Book

Whaddya mean the Oscars snubbed Animal Farm?

Full disclosure: Animal Farm, by George Orwell, is one of my favorite books. For all the fretting about banned books in America (which is bullshit because anyone claiming such-and-such book is banned can easily purchase it on Amazon), you could literally be jailed or worse if someone catches you reading this book in North Korea. The Stalinist hellhole banned it because (suprise) the Dear Leader disliked its warning about communism.

The book chronicles a barnyard animal revolution to seize control of a farm where everyone can live in a utopia. Then Napolean the pig takes over and the farm devolves into modern-day Pyongyang. If that doesn’t scream animated children’s movie, nothing does.

Enter Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings fame to direct a “reimagined” computer-animated version of Orwell’s cautionary tale. Whenever you see “reimagined” slapped on a famous story, run. And that applies to this flick, which, surprisingly didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for best animated film. I thought it was a shoe-in because Serkis stripped communism from Animal Farm as an evil ideology and replaced it with capitalism (insert foreboding music here).

Not only did this completely neuter the entire point behind Animal Farm, it allowed Hollywood press people to write insufferable nonsense like “(Napoleon’s) desperation to belong among ruthless human billionaires and their cyberpunk-esque vehicles strikes close to home in 2025.” Good lord.

Stripping Stalinism as the corrupting force from Animal Farm is like reimagining The Silence of the Lambs with a vegan Hannibal Lecter. I’ve not seen Serkis’s idiotic take on Orwell’s classic, nor will I. The film had a limited screening in 2025 and will receive a wider release this year. If the reviews I could find are any indication, it’ll be out of the theaters faster than you can say “four legs good, two legs bad.”

Here’s a line from the Variety review: “… but the message feels muddled amid all the pratfalls and fart jokes.”

Yeah, that’s exactly what Animal Farm needs to appeal to a modern audience. Fart jokes.

End of a Star Wars Error …

Imagine purchasing one of the most profitable and beloved franchises in history, and then making every bad decision possible to ruin it.

That’s what Kathleen Kennedy when she was handed Star Wars after Disney purchased is more than a decade ago.

Mercifully, she’s leaving.

The Force Awakens, the fist new SW flick in a decade released in 2015, and it was fine for what it was (almost an exact replica of the original Star Wars). Then things slid downhill.

New (and uninteresting and uninspiring) characters were added. Beloved characters killed off. Millions of childhoods died in the process.

I liked The Mandolorian, and will see the movie involving him this year. But most of the other SW offerings (The Acolyte especially, but also Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, the Book of Boba Fett) lacked. Poor writing, unlikeable characters, and, frankly, too much of it doomed the franchise.

What always made Star Wars special to me was its rarity. Growing up in the 80s, we couldn’t wait for Return of the Jedi! It has been an eternity (3 years is an eternity to a 7-year-old) since Empire. And we got Jabba and all those creatures. It’s still my favorite for that reason.

Then 16 years passed to 1999 and The Phantom Menace. And it was bad. But bad Star Wars is like bad pizza. You’ll still eat it. George wasn’t at his best then, and the subsequent 2 films at least explained things leading to the beginning of A New Hope. We got some animated SW after that, but no more movies. Until the sale. Then awful movies and many cringe-worthy shows. We were saturated with Star Wars shows and movies not worthy of carrying that name.

It’s to the point where new SW shows arrive on Disney+ and I don’t bother watching. It’s not that it’s not the same as the original trilogy, it’s now mass-marketed junk. The original movies had groundbreaking special effects. Everything now is blue screen and motion capture. The magic’s gone.

Maybe Kennedy’s replacement will manage to right the ship, but it’s a tall order. Time will tell. And we’ll get our first glimpse this summer with the new Mandolorian movie.

Until then, the original trilogy’s on bluray and the magic’s still there.

Meeting the mob crew (an inspiration) …

Goodfellas is almost out of my system, but I couldn’t resist the following, based on this scene and after reading Nicholas Pileggi’s Wise Guy:

We were wise guys, yes, but gods among men otherwise. It all started when I met Jimmy “The Irishman” O’Houlihan, one of the best hijackers in Queens, who took me under his wing when I was a kid.

