays, Jason Statham is your go-to macho man face puncher and bad guy beater downer. Strangely, actors even higher up the talent totem pole have had a go at their own fistacuffs franchises. Bob Odenkirk is Nobody. A-lister Denzel Washington is The Equalizer. And of course Internet Jesus Keanu Reeves is John Wick.

Everyone wants to kick ass these days! Who can blame them? Have you seen the prices of things lately? Going to the grocery store anymore is like going to a Fuck Me in the Ass Parade.

The latest is A Working Man, where Statham plays a former blacks ops soldier turned construction guy who has to return to his face-stomping roots when his boss’s daughter gets kidnapped or something. I’ve not seen it, nor will I ever. Just like I didn’t see Statham’s last flick The Beekeeper, which had pretty much the same plot. The latest edition of Statham Beats Up Some Guys interests me about as much as hanging around a bunch of backwards hat-wearing dude bros talking about their fantasy football picks.

(No man should have a hobby with the word “fantasy” in it. Like, are there sparkles involved? Pink glitter? GTFO of here with that.)

Anyway…

What is pretty cool (and surprising), is that A Working Man is based on a book. Which is part of a book series, actually. By a real author. Not some A.I. trained on Seagal and Van Damme flicks. Chuck Dixon is a prolific author known mostly for his work in the comic book industry. He co-created Bane, aka the villain who broke Batman’s back. So, this guy is well-experienced in creating characters that know how to kick the crap out of people.

Dixon’s series is called Levon Cade, and features the vigilante going on various quests involving revenge and likely crushing a few throats. There are twelve books in total. The first, titled simply Levon’s Trade, premiered in December, 2021. The others came in rapid succession, sometimes as little as three weeks apart, over the course of 2022. The eleventh published in August, after which Dixon took a sabbatical before dropping the twelfth and final (?) in February, 2024. Not bad. Guy banged it all out in roughly a calendar year.

Look, these are not labyrinthine literary feasts like A Game of Thrones. These stories are Fisher-Price simple and Neanderthal stupid. No shit. But when you get down to it, there are really only two genres — “Man with Gun” and “Girl Bangs Guy.” That’s about it. James Bond, for all his British sophistication, is just another “Man with Gun” story. Titanic is the ultimate “Girl Bangs Guy.” The classics usually combine the two in interesting ways. Double Indemnity, for instance. There are some exceptions, often seen in experimental or prestige award stuff, but nobody cares. People only pay attention when someone’s fucking or getting murdered. Can you name the book that won the Nobel Prize for Literature four years ago? No? Have you ever heard of Fifty Shades of Grey? My point exactly.

I am not a fan of simple vigilante series, in either book or movie versions. I read Killing Floor once, the first Jack Reacher book, a long time ago, and the experience was akin to tattoo gunning my eyeballs. I am a fan of writers, however. Especially ones who put in the effort to carve out their own success, in whatever genre they choose. A Working Man has likely done well enough at the box office to merit a sequel. Who knows. It could even be a franchise like John Wick. I have no idea. I’ll never see the films anyway. I outgrew the need for them a long time ago. But I do appreciate them and the writers who make them.