LebRon James' Return, a Historical Perspective

This entry isn't about basketball or even Cleveland sports. Really. ENOUGH has been said over the last few days, and even more will be written and pontificated across media outlets and bar-stools all across the North Coast. My opinions in this matter are a matter of public record and have been ever since we all got a whiff that Lebron James might be returning last year.

I'm happy for Cleveland. I was born on January 27, 1965, EXACTLY one month after the Browns won our town's last MAJOR sports championship on December 27, 1965. My city needs a championship. Look, I gave my soul to the '95-'97 Indians with Albert Belle on their roster, an athlete of questionable (some might say nonexistent) professional ethics. So I'm no stranger to holding my nose while I cheer. I'm also happy for the countless bars, restaurants and businesses spread out over the Cleveland-Akron-Canton nexus that will reap untold benefits from the resurgent, relevant Cavaliers. As for the Cavs themselves, I'm happy for them, too. When I was living in NYC, the Daugherty-Price-Ehlo Cavs represented one of my only tangible connections to my hometown. Through two NBA seasons (it would have been three except for the strike), I walked two miles every night to a Sports Bar in Queens to watch the BEST Cavs team in franchise history battle the likes of the New Jersey Nets and Boston Celtics in the post season only to have my heart summarily broken by Michael Jordan's Bulls. The Cavs are my team and always will be as long as they carry the standard for my hometown.

With that being said, let's turn our conversation to another hometown. Circa 400s BC. Athens, Greece. Championships back then weren't won on the hardwood. They were contested on the plane at Marathon or the pass at Thermopylae. We're talking a little later than that, though. Namely the fabled Age of Pericles.

Athens' "Lebron" at the time was a swaggering soldier/statesman by the name of Alcibiades whose appetite for money, prestige and sex would put him right at home with today's superstar athletes. Alcibiades owned Athens. His name graced everyone's lips and his likeness appeared on plaques and statuary throughout the city state's limits. Then, when political setbacks drove his high-flying machinations aground, he tossed his Hoplite uniform aside and decided to take his talents to Athens' cross-country rival, Sparta.

For the next few campaigning seasons, he waged fierce war against Athens at the head of their hated enemy, humiliating them at every turn. And then - in one of history's most bizarre turnabouts - he suddenly grew tired of his adopted land and came home to a rousing welcome in Athens. He even dictated a Mea Culpa letter to an Athenian populace all too eager to forgive and forget. Quickly proclaimed as Athens' savior and given supreme control over all military operations, Alcibiades spent the next few years reveling in triumph and adulation. Eventually, however, his star flickered and dimmed, and suddenly he found himself undone by the same insatiable hunger and hubris that had spelled his original downfall.

By the end of the 400s, Athens' "Lebron" found himself run out of town on the proverbial rail. After kicking around the Persian Empire for a few years and repeatedly plotting against Athens and Sparta both, he finished his days emasculated and embittered by the fickle vagaries of the self-same Public Will he'd once so skillfully manipulated. Finally, in 404 BC after incurring the wrath of his then sponsor, King Artaxerxes of Persia, Alcibiades ended up being surprised by a unit of assassins while "in his bath." As befitting a man who spent so much of his life enamored with his own physical attributes, maybe it's only fitting that Alcibiades died naked in a hail of arrows. 

Now I'm not about to make any ridiculous predictions in this blog. But I will say that history does have a way of repeating itself. And, as far as human nature goes, there truly is no such thing an "original man." So just in case my little cautionary fable ends up presaging Cleveland's future, please remember you heard it here first. Actually not here. Aristotle and Plutarch beat me to it. You just never know what gems you'll unearth when you peruse the classics.

Music and My Dad, Happy Fathers Day

My first record albums were purchased for me by my father at Peaches Records and Tapes on the corner of Pearl and Brookpark in Parma/Cleveland, Ohio. My father worked 80-90 hours a week as a school music teacher, a private instructor of woodwind instruments, and a professional musician playing five nights a week at Pesano’s Restaurant, a somewhat notable supper club in Garfield Heights, Ohio.

Monday was a short workday for my father. He only had to work two jobs that day: teaching school from 7AM to 3PM, then teaching music lessons at Grabowski Music on Ridge Road in Parma from 4PM to 8PM. Peaches Records was just down the road from Grabowski's. After my dad's last lesson on Monday nights, he'd often drive down to Peaches, check out the cut-out bin and pick me up some recorded treasure somehow overlooked by the scores of shoppers who pawed through the discounted albums. One such find, called "Early Bones," featured seminal recordings by trombonists J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding & Bennie Green with a bevy of sidemen - Gerry Mulligan, Brew Moore, Charlie Rouse, Kenny Dorham, Roy Haynes - that I'd come to know and love over the next 40+ years of listening. Other notable Monday Night finds at Peaches included my first albums by Buddy Rich, Bill Watrous, Don Ellis and Frank Rosolino. For those of you reading unfamiliar with jazz, those names may not mean a lot. But to a kid cutting his teeth on improvisation, their recordings formed the lexicon of my musical vocabulary.

