"Vic Valentine, Private Eye": Back to Basics
After forty years of commercially fruitless but artistically rewarding literary labor, I just can't stop writing. It's not a choice. It's a compulsion. I continue to write for one reason: it makes me feel good. It's never hard for me to write. It's hard for me to not write.
It doesn't matter how obscure my stuff remains, or how little of my financial investment in their pristine exterior and interior design is returned. It doesn't matter that I have a very small but loyal cult following of readers whose enthusiasm is as genuine as the apathy from the majority of the human beings who even realize I exist. None of this matters because my art is not my hobby or career. It's my Art. That may sound pretentious but I don't care about that any more than I care about the world's extremely limited reception to my life's work.
Now over halfway through my 50s (having turned 56 this past April 2), I'm more productive and prolific than ever. A lot of this relentless creative drive I attribute to my proactive move to Seattle five years ago, which has proven to be a reliably misty, moody ambient muse. But it's also simply the tick-tock of my internal clock, constantly reminding me that Life has its own secret deadlines, and if I want to beat that built-in self destruct device that began its inevitable countdown with my first breath, I need to make the most of whatever time I have left doing what I love and frankly feel I do best, which is writing existential pulp fiction in direct response to my life circumstances, inspired both by my immediate surroundings and the often outré pop culture that fuels my ever-active imagination, which continues to spin and weave images and ideas as I daily walk dogs through the emerald environs on my favorite city, where I'm fortunate enough to reside.
All of which brings us to my latest work, which I believe is my best:
VIC VALENTINE, PRIVATE EYE: 14 VIGNETTES is based on a concept I've been mentally kicking around for a while, but which really kicked into high hear once I finished the last installment in my "Mental Case Files" trilogy, Vic Valentine: Space Cadet, which found Vic in a desolate place of psychic and social isolation.
Rather than write another novel, especially following Vic's reaching a seemingly final impasse as a developing character, I decided to go back and fill in various gaps in his life story, spanning back to his childhood, riffing off various references embedded in the existing canon but also inventing entirely new narratives that can be completed in a single compact but comprehensive piece.
These are not conventional mysteries or crime or horror stories, though elements of those genres are sprinkled in for storytelling spice. These are simply slices of a singular life, more Bukowski than Chandler or Lynch. But ultimately, 100 percent me.
The back cover blurb sums up the general aim, attitude and arc of these thematically inter-related but otherwise standalone stories, pulled together by a surprise thread at the very end:
Lounge lizard. International man of misery. Space cadet. Dog walker. Lover. Loner. Fighter. Fool. Vic Valentine has been all of these things and more, and less—much less. These fourteen torrid tales of forbidden love, shameless lust, surrealistic horror, existential mystery, pointless mayhem, and just plain stupidity spanning Vic’s entire pathetic life collectively illuminate the darkest corners of the human condition, without revealing a single god damn truth, other than we’re all lonely globs of ephemeral flesh wandering aimlessly around a big ball of shit hanging by a thread in a vast, apathetic void.
Welcome to the hypnotic, erotic, neurotic world of Vic Valentine, Private Eye.
VIC VALENTINE, PRIVATE EYE: 14 VIGNETTES now on sale!
EVOLUTION OF A COVER
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| Sinatra looking suitably moody and lonesome on this classic album cover gave me the initial concept.... |
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| Famous Playmate Janet Pilgrim was my unwitting model too, to add some of my brand's trademark cheesecake sex appeal... |
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| Reading from Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me in 2013 for facial reference to replace Frank |
Putting it all together....
FINAL FRONT COVER BY MATT BROWN
BACK COVER DESIGN BY DYER WILK
Dyer actually offered an abandoned project to me a while ago, and with a little tweaking,
I thought it would be a perfect complement to the retro-dreamy front image, which represents
the idealized world in Vic's head. This is the actual reality engulfing him: harsher, contemporary, but still sexy...
PROMO MEMES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA:
CRYPTICON SEATTLE, 5/4/19
CELEBRATING MY 56TH BIRTHDAY
PRE-BDAY:
DEVILS' REEF, Tacoma WA
SALISH LODGE, Snoqualmie WA
"TWIN PEAKS"
BDAY, APRIL 2, 2019
PLUM VEGAN BISTRO, Seattle:
TAVERN LAW/NEEDLE AND THREAD, Seattle:
OUR 18TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
McMenamins Anderson School
5/31/19
Look what I found in the gift shop...
Capital Grille, Seattle 6/1/19
Toasting 5 years in Seattle at a "Mister Bob" (El Vez) show,
The Triple Door, 6/20/19
Bimbo's Cantina/Cha Cha Lounge, Seattle
Hanging with old friend Michael Thanos of Forbidden Island in Alameda, CA
at Jason Alexander's Devil's Reef in Tacoma, 6/28/19
and at The Old Hangout, new tiki bar up the way at McMenamins Elks Temple
SEATTLE SUNSET TIKI CRUISE, 6/29/19
TWIN PEAKS (North Bend, Snoqualmie WA) 7/14.19
Twin Peaks Pub:
You may also dig:
PRE-BDAY:
DEVILS' REEF, Tacoma WA
SALISH LODGE, Snoqualmie WA
TWEDE'S CAFE, North Bend WA
"TWIN PEAKS"
PLUM VEGAN BISTRO, Seattle:
TAVERN LAW/NEEDLE AND THREAD, Seattle:
CHEERS!
McMenamins Anderson School
5/31/19
Capital Grille, Seattle 6/1/19
Toasting 5 years in Seattle at a "Mister Bob" (El Vez) show,
The Triple Door, 6/20/19
Bimbo's Cantina/Cha Cha Lounge, Seattle
Hanging with old friend Michael Thanos of Forbidden Island in Alameda, CA
at Jason Alexander's Devil's Reef in Tacoma, 6/28/19
SEATTLE SUNSET TIKI CRUISE, 6/29/19
TWIN PEAKS (North Bend, Snoqualmie WA) 7/14.19
Twin Peaks Pub:
You may also dig:
Reading from Vic Valentine, Private Eye backed by Dmitri Matheny and his band,
Tula's Jazz Club, Seattle, 8/7/19
"Thrillville," my official theme song by The Moon-Rays |
Interview conducted by Drive-In Radio host Alec Cizak, October 24, 2017,
broadcast from Missoula, Montana.
Podcast interview by Steven Gomez for The Noir Factory, August 2017
Promoting the first edition of A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge on San Francisco's Creepy KOFY Movietime, 2010
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ONLINE SHORT FICTION
PEOPLE BUG ME (2013)
ESCAPE FROM THRILLVILLE (2014)
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BOOKS:
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LOVE STORIES ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME from Gutter Books!
BUY
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THE "MENTAL CASE FILES":
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