A short post today, first up being my newest rendition of a very old song called “Jack of Diamonds.”
In case the embed below doesn’t work, here’s the youtube link.
Now here’s a piece of art by my pal the actor Gary Warner Kent. It’s called “Tusitala,” and starts with the line: “I Thought I Saw Jesus This Morning.” I love this and I think you’ll love it too.
Here’s the youtube link in case the embed below doesn’t work.
Next you should check out the film project on Gary Kent called “Love & Other Stunts” which is in the fundraising mode now on indieGoGo.com. Check it out here and I think you will be glad you did. It’s a real worthy artistic-type cause.
Gary Kent, tough guy, cool cat
The pitch starts off thusly:
The most interesting man in the world
I was at a writing conference in the late ’90s when I met a white-haired hustler with a Burt Reynolds mustache and a knowing grin. He introduced himself as Gary Kent and told me about a cult biker film he’d starred in called Satan’s Sadists. That night I tracked down a copy of the film and watched it, then I tracked down Gary and wrote a couple of articles about his unique film career doubling Jack Nicholson and Robert Vaughan, and staging stunts and special effects sequences for notable directors Peter Bogdanovich, Monte Hellman, Richard Rush, Al Adamson and Don Coscarelli for movies including Hell’s Angels On Wheels, Psych-out, Targets, Bubba Ho-tep, and the noir Westerns The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind.
Also check out Gary’s blog. I happened to meet Gary Kent at a screening of “The Cockfighter,” a Monte Hellman film starring Warren Oates and also the late Charles Willeford, who wrote the book and the screenplay, and is one of my favorite writers. This screening also included a showing of one of Hellman’s other films, I forget which one, but it was fabulous. So, anyway, if you meet a real hip guy at a real hip film with all these other associations of cool, you remember. But Gary is a memorable guy who has led an interesting life anyway.
By the way, I hope you viewed yesterday’s post. It includes a video of another blues song I’ve been working on (“High Water Everywhere Part 2″ by Charley Patton) and an admonition for all of you not to buy GRAVE DIGGER BLUES if you feel that you are not hip enough for it, because in fact, it might be TOO WEIRD for you. I’m always looking out for you, see?
GRAVE DIGGER BLUES may in fact be too weird for you. Maybe you’d rather listen to Celine Dion and wear elephant plaid to your high school reunion.
UPDATE 1.9.13: SXSW 2013 is just a few weeks away. Scroll to bottom of this post for news tip about my eBook events at SXSW 2013 Interactive. Also it’s time for you to get shot. Shot by one of Austin’s best, Ricardo Acevedo, who has a great package of SXSW 2013 rates for you. Blood loss is negotiable, of course. As you may know, Ricardo is one of the great photographers whose work is showcased in Grave Digger Blues, plus he did the cover art. Check the photo, bro, below:
Photo: Ricardo Acevedo
UPDATE 1.8.13: GRAVE DIGGER BLUES, Bare Bones Edition now available at Smashwordsfor $0.99. ”Bare Bones” means text only, but with the same insane narrative on hyperdrive packed with hardboiled action, surrealism, homicide blondes, jazz, blues and lyrical brutality, but bargain priced for those of you who don’t care to see 100+ photos of sexy women, doomed private eyes, urban wastelands and pix of Dick Cheney in drag, Reagan-faced monkeys and giant walking catfish.
For all the info you can handle about my favorite creation, check the GRAVE DIGGER BLUES home page.
And a little note to my friends and fans: I wish you’d check out this book and maybe even buy it. I think you’d like it. If you have something new for me to check out, let me know, and I will return the favor.
GRAVE DIGGER BLUES may in fact be too weird for you. Maybe you’d rather listen to Celine Dion and wear elephant plaid to your high school reunion.
On August 1, 1966, Charlie Whitman introduced the world to a new concept: the public gun massacre. The NRA has an answer: more guns for EVERYBODY, EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME. OH, JOY!
UPDATE 1.4.13: SXSW 2013 is inevitable, isn’t it? I will be hosting an E-BOOK MEET UP during SXSW Interactive with my digital guru, NETTIE REYNOLDS. That’s all I have right now, as I’m in the process of wading through the SXSW production thingie to get things set, but basically it will be a one hour session for anybody and everybody involved in digital publishing –authors, publishers, cover artists, publicists, etc.–to meet, exchange business cards or whatever, talk, moan, gush, groove.