I treasure all the times I spent with my father when I was young, whether it was hanging out with him at Grabowski's or tagging along with him on the various gigs he played. Places like Pesano's Restaurant and the Aragon Ballroom were pretty cool stomping grounds for a kid back then, and more than anything I just liked to sit back and listen to my dad and his band-mates "break balls" and rehash war stories from decades on the job. Anyone who's read my novel Cat & Cat will certainly see the days of my youth reflected in the relationship between Chris Telamon and his musician father, Lennie Telamon. While I was growing up, many of my friends had the kind of love-hate relationships with their fathers that are now so cliché in literature and popular culture. Thankfully, I never experienced anything of the sort with my dad. I think from an early age, I instinctively knew the sacrifices he made for our family, and I never felt anything but gratitude, respect and admiration for his tireless efforts and selfless work ethic.

When I talk to my father now about those bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived days back in the 60s & 70s, he always seems surprised how much of an impact they made on me. In his eyes, he was just a guy trying to get by and feed his family. He's told me that he regrets all the long hours away from home and the fact that he didn't do more with my siblings and me. I hope I've managed to convince him by now that waiting up on Monday night so I could listen to a new jazz album or watch Monday Night Football with him and my brothers was always the highlight of my week.

No doubt I could continue writing for days about various memories from childhood featuring my dad - family vacations he spent refereeing all four of us kids crammed into the backseats of the assorted of Chevy Impalas he always bought, or all those Christmas Eves when he would buy a tree and all our presents in one ferocious dawn-to-dusk marathon because Christmas and Christmas Eve were really the only days off he had all year. Perhaps my dad's greatest gift to me, however, was a well-honed ability to appreciate and understand music on a much deeper level than the average listener.

I remember when I first realized my dad could tell the difference between musicians like Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley or Sonny Stitt simply by listening to them play. Back in my musical infancy, all I could hear was a saxophone, piano or a trumpet. To my dad's ear, however, every instrumentalist had a sound and style as distinct as the voices of Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet or Elvis Presley. At ten or eleven years old, I had no idea how he accomplished this feat. It struck me like a magic trick. But he patiently sat with me and my brother, Mike, listening to recordings and teaching us how to listen, until one day I realized I could distinguish Dizzy Gillespie from Fats Navarro, Frank Rosolino from Carl Fontana, Oscar Peterson from John Lewis, or Benny Goodman from Buddy DeFranco after just a few notes of a chorus. The same went for classical composers. Sixteen or thirty-two measures into any symphony or concerto, and I can always tell Mozart from Haydn, or Schubert from Beethoven, etc.

Now, granted, this ability isn't really that spectacular in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't make you any money, and any schooled musician or careful listener can do the same. And honestly, to the majority of people who just love music, identifying a chord progression, time signature or key change seems as pointless as analyzing brush strokes on the Mona Lisa or mythological allusions in Shakespeare's plays. After growing up with my dad, though, I can't help listening to music any other way. Just like I can't help seeing the world through the eyes of a kid who still wants to grow up and be half the man his dad is.

Happy Fathers Day.

The Dogs of Reenactment II - Seeing the Elephant

Colonel Wilson gave the 4th Virginia a final inspection before Lieutenant Reynolds marched us off to face the enemy. The Colonel's eyes singled me out in the front rank immediately. It wasn't hard. Emerald green around the gills with an exhausted, anxious look in my eye. Lt. Reynolds had been drilling our company all day - "Order Arms, Shoulder Arms, Right Face, March." - and I felt ready to drop before the fight even started. The Colonel must have seen this a thousand times before. He fixed his eyes in mine and smiled slightly. "You ready to see the elephant, private?"

"Yes, sir." My words came out without even thinking.

Colonel Wilson nodded, grinned and continued moving down the front ranks.

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I arrived at the Confederate camp behind the Lake County Historical Center in Painesville around 7:00PM. Within half an hour, I'd be exchanging my Oxford button-down and Dockers for muslin drawers, wool socks, gray wool pants, checked cotton shirt and cadet-gray kersey. With my Kepi, haversack, canteen and other period-correct accouterments, I now blended into the scenery, able to walk through the camp without the soldiers and civilians instantly marking me as an outsider, or worse yet a "farb." I'd begun my day balancing spreadsheets and emailing commercial documents for international shipments, firmly entrenched in the hustle and bustle of the 21st Century. Now forty five miles and forty-five minutes removed from my day job, I found myself one-hundred-and-fifty years back in time.

I first came up with the backdrop of my new novel, Stalking Mule, two years ago after seeing an episode of Storage Wars. Upon finding some Civil War artifacts in an abandoned storage locker, Jarrod visited some reenactors to price his haul. Suddenly, in my mind's eye, I saw history buff Chris Telamon, the quintessential 21st-century everyman, being forced to solve a mystery at a Civil War reenactment using only what would be available to someone in the 1860s. That was all I had, just that single simple idea. So a few days later, I started writing the sequel to Cat & Cat just to see what my next book would actually be about.

