SgtMom's Comments

Big Hollywood : The Public Isn't Homophobic, Hollywood Is

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 14:27:32 +0000

Yep - we really appreciated what a good actor he was!

Big Journalism : Christmas Eve Open Thread: A Major Award

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:05:50 +0000

Thanks, everyone. It doesn't look good at all. Bro-in-law just called (midday Sunday) - my sister and brothers have gone with my mother to the hospital. I am working out a way to get there from Texas to San Diego as soon as poss, but flights are booked solid for the next few days, or are so expensive as to be impossible. Even tAmtrack is booked solid until after New Years. Just as I finished writing the above, my youngest brother called: Dad passed on about ten minutes ago. Everyone in the family but my daughter and I were there. Dad would have been 80, a week from tomorrow. This all happened so very suddenly, just within the space of two weeks.

Big Journalism : Christmas Eve Open Thread: A Major Award

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 03:42:57 +0000

Thanks, all. Watched the movie, did feel a bit better. There is no emoticon for smiling a bit while feeling you are going to dissolve into tears any moment ...

Big Journalism : Christmas Eve Open Thread: A Major Award

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 01:36:39 +0000

We're going to sit down and watch this movie tonight. Hoping it will cheer us up a bit. My Dad was put in the hospital last week, having a bad combination of walking pneumonia, symptoms of congestive heart failure and some kind of leaking aneurysm in his skull. They operated last Friday, and he was doing well all this week ... but this evening we find out that the pneumonia has roared back, and he is sedated and on a breathing -assist thingy. He and the rest of the family are in California and I am in Texas and won't be able to travel home until after New Years. Yep, Merry Christmas, y'all.

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #18 - 'Running On Empty' (1988)

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:58:23 +0000

No, when it got to that part, my opinion of them as ultimately self-centered, careless a-holes was pretty much confirmed. Abandoning the pet was cold-hearted and deliberate.

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #18 - 'Running On Empty' (1988)

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:28:46 +0000

In fairness to the director, he might have calculated that scene to establish how essentially self-centered the characters of the parents were. I couldn't bring myself to care for them at all, after that.

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #18 - 'Running On Empty' (1988)

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:56:34 +0000

I remember seeing this (on VHS, I think) a couple of years after it came out ... and being particularly appalled at one of the opening scenes - of them leaving town ... and slowing down long enough to dump the family dog on the road. No matter how charming and likable and supposedly principled the characters of the parents were ... they dropped off their pet on the side of the road like a sack of garbage.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:38:32 +0000

I have both Houston and Lamar as characters in the latest ... and oh, yes - it was an epic rivalry; they were both absolutely fascinating characters, very much larger than life and almost complete opposites, save for that both of them had a fair amount of personal courage. I come down on the side of Houston, BTW - he had just enough Bad Boy in him to tickle my fancy. Lamar was too much of the goody-goody.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 23:05:45 +0000

Sure - PM me through my website - www.celiahayes.com. There's a link to my email addy. You might also want to check out the Independent Author's Guild, at www.independentauthorsguild.com. A lot of us founding members were writers who had done a historical novel through POD or a teensy regional press - and we decided to get together and pool our various expertise and connections. Jane Long was also the niece of James Wilkerson who was a piece of work all on his own, too. I had not read Mirabeau Lamar's bio of her - but when I did a talk at the Fort Bend County museum last year, I had quite a few people tell me that people who became embroiled by an interest in Texas history became either partisans of Lamar, or partisans of Houston!

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:02:41 +0000

Thanks, Edski - my next one is coming out on San Jacinto Day, April 21, 2011 - Daughter of Texas. It's about all the other stuff that was going on in the Texas Revolution --- besides the Alamo! The great stories are out there - all you have to do is just pick one, and get cracking!