UPDATE 1.6.13: I GOT A NEW GUITAR. I’M SO HAPPY NOW.
“Jesse Sublett dazzles in his latest offering, a surreal noir escapade for the Kindle and iPad called The Gravedigger’s Blues. Sublett composed the work using iAuthor which enabled him to embed paintings, collages, photographs and several songs in the iPad version. It makes for a rich, multi-media, multi-sensory experience.
When you open the book you come face to face with a video of the bluesman in dark glasses and a houndstooth coat, singing a mysterious, melancholic tune. The video adds an element of intimacy to the reading experience. We’re all familiar with the standard author photo. Now imagine the photo come to life, and set to music. It’s very cool. There are several other audio-only jazzy-blues songs included in the book which help to set the mood. I particularly liked The Headless Supermodel, a humorous, hip skewering of L.A. vacuity.
Sublett is a gifted visual artist. He includes several photo collages in this work. They are strange, unsettling compositions. I may never recover from the gothic horror of Dick Cheney in drag. Sublett’s paintings have a modernist feel. They are bright, intense things heavy on the boobs.
This e-book is a goody-bag of delights. I found it hard to read the book straight through, but perhaps it isn’t meant to be read that way. Dip into the book, here and there. Hear some songs, see some art and read the book, in sections, to enjoy this wonderful prose stylist, letting loose, experimenting with and stretching the bounds of this exciting new medium- the enhanced e-book.” — Kate Walker, writer, book & music reviews blog
President of the Ex Girlfriends Club.
She’s too good for you.
Why do we dream what we dream?
The above blurb is from an advance copy of Kate Walker’s review of GRAVE DIGGER BLUES for her wordpress blog, and I’m delighted not only by her comments but by the notion of being written about on the same site which writes seriously about Katy Perry (I’ve been a fan ever since the first dose of ear candy from her reached out from the radio and grabbed me) and Daniel Woodrell, the acknowledged master of that sub-genre of crime fiction called country noir.
Things she does to drive me crazy
She said sex was like pizza.
BIG DEAL, XMAS STEAL: To encourage readers to check out GRAVE DIGGER BLUES, all 3 of my Martin Fender novels, plus the short story Moral Hazard, are free in the Amazon Kindle Store through December 26. Alternately, of course, you could do whatever you want to do a Amazon and then quickly go to the Apple iBookstore and get a free sample of the Blues Deluxe Edition for iPad of GRAVE DIGGER BLUES, with music, video and audio chapters, which, sadly, Kindle does not have the technical capacity to deliver. Nor, sadly, do over 99% of my rival authors.
October Eve.
Delfina next morning.
Jade Honey.
Due to an epic case of Apple OS X corruption on my trusty-not-rusty MacBook Pro, the past week has been one of rebuild-and-restore here at Grave Digger Blues, Incorporated, and I have not been able to finish a new political blog post for my Secession Chronicle page or our cousin, the mighty OpEdNews.com site.
Obviously, as a blatant attempt to keep you returning to this page, I’m offering a selection of original images here, including a few of the aforementioned “heavy on the boobs” original images from moi, your favorite noir author and surrealist blues troubadour. Also this recently discovered video link on Hulu, by which you can enjoy the Biography episode: ATTILA, SCOURGE OF GOD, which I wrote for Biography A&E a few years back. It’s a fairly low budget piece of nonfiction television, but quite informative, I think, and the show was well-received. I’ll write a few notes about it later, in this same space.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Jesse Sublett, your faithful blues & noir correspondent
Your faithful Blue Xmas correspondent, a k a, the Author & Musician, Jesse Sublett
My favorite short comment recently: A Twitter follower of mine wrote: “This guy Jesse Sublett is nuts! But he’s my kind of nut.”
This wild man who crashed into your room, was he a minotaur? Huh? A Ford Taurus? No, man, this cat drove a Buick. (Picasso)
Since I last wrote to you about Grave Digger Blues, my new eBook crime novella for iPad and Kindle, a couple of cool new reviews have come in. Nice comments. See them below ( I’ve also added them to the Grave Digger Bluespage).