Three-hundred-plus pages later, after revisiting the Telamon family, Wormwood, Manny, Ryan Leach and introducing a whole new cast of characters, I've finally come to the pivotal scene, the big battle. Problem is even after digesting countless books & articles about the Civil War and reenacting, visiting reenactments and interviewing reenactors, I was still missing the real story. All along I've known the inevitable. I'd never really own Stalking Mule until I actually put on a uniform and lived the reality of living history. With the encouragement of Lieutenant Phil Reynolds of the 4th Virginia, I finally bit the bullet this weekend and enlisted in the Confederate Army for an exhausting, exhilarating and ultimately eye-opening experience.

I'm so tempted right now to transfer every detail from the last two days into this blog post. But I won't. The sights, sounds, smells and sensations of The Battle of Painesville must be ruminated upon and ultimately recreated in the pages of Stalking Mule. I can share some snatches and rebel yell outs, however.

1)  My ever-lasting gratitude to the aforementioned Lieutenant Phil Reynolds, drill master, raconteur, and a man who has forgotten more about the Civil War and the life of the Confederate soldier than I'll ever know.

2) My humble thanks to Colonel Skip Wilson, Captain Wayne Unger, Mike Lawson, the two Tonys, Andy, Bob, Brandon and everyone else in the 4th Virginia for hauling my green ass through two of the hardest, yet most rewarding days of my life.

3)  Coming to the realization after five minutes of drilling that a) I am out of shape & b) a 10 lb. musket is f---ing HEAVY.

4)  Twisting my ankle with a loaded weapon while marching into position BEFORE the fighting even began. Yeah, I know it's just gunpowder and a percussion cap, but it was still scary as hell. The adrenaline ended up blocking out the pain about a minute later, and I stayed on my feet for forty-five agonizing minutes.

5)  Trying to load my Enfield behind a tree with Yankees advancing on our flank and Captain Unger yelling "Load, Private. LOAD. They are upon us. LOAD your ----- weapon."

6)  Asking Lt. Reynolds for "permission to die" after about fifteen minutes of fighting through treacherous ground, prickers and blazing sunlight. "Permission denied, private."

7)  Cleaning my musket after the battle, every muscle, bone & joint ACHING, and simply being in the moment.

If you want to know the rest, you'll just have to read the book.

VIRGINIA!

In Praise of Mothers

First things first - to my mom; my wife; my late mother-in-law; my cousins - Lisa, Laura & Jennifer; my sisters-in-law - Pam, Janine & Laurie; and my niece-in-law Abby --- HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
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In Cat & Cat, Chris Telamon talks a lot about his father, Lenny, and Lenny's subsequent influence on his life, not only in terms of musical taste but his entire worldview. Through Lenny’s example, Chris grows up to internalize the qualities of paternal responsibility and a predilection towards the epicurean in life. Chris Telamon isn't just his father’s son, however, and neither is the writer who created his universe.

In my forthcoming novel, Stalking Mule, the other side of Chris Telamon's parentage is explored in depth, and we learn quite a bit more about what drives Chris Telamon's rigid and, at times, uncompromising sense of justice and fair play. Needless to say, just as Lenny Telamon is somewhat modeled on my dad, Larry Kozak, the character of Corinne Telamon, Chris' mom, is also patterned on the life and times of my own beloved and "long suffering" mom. So, in honor of Mother's Day, I'd like to do what every child is doing today and talk about my mom, Irene Kozak.

Whereas my dad inspired and nurtured my love of music, good food and the Three Stooges, my mom's insistence that I always do my best, think of others and never compromise my principles provided the bedrock that allows me to enjoy myself without harming others. From my mom I inherited a thirst -- no, rather make that an obsession -- with moral clarity. Even as a small child, I was adamant about not only knowing what was right, but why it was right. Consequently, the issue of fairness became my constant preoccupation. So to everyone I've ever infuriated with my incessant need to examine the moral implications of every decision I make, now you know why. Throughout my life, family members constantly point out that my temperament falls more in line with my mother’s side of the family than my father’s side. I've always taken this as a compliment. What some may call impatience I deem forthrightness. Although I may be prone to flights of indignation, they tend to be of the righteous variety, not self-righteous.

My mom grew up a PK. For those of you not familiar with 20th century acronyms, PK stands for Preacher’s Kid. PKs, like Army Brats, live in a kind of parallel universe alongside the children of lay or civilian folk. My mother once described growing up a PK as living in a fishbowl. Every eye studies you, expecting you to be perfect, and then delighting when you fall. Some PKs “act out” against their parents’ authority and society’s expectations. Other PKs embrace their identities and follow in their parents’ footsteps. Much to her credit (and often to her dismay I’m sure), my mom zealously pursued the latter option.

My grandfather, the late Reverend Huber F. Klemme, wasn't exactly your typical American preacher. From the onset of his ministry, he used his pulpit to address quite a number of controversial causes. Throughout the 50-plus years of his ministry, my grandfather remained deeply and unequivocally committed to the core principals of the Social Gospel movement: civil rights, social justice, world peace, and economic equality. Given the political climate in our nation during the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s & ‘60s, his unyielding stance invariably set him face-first against our culture’s prevailing winds.