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:19:37 +0000

I have - and agree; our history is just packed with events, just waiting for a writer to make a ripping good yarn out of. I do more the 19th-century frontier, myself - especially events that hardly anyone has ever heard about and haven't been done, over and over by previous writers. (My first was about a pioneer wagon-train party who got caught in the snow -- but didn't resort to cannibalism! The next books were about the German settlements in Republic-era Texas ... who knew that there was a massive German emigration to the Texas frontier? And they were staunch Unionists during the Civil War.) There is all this wonderful, gripping drama out there, that has been barely touched by writers,

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:23:27 +0000

I think in a small way we are building our own thoughtful, conservative/libertarian artistic support system - or arts community, through centrist websites like Instapundit, for example. And being able to market directly to readers and moviegoers through the internet does dis-intermediate the long-established gate-keepers. So, no - we don't have the big reviews, awards and grant-orgs yet ... but that will come as we build our new networks. I've been writing indy historical fiction since the mid-oughts - books that examine how Americans came to be what we are, and though my royalty checks and numbers fans aren't anywhere up there with Phillipa Gregory's ... I do have them - and I am adding more, every time I put another book out there. There is a huge market for books which do honor America and Americans, and it is almost completely untapped by the long-established media.

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 22:40:20 +0000

I rather preferred the later version myself - for the 'look' of it: much more authentic to the Texas frontier of 1836. And the actors vanish into the characters much more thoroughly - but I wish that Sam Houston had been portrayed as much more the complicated and charismatic man that he was.

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 22:34:52 +0000

Thanks - my book website, BTW is www.celiahayes.com. I have a lot of historical essays posted there, and a ton of pictures, too!

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 18:02:56 +0000

Sometimes it isn't just about us! The Centralista-Federalista conflict was one of the underlying causes - really the Texas revolution was almost a side-bar to it. Going back and looking at the context of the Mexican political struggles after 1824 makes it very plain ... as well as making it absolutely clear as to why men like Lorenzo de Zavala and Juan Seguin's Tejanos sided with the Texian rebels.

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 17:57:18 +0000

Ah - where he camped for two weeks, and the Yellowstone ferried his army over, armored with bales of cotton! Relative to the other Runaway Scrape websites, that was for a long time, so there ought to be something left to find! I have my heroine and her family passing through the camp at Groce's in Chapter 15, and seeing the Twin Sisters being admired by Houston and his staff.

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 17:51:51 +0000

I'll be taking pre-orders through my book website - I'm hoping to get some more local interest because of the tie-in to the 175th anniversary of it all.

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 16:57:09 +0000

Besides "Lone Star", I also recommend Hardin's "Texian Iliad" which is an account of the Texas War for Independence, and Davis' "Three Roads to the Alamo" - a kind of joint biography of Bowie, Travis and Crockett. And one of the things to keep in mind also is that the Texan war was an aspect of a larger conflict in Mexico between the Federalists, who were forward-thinking and wanted a federation of semi-autonomous states with a small central government, and the Centralists- traditional and conservative who wanted a powerful central national authority. The Texians and several other Mexican states who favored the federal model rebelled when Lopez de Santa Anna took power and declared a dictatorship. The rebellion in other Mexican states had already been brutally crushed ... and now it was Texas' turn. The Texian rebels knew, upon defying the regional commander of the presidio at Bexar (the Alamo) - that Lopez de Santa Anna would be coming - but they did not expect him to do a forced-march of his army in late winter and appear to lay siege to the Alamo before their own preparations were complete. My own novel about this period, Daughter of Texas, will officially be out on San Jacinto Day, April 21, 2011 - and follows a woman who did have to take her family from Gonzales to Harrisburg in the so-called 'Runaway Scrape.' - which of Houston's campsites are you volunteering to help excavate?

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 15:22:59 +0000

A mile or so south, on Nacodoches, in the neighborhood behind Salsalito - Naco and 1604 is the nearest significant intersection!

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 14:58:48 +0000

Me too! (Nacogdoches and 1604. Never heard a word. Was it some kind of secret or something?)

SgtMom's Comments

Big Hollywood : The Public Isn't Homophobic, Hollywood Is

Big Journalism : Christmas Eve Open Thread: A Major Award

Big Journalism : Christmas Eve Open Thread: A Major Award

Big Journalism : Christmas Eve Open Thread: A Major Award

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #18 - 'Running On Empty' (1988)

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #18 - 'Running On Empty' (1988)

Big Hollywood : Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #18 - 'Running On Empty' (1988)

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : John Wayne's Dream: 'The Alamo' at Fifty

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.

Big Hollywood : Andrew Klavan Interview: 'Weâre at war, but Hollywood is still stuck in Vietnam.