This is something really different. Grave Digger Blues is a departure from Jesse Sublett’s excellent books. The Martin Fender series takes the detective novel on a tour through the music demi monde by way of Austin. His memoir, Never the Same Again is as enthralling as any work of fiction and it’s real. Now, he’s trying something new. Grave Digger Blues brings in Sci-fi, a bit of poetry, and art. It’s nothing less than an attempt to re-think the novel for the digital age and it’s really brave. Some sections work better than others, but it’s a good ride. I’m hoping that Sublett plans to take this further, he’s on to something and I want to see where it goes. — Kathleen Maher, writer
The Blues Cat, his blues was epic, like a film noir in real time, all those hard luck songs about trains and cheap whisky, jail, no money and bad women like shrapnel from a bomb embedded in his soul.
Grave Digger Blues is perhaps too gentle a name for Jesse Sublett’s vision of the end of the world as we know it. To sing the blues, you have to have lived the blues. To write about hell on earth, you have to have lived it. Jesse has, and has emerged the stronger and more perceptive for it. Grave Digger Blues showcases his prowess as a writer, songwriter, performer, and graphic artist. I am jealous of precious few writers; Jesse Sublett is one of them. –Richard Zelade, author
Maybe it was revenge for all the things we’d done to her, but Mother Nature wasn’t herself anymore. Nobody was.
I really appreciate this kind of support. If any of you have read the book and enjoyed it, it would be really great if you went to the Grave Digger Blues listing on Amazon and also the listing in iTunes or the iBookstore and give it a rating and write a few lines about it. If you aren’t involved in this kind of publishing, you have no idea how essential it is to have that feedback in order to make any sales. It’s difficult to get the old school media to review eBooks, so eAuthors are very dependent on fans and friends for their positive feedback.
You may already be aware of the cameo appearances in my new new by walking catfish (an oversized mutation of an Asian species, Clarius batrachus, a k a, walking catfish, which have undergone disturbing changes due to radiation in the environment in the last weeks before the end of the world), or I hope you are aware of that, anyway, but it’s possible you might have missed this story about aggressive catfish which I found on NPR yesterday. I’m posting it here for your enlightenment. Ladies and gentlement, I present Krulwich’s nature blog, shining a well-deserved spotlighted PIGEON EATING CATFISH. Or you can just go straight to video, below.
NPR’s Krulwich rightly compared the catfish to orca, the killer whale. Ever seen those big cute panda bear sea mammals come shooting up out of the surf onto the shore to grab and devour a cute little sea lion? It’s quite impressive. Also you may or may not be familiar with the fascinating snakehead catfish (Channa striata, and other related catfish), which can migrate across land from pond to pond. There was a scare about those beasts taking over in the US a couple of years ago. They’re also common in Asia. Strong fighters. Sport fishermen like tussling with them.
Snakeheads are sold in the U.S. both as food in Asian markets and as pets, being prized for their hardiness and aggressive habits. Snakeheads in U.S. waters are generally assumed to be former pets whose owners tired of them and dumped them.
An interestingly put factoid here about the appetite of these boogers, expressed in a cost-benefit ratio from an article posted in 2002.
Snakeheads are sold in the U.S. both as food in Asian markets and as pets, being prized for their hardiness and aggressive habits. A six-inch snakehead that costs $7 will eventually eat up to $8 of goldfish a day.
The nation wrestles with the dark parts of her soul.
You may have noticed that I’ve begun blogging about the Secession craze sweeping the country lately, particularly the darker corners of the Old Confederacy, and the old Lone Star State has been leading the way. Leading the way to Clown Heaven, that is. I find this a very interesting story and I’ve been posting new blogs here and then uploading them to OpEdNews.com, a great progressive news site. You can link directly to those stories at OpEdNews and give them some props, tweet them, like them on Facebook, and various other forms of digital love. The first one was ESCAPE TO CIVIL WAR LAND, published Dec 9, and the second is SECESSION OBSESSION UNABATED.
GRAVE DIGGER BLUES out now for iPad also Kindle, iPhone, etc.
UPDATE FROM THE ROAD:
“Grave Digger Blues is a dark fever dream that’s part noir, part stand-up. Sublett’s writing is as apt to scare the hell out of you as it is to make you die laughing.”
Reed Farrel Coleman, three-time Shamus Award-winning author of Gun Church
Grave Digger Blues, my new noir novella, is now available as an iBook for the Apple iPad–with original music video, graphics–and also available in eBook form (text only) for Kindle, iPhone, etc. You can download the iPad version from iTunes for $6.99 or the Kindle version from Amazon (text only) for $4.99.