During the 1930s, amid the first Red Scare, my grandfather proudly declared himself a socialist. My mother, a grade-schooler at the time, found herself in quite a bit of trouble when she informed her teacher that her household supported Norman Thomas for president over FDR. A short time later, my grandfather’s pacifist philosophy prompted him to counsel Conscientious Objectors during World War II. (Think about that for a moment-- not the Vietnam War or even the Korean War, but WWII.) In the 1940s & ‘50s, he zealously advocated for civil rights and the abolishment of Jim Crow, long before public sympathy got swept up into the monumental social upheavals of the 1960s. My grandfather’s recognition of racial injustice and African American Achievement certainly rubbed off on my mother. Once, when another grade school teacher asked my mother to name a famous scientist, she responded with George Washington Carver. Obviously, the teacher wasn't impressed, as she snidely dismissed Carver as “just an old nigger.” (Can you even imagine a public school teacher saying anything like that today?)

As a teenager and college student, my mom proudly followed her father’s example, becoming active in a wide variety of social and religious causes. After graduating from Heidelberg College, she taught in the Cleveland schools for a few years before marrying my father and starting a family. Understandably, my mom was strict with my brothers, sister, and me. She suffered neither fools nor brats gladly. Each and every time I was punished, however, I not only learned what I’d done wrong but why it was wrong.

In retrospect, I think those hard object lessons probably spoiled me. From childhood on, I've always looked for the same clarity and consistency among the legion of authority figures I've encountered in life: teachers, bosses, policemen, elected officials. Needless to say, I'm constantly disappointed and troubled in this regard. Perhaps this sense of anomie, more than anything else, explains why I write the world the way I do. Both  Cat & Cat and Stalking Mule revolve around the central questions of right vs. wrong, idealism vs. pragmatism, selflessness vs. expediency, the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few. Chris Telamon and Ryan "Snake Eyes" Leach fight these battles in the trenches every day while the character of Wormwood and his Zoroastrian worldview passes judgment on every human being engaged in the epic War of Light & Darkness.

When I finished Cat & Cat and presented my parents with a printed copy of the unedited draft, I really wasn't sure my mom would like the novel. Her tastes run more to Murder She Wrote than Natural Born Killers. Then again, she also reads James Patterson and watches Criminal Minds, so I was fairly confident nothing I wrote would truly shock her. I was also quite sure she'd immediately recognize the foundation upon which I'd built my plot. It was the same fundamental, tripartite question she'd first introduced to me when I was still in diapers: What is Right? What is Wrong? And Why?

To Hard Copy or Not To Hard Copy?

I'm the first one to admit it. I hate change. I resist it. I complain about it, and in many instances I even refuse to acknowledge it's reality. I inherited this stubbornness from my dad, who still gives the first three digits of his home phone number as SPRING-7 while regularly referring to such Cleveland landmarks as "The High-Level Bridge" and "City Hospital." I carry on the tradition by telling people I'm going to Jacob's Field or the Gund. When CDs came out, I continued buying vinyl. When DVDs arose, I kept hunting for stuff on VHS. Smart phones? I'll just stick with my flip phone, thank you very much. As for ebooks, I scoffed at the very notion when they first appeared. I remember telling a coworker at Borders that hard copy books were like incandescent light bulbs. Both represented the ultimate pinnacles of human ingenuity. I insisted no matter what comes next, real books and real light bulbs would NEVER be replaced.

Now it's some twenty years later, and the federal government has banned real light bulbs, and I just published my first novel as an ebook, eschewing paper and ink in favor of virtual pages. So what the hell happened to me? Well, a few things.

For one, I got a Kindle a few Christmases ago from my wife, and I found that I actually liked the format. All those books on one reader. No more lugging five books into the coffee shop when I can't decide what I'm in the mood to read.  Yes, I still go the library constantly, and I still check out real books. However, this ritual mostly stems from the habit of going to the library. All those hard copies are right there in front of me -- so easy to browse, so easy to check out. The process of downloading library ebooks to my Kindle is still more complicated than simply walking up to a desk, handing a librarian my selection and checking it out. Once the logistics of borrowing library ebooks gets streamlined, I may just forego hard copy books altogether.

Which brings me to the actual point of today's missive. For every person I meet who seems thrilled that Cat & Cat is conveniently available as an ebook on all the major platforms, I meet five other persons who unabashedly ask me if I have any real books to sell? By real, of course, they mean hard copies, and when I inform them that the book is only available in e-form I'm always assured that they'll buy a copy when the real book comes out.

I'm not angered by this reaction, mind you. I mean I'm the guy who refuses to send text messages, use a GPS or get an I-Pod. So I get it! Believe me. If my wife hadn't kicked my ass into the 21st century with that Kindle two years ago, I would have sunk all my savings into printing up real copies of Cat & Cat when I finished the book. In fact, printing hard copies of my first novel is still preeminent in my future plans. But real books cost real money to produce, and until I scrape together enough disposable income to invest in hard copies I guess the world will just have to get along with the ebook version of Cat & Cat. Call me a rosy-eyes Pollyanna if you must, but I think we'll all manage to muddle through somehow.

