Warning: Some Violence and Much Strong Language.HE WROTE: Tough Guys
So I'm on a panel tomorrow at 10 in the morning titled 'Tough Guys'. What is that about?
"Hey, I had a blister on my foot, but I kept going?"
I am very impressed with the South Caroline Book Festival. Great hotel, great venue and the nicest people.
They had a swanky reception which I did not make because, alas, it required a tie and I do not have a tie. Plus, Jenny and I were working on Agnes.
On the Maui Writers Cruise to the Panama Canal they would require formal wear to dinner every third or fourth night which was quite a conundrum to me. The lack of of formal wear thing. So I cobbled together black slacks, white shirt, West Point 'Firstie' tie and a sports jacket.
Not very impressive considering my room-mate (dolphin deck, we got the crew messages, enough said) Howard the Cooler (an agent) wore a tux.
The table was me (Jenny is going to give me grief), Howard, Terry Brooks and his wife, Elizabeth George and her husband and Ben Bova and his wife. A hell of a lot of fun and Ben is the greatest story-teller.
So after our first night dining, we all get a note slipped under our door saying we've been re-assigned to another table.
All the writers were shocked and thought we had done something terribly wrong and had been banished off the island, so to speak. Howard, the agent, figured he was getting upgraded. Thus the difference between writers and agents.
Jenny and I tightened Agnes down-- no, not that kinky stuff you sickos-- this evening for a couple of hours before "My head hurts" hit. I've got a great character, Carpenter, whom I'm going to have a lot of fun writing. That's not his name, it's his job. And no, he isn't the normal carpenter. Shane 'paints houses' and he's a 'carpenter'. 10 points for those who know what that means.
So.
Tough guys.
Going to eat another bon-bon in the basket they left here and contemplate that.
Which I'm sure is mis-spelled and Jenny will correct.
21 Comments:
"Painting a house" means killing someone. "Painting" because the blood splatters the walls. I think that it, like many interesting things involving murder, was coined by the mafia.
"Carpenter," I believe, means he's an assassin, though the meaning behind that one escapes me at this moment.
JAB
hmmm. Maybe because he nails people?
Oh, cool! Like the electric nail gun in Lethal Weapon.
Jeanne
Are you sharing the bonbons with Bubbles?
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Hey, it takes a real he-man to eat bonbons with impunity. Go for it.
As for carpenter, he could hit them with his hammer.
I thought a 'carpenter' was a demolitions expert.
Or I suppose he could run a Fish & Chip shop.
Fish and chip shop - very funny. The Americans won't get it though.
That's OK. I spend a fair amount of time on a board with a lot of Brits. After a while you get used to not "getting" it.
"Maui Writers Cruise to the Panama Canal"? That must be some trip. But, oh to be a fly on the wall at that dinner party!
So did they upgrade you, or throw you and your stupid tie overboard?
Carpenter. Saw. Power tools. Very messy.
I got the 'paint houses' reference, but not sure about carpenter. Measure twice, kill once?
Blisters on the foot are nothing to sneer at.
Painting a house as a metaphor for splashing the walls with blood would immediately and irrevocably turn me off a hero, so I sure am hoping the above-posted guess is off the mark, because I want to love Shane. :)
he would not be a very good "hit" man if he did not kill people. Thus the title Agnes and the Hit man. Now, perhaps Agnes reforms the hit man, Shane, by snuggling with him on the couch and feeding him bon-bons with Bubbles on his lap (would have to be the cat not the hooters waitress).
My head hurts.
I thought that the premise was that a hitman was after Agnes and that Shane arrives to save her and help her figure out why a hitman is after her. The hitman being part of the Southern mob - hence the need for Southern mob food in a previous blog (should have mentioned at the time that there is a restaurant down here in LA - Lower Alabama - that is supposedly owned by family members of the mob and they serve Italian and steaks). So we should be able to like Shane because even if he has killed, it was in defense of country or because he was protecting someone.
is it an alice in wonderland reference, peut-etre?
(-: Kay, I'm glad you clarified. My first thought was "My goodness, Agnes must be more of a liberal (um, should that be libertine?) than I imagined. Oooooh. The *cat* Bubbles, not the waitress Bubbles. LOL!
is a carpenter someone who frames people?
Proof that we can still love a hero who has killed, neither to protect nor to defend: Martin Q. Blank.
In case it hasn't clicked yet: John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank. He was doing it purely for profit.
And we loved him anyway.
Not knowning was causing me physical pain so I sacrificed a chicken at the altar of Google...Apparently, it's a Jimmy Hoffa thing. "Paints houses" = kills someone and a "carpenter" = builder of coffins, i.e. takes care of the bodies after the killing.
Oh, and for anyone who didn't get the earlier joke about the Fish & Chips thing, "chippie" is a slang term for both a carpenter and a Fish & Chips shop.
Isn't a "chippie" a plasterer?
"Chippie is also slang for a hooker (Bubbles the waitress, anyone?).
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