Labor Day - "We Shall Overcome"

Are we "alongside night" yet?

Very, very nice! J. Neil Schulman is now offering his 1979 classic libertarian sci-fi novel Alongside Night as an absolutely FREE downloadable PDF. Pass it on! (Read it first, though, if you haven't already...)

David Carradine, R.I.P. (1936 - 2009)

"Sherlock Holmes": The Official Trailer

I don't care what the stuffy Sherlock Holmes buffs think. As a revisionist-loving Sherlockian of more than 40 years, I think this trailer for the new Guy Ritchie movie looks like a whole lotta fun. And the film will probably result in tens of thousands of new Conan Doyle readers by year's end.

Memorial Day 2009

The naughty side of Sherlock Holmes

The cover of this 1950s paperback edition of Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles is sooooooo odd, so '50s, so pulp, and so, well, naughty, that it's one of my favorites.

And now...a brief commercial break

A few diligent readers have asked, "Where the hell are you?" And I apologize to those who've checked here lately time and again to find, well, nuttin' much new. I've tried to post something at least once a week, but alas...

I've been busy with a new online venture. I recently decided to take my 20 years of business, sales, and marketing know-how and gradually offer it in the form of digital products. These eBooks, audios, whatever, will be designed to help people launch and build their own businesses -- i.e., to smash wage-slavery one job at a time. I've worked as little and freely as possible since I left the corporate world in 1994. And I think it's time I shared some of what I've learned with other freedom-seekers.

So...if you're interested in my adventures beyond this blog, you might wanna grab a FREE copy of my first eBook in this business effort. You've gotta jump through a couple of anti-spam hoops to get the book, but it'll just take a minute. And I think you'll enjoy yourself.

You'll find the eBook available for download right here.

Oh, before I forget. This is definitely NOT the end of the out of step blog. In fact, I intend to amp up my work here considerably over the next few weeks. So stay tuned.

Happy May Day!

DVD review: DOC SAVAGE

A month ago, I mentioned that one of my guilty pleasures is the 1975 George Pal movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, and that it’s now available on DVD from Warner Brothers through The Warner Archive Collection. This is an on-demand service, and the DVDs are bare-bones but “studio quality.” The price may seem a tad high, but if you really love something, what’s twenty bucks, fer crissakes?

Anyway, I ordered my copy and promised at the time that I’d report back on the DVD.

Well, it is bare-bones. The packaging is minimal, but the DVD comes in a keep-case. As for the disk itself, it includes a promo for the Warner Archive Collection, the original movie trailer, and the film. I’m delighted. The trailer is in pretty crappy shape, full of blobs, hairs, bumps, etc. That’s no surprise. But the movie looks great to me. It’s presented in widescreen, and the print seems very clean and sharp, even on my 46-inch flatscreen. Now, I watched the movie on my Blu-ray player, and that’s supposed to amp up the picture quality a bit, so that may have something to do with it. But regardless, the print looks terrific.

As for the film itself, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze remains a prize. While awaiting the arrival of the DVD, I re-read the first Doc Savage novel, written by Lester Dent in 1932. This is the story that the movie adapts. And you know something? Even with all the campiness, the movie is awfully faithful to its source material. Ron Ely still seems to me the perfect Doc, and the rest of the cast is spot-on, too.

So, Doc Savage buffs. If you’ve never before seen this little gem, take advantage of this. Buy the movie and treasure it. Last summer, I learned at Comic-Con that a new Doc Savage movie is planned. But in the meantime, this is the real deal.

RIP J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009

Happy Easter!

Literary one-hit wonders

Gee, I love lists. Here's a good one of literary one-hit wonders, authors whose fame is based on a single novel. Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell, J.D. Salinger... Love it.

Coming this Christmas

RIP Burt Blumert (1929-2009)

Burt Blumert died this morning from cancer. He had just turned 80 last month.

I knew Burt only peripherally. He was president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, which he founded with the great Murray Rothbard in 1975. He was chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. And he was publisher of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Austrian Economics Newsletter, the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and LewRockwell.com. Of course, over the years, I’ve written for LewRockwell.com. And over the past 15 years, Debbie and I attended many of Burt’s “weekends” in both San Mateo, CA, and even Arlington, VA — for the old John Randolph Club, the Triple-R, and LRC. He was always welcoming, always friendly. And though I only saw him on those special weekends, he always greeted me like an old friend, as he did everyone.

I’ll miss Burt.

[Photo: Burt, Lew Rockwell, David Gordon, and Murray Rothbard]

Things I miss about the 1960s

Classic private eye literature like this.