The Dogs of Reenactment

I'm finally taking the plunge. After a couple years researching my forthcoming novel, Stalking Mule, I've finally decided to see what Civil War reenacting is like from the inside. I'll be at Hale Farm next weekend for my first taste of life as a 19th-century soldier. If you come out, I won't be hard to spot. I'll be the one marching the wrong way ;) I'll have some pics from the event up on my new website, which will be unveiled soon.

Special and personal thanks to Phil Reynolds from Talmadge for all the encouragement, information and stories he's given me over the years. I just hope I can make it for two days without my laptop and cell phone.

MK

The .. ughh .. Business of Writing

The last few days has been a maelstrom of activity related to Cat & Cat. On Friday morning, the reformatted version was finally vetted and published at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/427306 . I then spent Friday evening & Saturday working with my tireless tech guru, Mike Hamilton, on a bunch of boring particulars - PayPal accounts, creating ebook coupons, web-hosting & web design, republishing the "clean" version on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Novel-Three-Movements-ebook/dp/B00JAQXIUE ), posting on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and here. So I wake up at 3:30AM today and immediately go to Amazon & Smashwords to check sales & downloads and investigate some new publicity/promotion options, and while downing my fourth cup of coffee I suddenly realize I haven't done a LICK of real writing in the last few weeks. And I'm just a novice at all this. I mean what the h--- will I do if I ever actually sell a lot of copies?

I have a friend, Erin. She's a talented young writer. Fresh out of the MFA Program at Kent State. Erin is where I was 25 years ago. Like me, she opted out of the Ivory Tower and is now grinding in the 9-5 world. I love talking to her because she's fresh out of grad school and overflowing with the kind of cynical idealism that once fueled me. She also loathes the very idea of self-promotion. When you're in college and in a writing program, you stand on the merits of what you produce. Not what you can sell. Every week or two, you read a selection of what you produced aloud to a group of your peers and your professor. If it sucks, they will let you know. If it's good, you'll get some support. No one SELLS what they write. If they even tried, they'd be tarred & feathered, drawn & quartered and run out of the program on a rail.

I know there must be good writers who don't mind and maybe even enjoy selling themselves. They're in the definite minority, however. Most who apply themselves to the craft abhor self-promotion, and cringe at the very notion that writing is a business. Unfortunately, it is. Even if you're just an unknown, fifty-year-old, 9-5 desk-job drone trying to jump-start a career as a novelist. That's why any writer enjoying a modicum of success quickly takes on a lawyer, an agent and a publicist. It's not that writers can't be salesmen or business women. It's just that .. well frankly .. all that grown-up stuff sucks.

REFORMATTED Cat & Cat now available on Amazon

Amazon now has the reformatted version of Cat & Cat available. If anyone bought the original Amazon Kindle version with the format glitches, please message me, and I will send you a free reformatted e-copy: http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Novel-Three-Movements-ebook/dp/B00JAQXIUE

Mark Kozak - The Interview

On a whim, I decided to complete an interview for Smashwords.com. It was actually kind of fun. The results are now here on my Smashwords profile: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mek378 . If anyone has any other questions, go right ahead. I'm an open book.

Cat & Cat now available on Smashwords in various ebook formats

After a lot of hard work by my new tech guru, Mike Hamilton, Cat & Cat is finally reformatted, glitch free and available on Smashwords, Amazon and number of other ebook retailers in pretty much every format: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/427306.

Buy the book on Smashwords and use coupon code YX77A, and you'll get 50% off the $4.99 price.

This now concludes my shameless plug.

MK

What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Writers?

As Cat & Cat undergoes a much-needed reformatting, I've taken the opportunity to reread the novel I finished two years ago. Although I know the plot, characters and structure intimately, I've noticed some stuff on this "fresh read" that I never considered while crafting the narrative. Most notably just how dark the novel turns as Chris Telamon gets deeper and deeper into his game of cat & mouse with Ron Barnes. Coincidentally, while I'm rereading Cat, a friend of mine is simultaneously taking the plunge. Thus, as I pour over the universe I spent two years creating, I can't help but envision the story's development through the eyes of someone who knows me, but only knows one part of me, i.e. the "outer" me, the version of myself I present to the world.

I encountered this same situation back when I first finished the novel in 2012. Family members and close friends opened the pages of Cat, and suddenly for the first time in my life people were walking around my "inner world" and taking snapshots, so to speak. I remember being terrified that my mom or dad or sister or father-in-law might suddenly look at me like some kind of twisted, haunted soul. I mean characters like Ron Barnes & Cindy Calabrese don't just materialize out of the ether. They have to come from somewhere. So do dead cats, victimized children and horrific tableaux like the novel's climactic scene in Titian, Ohio.

In reality, Cat & Cat (and every novel, short story or poem for that matter) is a guided tour through the dark landscape that the writer (in this case me) has so fervently hid from parents, spouses, siblings, in-laws and coworkers. Readers who know me invariably see me and hear me in the voice of Chris Telamon, and to some extent Ryan Leach and even Wormwood. It's only logical, then, that they would also see or hear me in the psychopathic rantings of Ron Barnes or the depravity of Bonnie Reager.