“You ever rat me out and I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear,” Jimmy told me when he shook my 10-year-old hand. “Now, drive that semi-truck of stolen cigarettes to Sheepshead Bay so we can unload them.”

“I can’t drive,” I said. “My feet don’t even reach the brakes.”

“Fuckin’ mutt,” Jimmy said in the most endearing way possible. “Let me find some blocks to tie to the brake and gas pedals.”

That’s how it started. A 10-year-old boy steering a multi-ton death machine across the city. Jimmy would’ve been so proud of me had a rival crew not hijacked me and stolen the cigarettes.

Jimmy found out who did it, whacked ’em, and recovered the cigarettes.

“Next time I’ll give you a gun,” Jimmy said. “Now, go inside and watch Sesame Street.”

I was the toughest kid in the mob daycare center. The other kids’ parents gave them extra lunch money so they could buy something to eat after I shook them down. I always kicked some dough back up to Jimmy. The other families knew who I was with and never said a word.

I made book on who’d win the spelling bee, and would beat up anyone who wouldn’t misspell ‘dog’ when I told them to. I organized Uno games, and God help the kid who tried marking the Wild cards. The daycare administrator once asked Joe “The Piano Player” Moscone why all ten of his fingers were broken. He kept his mouth shut and never played Bach the same way again.

Our Monopoly games involved real money. I forced the players to pay protection on their houses and hotels. And if they didn’t, they’d get melted green and red blobs on Boardwalk and Park Place. Anyone who went directly to jail got a black eye for being sloppy.

But those were the guys I grew up with. When we became old enough to drink, which was 18 back then, we met at Paul “the Arsonist” Giglione’s new pub after his old one burned down.

There was Frankie “the Wop” Bugliati, Vinny “the Daigo” Vincense, and Bobby “the Dignified Italian” Pucinni who despised Frankie’s and Vinny’s nicknames.

Tommy “the Snitch” Genovese was a regular until recently. I have no idea why he suddenly disappeared.

Haruki “The Blowfish Poisoner” Ishigawa sought to establish the Yakuza in Queens, but he was the only Japanese gangster in town, so he hung with us. Marco “the Insult Master” Francesa once called Ishigawa “the nipster.” I thought it was kinda lazy, but Ishi took it in stride, chuckled, and asked Marco if he’d ever tried fugu and if he would like to. I’m not sure if Marco enjoyed it. I haven’t had the chance to ask him because he’s been in the hospital for six months.

I don’t think I ever paid for a drink in my life. Paul “Pope Beneficent” Gagliardi took care of me. I always made it a point to go to church for him. Then I’d meet my mistress right afterward at the track.

Nobody ever walked up behind Billy “the Paranoid Schizophrenic” Batty when he was sitting at the bar. The last guy who tapped him on the shoulder ended up with his face chewed off while Billy screamed in between chomps, “The voices! Why are the bunny rabbits so loud!” Yeah, we avoided Billy at all costs.

We always busted “Fat” Andy Ciccio’s balls because he was morbidly obese and practically sweated butter. Then he went and lost 300 pounds, and we started calling him Andy “the Bulimic who Ruined His Teeth” Ciccio. I liked “Fat” Andy better.

We ate chicken parmesan until buttons popped off our shirts and teased the old-school capo Vito “the Wordsmith” Bossonaro, who sipped anisette while doing his crossword puzzle. His days of pounding whiskey ended when he broke too many wooden barrels. We bought him a punching bag soon after.

It was the mafia’s golden age, before the bad times, before mob boss Anthony “the Neocon” Porchetta started a war against the Toscano Crime Family because its boss, Luciano, didn’t pay his Monopoly protection money to me on time. The thing is, he did. I was hungover and forgot to give it to Anthony.

Hey, wait, you’re not recording any of this, are you?

$75 for my novella? Don’t fall for it!

If you’re an author of any variety, you probably have been on eBay buying something you don’t need, and then it occurs to you, “Maybe one of my books is on here.”

And, much like Googling yourself, you eBay yourself. And when you get results like this, you WARN people. So, here goes:

PEOPLE! Do not buy my novella, Twelfth Krampus Night, for $75! It’s not even signed, which would probably decrease the value.