I’ve created a new page for Grave Digger Blues, here, with more details, including a whole bunch of the great, supercool images by ace Austin art photographers Mona Pitts and Ricardo Acevedo, like these two below:
screen shot of Grave Digger Blues, photo by Mona Pitts
Grave Digger Blues, photo by Ricardo Acevedo
So I hope you will check it out and dig it. I’ve recorded a little video clip especially for the occasion of the book going live on iTunes, and as time allows, I hope to plan some special events, like gigs, etc., to help spread the word.
CLICK BELOW to hear “Grave Digger Blues”, the theme of this novella.
NOTE: DATE CHANGE ON SXSW MEET UP. It is Sat. March 10, 11 AM, Hyatt.
Another change: SXSW show at Billy’s (see below) moved to 5:30-7:30.
And…. stay tuned for announcement of a MUSICIANS AS VISUAL ARTISTS show at the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture. Yes, I’m in it, and so are Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Guy Juke and a total of 10 musician / artists.
A quick note here about SXSW and other related things. For your SXSW Interactive schedule, I’ll be hosting an ePublishing Meet Up at 11 AM Saturday March 10 at the Hyatt campus. They should have an updated schedule here with the location (and my name!) any minute now. I’ll be talking about my new enhanced iBook for the iPad, Rock Critic Murders: 25th Anniversary Edition for the iPad, which I developed using the new iBooks Author 2 app, so this eBook has lots of rocking music, video, photos and art. Many of my favorite things about Austin are visited in video travelogues. This book came out originally in 1989, and I have updated and super-turbo-charged it with all this new media. Check it out on iTunes right now.
Also I’ll be a guest on Texas Radio Live Weds. March 7, 6-8 PM, broadcasting live from Guero’s on so-hip SoCo, with hosts Larry Munroe and David Arnsberger. Besides the usual interview thing, I’ll play a few songs for them, and we’ll be joined by the lovely fiddler Ruby Jane. If you can’t come, you can listen to the live broadcast at www.kdrplive.org.
More SXSW news: I’ll be playing with my fabulous great pal, Jon Dee Graham, at Uncle Billy’s on Barton Springs Rd. on Fri. March 16 5:30-7:30 PM. I don’t think I need to assure you that this will be a rocking show. And I’ll also be playing at Uncle Billy’s on the Lake on Sat. March 17, in a benefit for George Kinney, featuring a whole bunch of veteran Austin psych bands.
AND, NO JOKE, ON APRIL FOOL’S DAY (for you Right Wing Home Schoolers, that’s the First Day of April): The April Fool’s Rag Blog Benefit on Sunday, April 1, 6-9 p.m., at Jovita’s. The bill is Shiva’s Head Band, Greezy Wheels, and the one and only Jesse Sublett. I am so happy to throw my support to my old school left winger pals, Thorne Dreyer, et al. I’m a child of the Sixties, a citizen of the Future.
And in case you missed the big blurb about Rock Critic Murders: 25th Anniversary Edition for the iPad, here it is again.
Rock Critic Murders, debut novel of the first crime fiction series set in the Austin music scene, starring Martin Fender, the blues bass player who moonlights as a skip tracer and problem solver, has been released as an enhanced iBook for the Apple iPad. Author Jesse Sublett is one of the first adopters of the new iBooks Author app, released January 19, 2012, to publish his work to iTunes. Rock Critic Murders: 25th Anniversary Edition for the iPad, has not only the first-rate, quirky, adrenaline fueled music-and-mayhem plot of the original (inspired by Sublett’s own experiences as a working musician) but features music from his legendary band, The Skunks, as well as his fictional one, Cloud 19, plus solo material from his current incarnation as a blues and murder ballad troubadour. The book is also enriched with tons of photos, his own original surrealistic art, Austin travelogues on video (Sublett shot video postcards from all his favorite things in Austin, such as the moon light towers, Continental Club and the place where the wife of sniper in the Tower Charles Whitman worked), and video clips from many of Sublett’s contemporaries, such as Jon Dee Graham, Bill Blackmon, Louis Black, Robert Draper, Joe Nick Patoski and Ed Ward — the last four being among the rock critics who are caricaturized in the book.
Find it, check out the sample preview, buy it, rock out to it. It’s here, it’s now, and if you’re cool, you’ll dig the hell out of it.