To be honest, I find that realization unsettling. I certainly don't want someone I know re-evaluating me as a human being based upon a story I'm telling. To anyone who feels so inclined, let me just offer this one disclaimer. As hard as it may be to read evil, living it internally and translating it upon the page is even more excruciating.

The Background Music of My Life

When I was writing a lot back in high school and college, I required COMPLETE SILENCE to concentrate. I always marveled at the other kids who could compose coherent sentences with music blaring or the TV prattling. Come to think of it, when I first learned to drive I required the same kind of preternatural tranquility. Decades later now, and I'm the exact opposite. I can't write without mood music (all instrumental, no singing, thank you), and even a milk-run to Discount Drug Mart is accompanied by bumper-to-bumper jazz music, the latest audio book or a Great Course from the Teaching Company.

Toiling at my work desk all week, I find the surrounding drone of worker bees stultifying. It's not that they're talking, per se; it's that their banter is so mind-numbingly banal. Yeah, I'm a kind of dick when it comes to stuff like that. If you have something to say about Dancing With the Stars or the latest Cleveland sports debacle, please at least try to make your take somewhat fresh. I don't expect everyone to be Dennis Miller or Sarah Silverman, but at least make some effort. Otherwise, I'll tune you out and keep my own counsel. Sorry. It's like I just said. I'm kind of a dick like that.

Speaking of being a dick, I whistle. (Yeah, I'm that guy.) Not "Yankee Doodle" or the theme from The Andy Griffith Show, but jazz solos or entire symphonic movements I've subconsciously memorized. In my defense, I'm not even aware I'm doing it. My lips just transmit the background music eternally playing in my mind. People generally think I'm happy when they hear me whistle. But actually, I whistle when I'm stressed or preoccupied with a problem or puzzle. When I'm actually happy, I tend to be either laughing or asleep.

Anyone who reads Cat & Cat will know exactly what I was listening to as I wrote each chapter in Chris Telamon's voice. Tons of Clifford Brown, Fats Navarro, Don Ellis, Gerry Mulligan, Buddy Rich & the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. And absolutely no Miles Davis. For the Ryan Leach chapters, I changed it up and piped in the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Big Sam's Funky nation and a lot of instrumental blues-rock. My dream is to one day record an audio version of Cat & Cat with soft music soundtrack to accent some key passages.

These days, as I write the new novel about Civil War reenactors, my soundtrack is a solid assortment of period tunes (Lorena, Tenting Tonight, Kingdom Coming, etc.), bluegrass, contra-dance along with heaping helpings of Gaelic music. For anyone interested in setting an 1860s or down-home fiddle vibe, you can't go wrong with Sarah Wilfong, The Second Carolina String Band, Martin Simpson, Mithril, Jenna Reid, Alasdair Fraser and Jay & Molly Ungar. By now, I've become so attuned to capturing the correct mood music that I literally can't write a word until I've found it. Which is a far cry from the kid who needed complete silence to pound out one word.

The Obligatory Jack the Ripper Post

In Cat & Cat, one of Chris Telamon's initial blogs addresses theories and conjecture surrounding the crimes and identity of the now legendary Jack the Ripper. Why this case still fascinates us one-hundred-and-twenty-odd years later is in itself a curiosity. Most Ripperologists can only agree on five confirmed victims for Saucy Jack, the so-called "Canonical Five": Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. If you add Emma Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram to the tally, the list only grows to seven. Compared to other notorious killers of his era - Billy the Kid (19-21 victims), Joseph Vacher (11-27 victims), H.H. Holmes (27 confessed), Maria Swanenburg (90+ suspected) - Jack certainly didn't rack up that many kills. So why has the career of Jack The Ripper defined serial killing since 1888?

Much like today, Jack's notoriety can mostly be attributed to the media of his day. London newspapers competed ferociously for the public's disposable income, and reporters followed the age-old journalistic axiom, "if it bleeds it leads." Recently, British writer and former detective Trevor Marriott published a book positing the theory that Jack the Ripper was actually the media-hype creation of bottom-feeding reporter, Thomas Bulling, and never really existed at all. ( http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Ripper-21st-Century-Investigation-ebook/dp/B0056IV1EU ). I'm not saying Marriott nailed it, but like every new Ripper "solution" his research makes for a fascinating read.

So we go back to my original question. Why Saucy Jack? What about his life and career still inspires theory after theory, book after book 125 years later? Is it merely that the Ripper murders remain unsolved? I can only answer these questions for myself. Personally, I'm addicted to unsolved mysteries, and I read every new Ripper study for the same reason I devour new books investigating missing persons, UFOs, Bigfoot, conspiracy theories, religious & military history or particle physics. I simply want to know what happened. I meet a lot of people with similar attitudes in my daily life. As humans, I think we're hardwired to seek answers. For some of us, these answers relate to our jobs or home life. Others, however, such as myself would rather delve into mysteries outside ourselves. Call it escapist if you must.

