Rerun Junkie– Cannon

April 6, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

My love of 70’s cop/detective shows is legend, but it wasn’t until my house acquired MeTV that I discovered the brilliance that is Cannon.

Cannon stars William Conrad as private detective Frank Cannon, a former police detective that retired from the force after his wife and son were killed in a car accident, which wasn’t fully dealt with until the final season of the show, which ran five years. The opening features theme music, lots of colored dots and circle cropped pictures, and finally a voice over that tells you you’re watching Cannon starring William Conrad. It then goes on to list the guest stars and the title of the episode. I have no idea why, but I find this neat.

Anyway, the episodes are pretty much the same in the since that Cannon gets hired on a case or stumbles into a plot or is otherwise drawn into helping the needy and defeating the forces of evil, usually with karate chops. Really. The man used more karate chops than Bruce Lee.

Cannon took quite a bit of abuse in the course of his investigations. He’d get beaten, shot, hurt in car accidents. I don’t know how many shirts he ruined from blood due to head wounds. Or the blood of others. He engaged in quite a few fights and was rather agile for a big man.

Frank Cannon — Not your typical action hero.

Oh, yeah. When most people picture a hero, he’s not usually as wide as he is tall, but Cannon broke that stereotype. There were still plenty of fat jokes to go around, though, if not by others then little self-deprecating quips about himself. But to be fair, Cannon had to be big. He was a big personality that liked big things. Big cars. Big meals. Big paydays.

Guest stars on the show were a fun parade of all things 70’s, either people on the way out or on the way up. Clu Gulager, William Daniels, Willie Aames, Nick Nolte, Robert Loggia, Martin Sheen, Tina Louise, Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul before they were Starksy and Hutch, Micky Dolenz, Joan Van Ark, Leslie Nielsen, Harold Gould, Shelley Duvall, Mike Farrell and Wayne Rogers before M*A*S*H, Lee Meriweather, Robert Hays, and Tom Skerritt all put in some face time on Cannon.

Oh, do you like Barnaby Jones? Thank Cannon. It’s a spin-off. Don’t know what Barnaby Jones is? It’s the show that helped people think of Buddy Ebsen as someone other than Jed Clampett. Maybe we’ll discuss it another day.

I admit that sometimes the show is a little unbelievable sometimes (KARATE CHOP), but Cannon is a fun character. He can be very serious, almost menacing at times. But with the people he likes, he’s quite funny and has a great smile.

Those end scene freeze frames at the end of a show were made for those chubby cheeks.

Where I Watch It

Writing–April Projects

April 4, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Last month my main goal was to get down a first draft of a personal essay that I want to submit to a contest. This month my main goal is to see if I can work that first draft into something I want to spend 25 dollars on in order to submit it to a contest. I believe the early bird deadline is May 1st. So, this will be fun. No pressure as I reserve the right not to submit an essay I don’t think is good enough to go since it will cost me 25 bucks to submit and right now money ain’t growing on trees.

Other April projects include revising “Gone Missing”, the not so short story. The first draft ended up being just about fifty pages, a little over 10,000 words. I need to figure out what I’m going to do with it. It’s hard enough for me to sell a story period. Trying to sell a longer story like this one ups the level of difficulty. I’m looking into the possibility of self-publishing it, say on Smashwords so it would be available strictly for e-readers, but my self-publishing success hasn’t been the greatest. But then, my publishing success in general is questionable, so really, I think I can hack it and break even either way.

I’ve also got a novel idea that has taken hold of my brain and won’t let go. I’ve got the basic plot, a subplot, the main characters (all except the bad guy…he doesn’t have a face or a name yet, but that will come, oh yes), and an idea of what I’m doing. I’ve already started working on an outline and jotted down a few scenes so I don’t forget them. Writing this a little a day will be a nice break from revising.

My quest to get 50 rejections this year continues. To check in, as of then end of March I have 3 rejections, 1 acceptance, 9 stories still out, and 2 ready to go. Obviously, more submitting will be done.

Let’s hope the next time I check in at the end of June, there’ll be more rejections (and acceptances!) counting towards my goal.

The Music In My Head

April 2, 2012January 22, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s not secret that I love music. I listen to it a lot. I use it as a buffer between me and the outside world, usually when I’m writing. I listen to it when I make dinner and when I go out with my cats, showing no shame as I sing (and sometimes dance) along with my iPod. I’ve gotten into the habit of watching music videos on YouTube before I go to sleep at night.

So it should be no surprise that I get songs stuck in my head on a regular basis.

Most of the time it makes perfect sense. For example, I’ve been on an Ok Go kick lately, so it’s no surprise that their songs are playing on a kind of loop in my head, though it’s fun to go to sleep with “End Love” playing in my brain and wake up with “A Million Ways” there instead.

Even though I love their music (obviously, or I wouldn’t be listening to so much of it), sometimes having one song stuck in my brain gets tedious. I love “Needing/Getting”, but it turns into an itch that can’t be satisfied when it’s playing on loop in my brain for six days.

That’s the thing with my brain. It’s got a mean streak.

I find most of Lady Gaga’s music, particularly from her first album, to be pretty good. However, I don’t like to listen to most of her songs because they’re earworms. They get into my brain and proceed to melt important neurons and synapses. Now, if my brain can take a song that I like and wash, rinse, repeat it for six days, imagine how tiring it is to have every song I listen to clashing against “Bad Romance” for a week and a half. Yeah, that really happened.

And do you think my brain spares me from songs I don’t like? No, don’t be silly. It’s unfortunate, but not unheard of for “We Found Love” by Rhianna or “Moves Like Jagger” to randomly pop in my head off and on for two weeks like some kind of cruel torture technique (for the record, I don’t think these songs are bad as I’m not qualified to make such judgments; I just don’t care for them).

I try to influence the songs that get stuck in the crevices of my mind, but sometimes they come to me randomly. I’ve had songs that I haven’t heard in literally years just appear in my mind. Of course, when that happens, I’m compelled to seek them out to listen to them in their entirety. “Weapon of Choice”, which I posted last Friday, is a good example of that. That just happened. I was having a bad day and suddenly, Fatboy Slim was there. Who knew?

My brain did, that’s who. Sometimes, it comes through with an appropriate musical reaction.

But usually I’m singing snippets of songs for days on end.

And that’s okay, too.