I’m not telling you to not buy it because I don’t get a cut (and I don’t). I’m telling you because it’s highway robbery. The book’s available on Amazon for $9.99 for the paperback and $2.99 for the ebook.

Now, if roughly one million of you would buy the paperback right this very moment, I’d greatly appreciate it. All right, I get it, that’s an unreasonable ask. How about 900,000 of you? That’s fair.

But what isn’t is charging gullible readers $75 for a book of mine that’s not worth that much!

Good or bad idea? Attending a book signing to ask an author for a blurb

The following post started as a draft more than a decade ago, when I was actively promoting my books. I’ve not asked another author for a blurb in years, but I likely will start that process in the next few months.

I know of a writer who has blindly asked a book signing’s featured author to endorse the writer’s work, resulting in the author agreeing to look at the manuscript. I would imagine this is done after the event concludes and the aspiring writer gets a moment of the author’s time to make the pitch. Maybe they hit it off? If that works, who am I to say don’t do it?

But I take the approach that you don’t want to put an author on the spot to say yes or no. Think about it: when someone asks you out of the blue to do something that takes up your time and that you weren’t expecting, how do you feel? More often than not, you feel put-upon, but you say yes out of a sense of obligation.

I want an established author to read my work because he or she wants to, not because of undue pressure.

That’s why writing a professional pitch (yes, another damned query letter), to me, is more desirable. It allows the recipient author to sit back, ruminate, and make an informed decision. I emailed a blurb request to a New York Times-bestselling author of numerous books. I didn’t expect to even hear back from the author. Not only did I hear back, but the author specifically stated it was my professionalism (and the premise of my book) that initiated the reply. The author told me to check back in a few months to see if there was an opening in the author’s schedule.

(I’m trying not to be gender specific because I don’t want the author to be hit with requests that he/she might not want.)

A few months passed, and I noticed the author was appearing at a book signing not far from where I lived. Rather than simply show up and say, “Hey, remember me?” I again wrote the author, said I knew about the appearance, and that I’d like to attend to officially introduce myself. I heard back almost immediately: attend!

I did. I bought a copy of the author’s book at the appearance, got an autograph, and made a friend (not a buddy-buddy, let’s-drink-beers friend; but I’d like to think a writing friend who couldn’t have been kinder to me). The author said to send the ms. And eventually, I was provided with an excellent blurb. I couldn’t have been happier. The author told me that whatever I was doing, to keep doing it.

Another thing to keep in mind: don’t be a pest. If an author agrees to look at your manuscript, state a deadline for when it would be ideal to receive the blurb, and that you’ll check back at the start of the deadline’s month to see where things stand. (Seeing that my release date was 18 months off at the time of my signing a contract, I had a seven-month window to get blurbs–although there’s always wiggle room, especially if Stephen King manages to get back to you. Dream big, baby!) My point: don’t write the author every month, much less every other week, to see if the author has tackled your manuscript. Just don’t. ###

I wrote that more than 10 years ago and it still makes sense to me, and I’ll be following my own advice soon!

New York Times Discusses Book Promotion

One of my daily rituals involves checking The New York Times’ Books section — not because I’m expecting to ever see one of my books mentioned there, even by accident, but because it’s interesting to see what the Old Gray Lady deems newsworthy when it comes to what it believes we, the little people, should be reading from conglomerate publishers. (Independent presses probably need not apply. Probably.)

Anywhoodledoo, one of the things I’m plotting in the months to come is how to promote my debut that arrives in November. This is terribly daunting, especially when you’re not flashy or comfortable hawking yourself, but it must be done.

The Demands of Book Promotion: Frivolous or Necessary? features writers James Parker and Anna Holmes discussing how they approach this essential step to building an author’s following. With all due respect, James Parker’s contribution is nothing but a bunch of high-minded gobbledygook that offers nothing of substance, but Anna Holmes’ piece is worth reading because it’s illustrative and practical for first-timers.

In short, it’s all about the readers and finding creative ways to reach them, mainstream media be damned. Easier said than done, but true.

Do you agree?