As for "Who Was Jack The Ripper," I'm confident we'll never know. Certainty about Saucy Jack's identity seems as unattainable to me as certainty regarding the deity or life on other planets or the existence of ghosts. I love this about Jack, and it's why I keep reading everything I can on the case. I'm one of those people who hopes the journey never ends.

Missing Persons

On August 8, 1977, I was 12 years old and ready to start sixth grade at Coe Elementary School. My sister, Kathy, was almost 16 and living in a different world, North Olmsted High School.  Late summer for my sister was all about marching band. In early August, she was already gearing up for NOHS's mini band camp: 7:00AM marching drills, 8 to the 5, the piccolo part to Stars and Stripes Forever. In other words, just the kind of stuff an incoming junior and now upperclasswoman should be consumed with.

On August 8, 1977, one of Kathy's classmates, Yvonne Regler, was pumping gas at the Sunoco station on the 18900 block of Lorain Road in Fairview Park. She'd previously worked at a Sunoco station in North Olmsted, but transferred to FP station to fill in for a vacationing employee. August 8 was her first day at the new position, and she was scheduled to work alone. Around noon, some of the station's employees stopped by to bring her lunch. They were the last people to report seeing her. At approximately 1:30PM, when a coworker arrived at the station, Yvonne was gone. Her purse, cigarettes and lunch were in the office. No signs of a struggle were apparent, yet investigating officers eventually concluded she did not leave the station of her own free will. Later reports came out stating that Yvonne had been dealing with some personal issues at the time. However, she had no history nor any pre-indication of runaway behavior. (Summation based upon citation on Charley Project ( http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/r/reglar_yvonne.html ).

When Yvonne disappeared, things changed in our household. Suddenly, my parents were concerned that my sister was biking three-and-a-half miles to NOHS at the crack of dawn every morning. Alone. I remember some muted conversations being shielded from my twelve-year-old ears. Then, eventually, Yvonne Regler's vanishing faded into the background hum of life in the 'Sted, as late summer marched into football season, Homecoming, the holidays, spring break and eventually another summer vacation. Yvonne's fate never really left my mind, though. I simply couldn't understand how and why she was never found.

Then, almost three years later in June while I was preparing to enter high school, Tiffany Papesh went missing while walking home from a Convenient Food Mart in Maple Heights. Although career criminal, Brandon Lee Flagner, later confessed to Tiffany's abduction and murder, many (including Tiffany's own family) discount his confession and eventual conviction due to the inconsistencies in his account and an alibi that certainly raises the specter of reasonable doubt. ( http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/papesh_tiffany.html ). For the sake of brevity, I won't rehash what happened to Amy Mihaljevic nine years later in October 1989. James Renner tackles the case in its entirety in Amy: My Search for Her Killer and his current blog: http://amymihaljevic.blogspot.com/ . I will say, however, that like Renner I find myself somewhat obsessed with missing persons and unsolved murders, a fascination which certainly inspired me to write and finish Cat & Cat.

Although I tend to abhor puzzles and riddles in the abstract, I find myself drawn to them in their tangible, real-life manifestations. I find it inconceivable that a person can simply just vanish without a trace, much in the same way I'm frustrated by UFO sightings, paranormal encounters, conspiracy theories or paradoxes in theoretical physics. Every mystery ultimately possesses a rational and in many cases an empirical solution. As human beings, I believe we have a responsibility to seek and hopefully find these solutions.

Cat & Cat portrays Chris Telamon's efforts to unravel one such multi-layered mystery - What exactly is Ron Barnes, and did he have anything to do with the disappearance of Lena Drajan? Having personally known victims of abduction and murder in his youth, namely Tamara Beckley and Bobbi Jo Retskin, Chris Telamon isn't just obsessed with the tragedy, he's haunted by it. Likewise, rookie Detective Ryan Leach is also obsessed with finding out what really happened to Tara Shumway and who is responsible for her death. This shared obsession, then, forges a bond between the blogger and the detective that enables them to look past their differences and work together.

In future blogs, I'll explore a number of missing persons cases that personally vex me. Some victims, like Holly Bobo and Lauren Spierer may be known to you. Others, from the newspapers and history books, will probably be unfamiliar. If anyone out there is fascinated by a particular case, please let me know, and I'll do my best to provide my informed opinion.

Until next time.

MK

Some Musings at 5:00AM

I actually started this at 3:00AM shortly after Ellie and Leo woke us up in a fit of barking. Thankfully, they're here to warn us about the homicidal deer they spied out the front window. I wanted to get up early anyway and get some writing in before work, so I guess I should thank them. Below are some random thoughts I entertained while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

1)  The worst part about taking a shower in the morning is having to get out and face the rest of the day.

2)   Eating well is expensive, time-consuming and labor intensive. I've been cooking every weeknight after I roll in after a 1.5-2 hour commute. It sucks. Take out was way easier and actually less expensive.

