Isms on the March

Though I have been a proclaimed atheist for most of my life, I have experienced moments of discomfort with the term and the concept. Though I am casually aware of my lack of belief in a conscientious godage at all times, it seems that my position only becomes active when aroused by confrontation with overbearing theists. One problem with being an atheist is its demonization by denominational theists. But a bigger problem, for me, is in not having an active program of atheist promotion. Organized religions survive by the business of selling blessings. Their respective members are pleased to pay their organization leaders with money and blood in return for their blessings here and in the hereafter. Atheism offers no such blessings. Nor much of anything else except argument of rebuttal to foolish belief and self delusion. A persistently thankless job. Our primary political activity is in attempt to make Americans aware that our Constitutional Freedom of Religion includes freedom from religion.

Pantheists, however, are deeply intermingled with atheists and have a lot of pro positions. It may be that I am more the pantheist than the atheist. But as atheists are now beginning to step out and even evangelize as secular humanists with meritorious personal and social values, the need for a better defining may not be necessary. Let freedom ring.

Presence

Access to a computer and cell phone/camera gives us 21st Century cyberpunks extraordinary opportunities for self dissemination. Though I tap into a few, my select triumvirate include this blog, plus Flickr and Twitter.

Sideswiped

Charles Willeford was a decent novelist and story teller. His talent/skill/whatever grew over time and with practice, and in his sixties he hit his stride with a brief series of crime novels featuring Miami police detective sergeant Hoke Mosely.

Three of Willieford's novels were made into movies, including the first Hoke Mosely, titled "Miami Blues," released in 1990. Leading up to that production, Willeford was beginning to be recognized by movie and television entities as a potent creator of stories and scripts for both feature films and television. Unfortunately, a heart attack took him out of the running in 1988, two years before Miami Blues was released. To date, only the ineptly underproduced "The Woman Chaser," a sort of feeble Jim Thompson knock off, has reached production.

I had wanted to be the first filmmaker to bring a Hoke Mosely story to the screen. I had read all of Willeford's novels and short stories and had seen the screen potential in Miami Blues and the second in the series, "New Hope for the Dead," but I was totally blown away by the third installment, "Sideswipe." I thought to pursue an option, but when Fred Ward announced his production of Miami Blues I knew that Hoke Mosely would be out of my reach, since all dramatic rights would have been included in any production deal.

Sideswipe is a character/crime novel which is the equal of all of the best of the 20th Century. And I'm talking Hammett, Chandler, Thompson, Cain, Woolrich, Highsmith and whoever. This also means that Sideswipe is the very best, unequalled crime novel of the last sixty years.

But can it make a good film? I really don't know. But I'm tempted to try again. I wonder who owns it now.

Pig-Out

Bludso's catered affair. Table No.1