3)   So-called experts who advise everyone to "do what they love and the money will come later" are either deluded or sociopaths. 99.99% of us hate our jobs, and we're the ones who keep the world running so that the other .01% can be actors, professional athletes, artists, college professors and full-time students. I don't resent people who love their "careers." On the contrary. I want to be one of the .01% some day. I just want them to realize that the other 99,99% did not grow up with dreams of toiling in the retail, service, clerical & manufacturing industries. If you still have no idea what I'm talking about, read this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/my-life-as-a-retail-worker-nasty-brutish-and-poor/284332/ . After being in the dark for most of his professional life, Mr. Williams finally starts to get it.

4)   I'm an agnostic, not an atheist. There's a huge huge difference. I may believe certain things based upon careful study and consideration, but I don't KNOW any Universal Truths. That's why I keep reading. The Answer isn't important to me; the pursuit of the Answer is, As an agnostic, I simply don't care about crosses in public parks, elementary school Halloween costume contests, coaches praying in locker rooms or satirical comedy lambasting religion. I don't get rabid theists or atheists, the same way I don't get people who KNOW the moon landing was faked or Princess Diana was killed by MI5. We'll all find what's out there when we die. I, for one, can wait.

MK

Behind Cat & Cat

So what is Cat & Cat really about? Family and friends who've read my novel over the past year have all asked me this question in one form or another. Of course, I understand their curiosity. The narrator, Chris Telamon, is a lot like yours truly, and his biographical details - strong-willed wife, mercurial step-kids, poor career choices, anger issues and addiction to coffee - mirror major aspects of my life to the proverbial tee. So to lay some Frequently Asked Questions to rest, I've decided to do a little Q&A below.

Q: What the heck does the title Cat & Cat mean?
A:  Cat & Cat is a play on the expression "cat and mouse." In the book's opening, Chris Telamon gets some sage advice from a veteran musician: "Always remember, no matter how good you are, there's always some cat out there who can still cut you .." Unfortunately for Chris, he neglects to remember this adage when he crosses paths with Ron Barnes and veers into a series of events and circumstances far beyond his control. Thus, cat and mouse is in reality cat and cat.

Q:  Is the novel autobiographical?
A:  I write what I know, and I use elements of my life whenever they add something to the fiction. For example, I'm a frustrated musician obsessed with jazz music, who's also been known to demonstrate some anger issues. Throughout my life, I've also been fascinated with missing person's cases in general and two local Cleveland-area cases in particular: Amy Mihaljevic & Yvonne Regler. About a decade ago, I even toyed with the idea of writing a true-crime book on the Mihaljevic case. But then James Renner came out with his magnum opus, Amy, which stands as the definitive work on the case not to mention one of the best true-crime books ever written. Naturally, the Mihaljevic and Regler cases resonate throughout Cat & Cat, especially in the tragic stories of Tamara Beckley and Bobbi Jo Retskin.
      As far as people from my real life showing up in Cat & Cat, I consciously tried to avoid fictional doppelgangers for my family and friends. For example, my wife, Jennifer, isn't Marie Telamon, although aspects of Jen's life and personality certainly inform Marie's character. The same can be said for my step-sons Jeff & Corey and Chris' step-kids, Darla and Jason. On the other hand, Chris' brother, Charles, is purely a fictional creation with no similarity to either of my real brothers, Bob &/or Mike. The same can be said for Ryan Leach, Ron Barnes, Cindy Calabrese, Manny Marcovich, Bonnie Reager, Lena Drajan, Wormwood and the rest of the novel's cast. Probably the only character that is truly autobiographical is Lady, who clearly manifests the essence of my late dog-ter, Girl-Girl, at least as I perceive her.

Q:  What's up with all the musical terminology and jazz references? Not to mention T.S. Eliot and the Anglo-Saxon language?
A:   When I started writing the novel, Chris Telamon's voice slowly took over, and these aspects of his intellectual life spoke aloud in the narrative. My editors trimmed what was extraneous and left the rest, for better or for worse. As stated above, I write what I know, and I guess I just happen to know some obscure stuff.

Q:  What are your future plans for Cat & Cat?
A:   I finished the book in summer 2012, and I've basically sat on it for well over a year. Now that Cat & Cat is finally "out there" on Amazon.com ( http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Novel-three-movements-ebook/dp/B00JAQXIUE ), I'm in the process of establishing this blog and a website dedicated to my writing. After that, I'll see what if anything the future holds. Some time this summer, I hope to have hard copies of Cat & Cat available, and I'd love to record an audio version of the book. Currently, I'm working on a new novel, working title Stalking Mule, which features most of the core characters from Cat & Cat and revisits Chris Telamon and Ryan Leach life several years after achieving a modest dose of notoriety.

Greetings & Salutations

Welcome to the Official blog for my novel Cat & Cat and all subsequent novels in the Chris Telamon series. Cat & Cat was written in 2011-2012 and published on Amazon.com in March 2014 as a Kindle Book.

http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Novel-three-movements-ebook/dp/B00JAQXIUE/ref=la_B00JAT8KDQ_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396172174&sr=1-1

I'm currently working on the follow-up to Cat & Cat, which is tentatively entitled Stalking Mule.

Check back here soon for further details on Cat & Cat , Stalking Mule and other ruminations on life, literature, film, TV, true crime and jazz music.

Mark Kozak