Child beauty pageants—Do they sexualize young girls?

I came across an article about child beauty pageants that kind of shocked me. I never really gave this much thought before and never watched the TLC show Toddlers and Tiaras. From what I read and the pictures I saw, these young girls parade around in revealing outfits, wear tons of makeup and act in what I thought looked like suggestive behavior—winking to try and get votes.

These little girls look and act like Barbie dolls. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around this and there are many people that oppose these pageants. Some think that child beauty pageants attract pedophiles and teach young girls that all that matters is physical beauty. I can’t help thinking of Jon Bonet Ramsey, the little beauty contestant murdered by an unknown person, possibly because of the way she looked and dressed competing in beauty contests.

The description of Toddlers and Tiaras sums it up: This funny and sometimes startling reality series takes viewers behind the scenes of the shockingly competitive world of child beauty pageants, presenting a warts-and-all portrait of the wee contestants (wearing makeup, spray tans and fake hair!) as well as their fanatically driven parents.

Is this a healthy environment for impressionable girls? Personally, I wouldn’t do this with a daughter. Maybe I have a different view on this because I didn’t grow up wishing I were a princess waiting for a prince to save me. I made sure I could take care of myself. I can’t help thinking that once these girls grow up and they lose their cuteness, they will have a hard time getting along in the world.

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating…Sensual…Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/ Check out my long hair hotties!

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

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A Greek vampire, Celtic kings, vengeful goddesses, an ancient faery curse…

All three books of my Dark Goddess trilogy are available in Print and Ebook. Set in dark age Scotland, I mixed history with a Samhain/Beltaine myth that revolves around an Irish clan and the goddesses Brigit and Cailleach.

WILLIAM MALTESE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL #17 “PORNooooooooooooooooo!”

Pornography — hard and soft. Porn! Porno! Porno! Porno! Porn!

I mention the preceding because I recently read that any blog that even mentions “pornography” usually ends up getting more hits and traffic than do blogs that don’t mention it.

Of course, it’s not as if I don’t have something to say on the subject, having been accused, more than once, in my time, of being “a pornographer”, usually by people who haven’t a clue as to the difference, in the law, between hard-pornography, soft-pornography, child-pornography, erotica, and the more and more graphic sex scenes that, these days, invariably seem to end up in just about each and every novel that hits the bookstands.

There’s always been the argument, of course, that, by way of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, we’re all guaranteed the right to write or say whatever we damned well please, including anything pornographic, as defined as “representations of scenes displaying sexual behavior that are erotic or lewd and designated to arouse sexual interest.”

I do have to confess, though, that in my early days of writing at least one hetero and/or gay erotic novel a month, the lines were more blurred than they are today as regards what constitutes pornography; the U.S. Supreme Court having only  decided, in 1966 (a case involving John Cleland’s English novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, more commonly known as Fanny Hill), that “redeeming social value” DOES have something to do with the legal definition of what, by way of pornography, is obscene, or not obscene, and, thus, prosecutable, or not, under the letter of the law.

I’ve always successfully argued, though, that, from the get-go, I, personally, tried to make sure that I didn’t write pornography merely for the sake of arousing any reader’s purely prurient interests … always out to include, as was determined necessary in the case of FANNY HILL, at least a shred of social value in my novels’ depictions of sexual behavior and social relations … and, as was determined necessary in the later 1973 case of MILLER VS. CALIFORNIA, to be sure that each and every one of my books contained at least something of serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit. I usually accomplished this by providing a plot.

Granted, there were people who might have believed that the things my hero did to that goat, on that cliff top, then, later, did to that fruit and those vegetables in that garden, in my first gay novel, FIVE ROADS TO TLEN … or the necrophiliacal implications of my MASTER BLACK … or the rapes in my THE GANG RAVAGED TEACHER … might have overstepped the bounds into obscenity…

…just as they might have pointed out, by way of prosecution, as to how my publishers, in their submissions specs, insisted that “the more sex an author put in his book, the better”, “at least one major sex scene per chapter” … or how I personally registered the trademark “one-hand read®” to tie up its double-entendre implications … were blatant indications that our books were intended to provide readers with sexual arousal …

…just as they might have pointed out how many of the books at the time were filled with young men and young women, below the age of consent, involved in sexual activities (NOTE: I always tried to keep my characters above the age of 18, merely referring to how they “looked years younger than they were”) …

…but, hey, my books ALWAYS had a redeeming quality story line.

Not that a story line meant that some of my co-writers in the early days, even those with adequate redeeming qualities to their work— (my old chum, Victor Banis, comes to mind) … not to mention more than one of my publishers (Earl Kemp, Greenleaf Classics, comes to mind)  —were saved from being singled out and prosecuted for what some uptight people, decisions based on a sphinctal way of thinking, thought were overstepping the bounds of common decency.

I attribute my having escaped the witch hunts of those days to a couple of reasons. (1) I wasn’t exactly first on the scene but followed along on the immediate tails of writers like Victor who ended up arrested and put on trial with Earl Kemp from Greenleaf Classics. (2) I did most of my writing out of the country, mailing in my manuscripts, and picking up my royalty checks abroad, while literally circling the globe, always without a clue as to what monumental goings-on were happening in my absence (those days, these days, referred to as “The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction”), in which I was vicariously a key player.

Even when I was in the States, though, I seemed surrounded by broad-minded people who were obviously far more liberal than those carrying kindling, firewood, and torches in Victor and Earl’s neck of the woods. In Seattle (where I mainly lived at the time), its art community was genuinely accepting of me. Seattle’s primary “Big Kahuna”, by way of gallery owners, took great pleasure in introducing me at parties as “his friend, the pornographer” (my book, THE FAG IS NOT FOR BURNING, by the way, IS NOT my roman à clef of that time period). I suspect it helped that I was a college graduate, had served three years in the Army with an honorable discharge, didn’t look like “a dirty old man” at the time (ah, how the times have changed!), knew a finger bowl from a toilet bowl, and wrote hetero porn as well as gay porn; more than once I was once invited to read a selection from one of my hetero porn books (my STARSHIP INTERCOURSE, I remember as being a frequently poplar request) after dinner with one group or another of artsy-fartsy straights.

How marvelous it is, all of these years later, to find the kind of torrid passages in regular mainstream fiction that, in those earlier years, brought out all of those people carrying tar and feathers on the prowl for porn and the writers of it. How marvelous, too, to see how the female of our species has taken up not only the writing of porn (gay and straight), where before it was mainly a male-dominated profession and genre (those of us who wrote it in those early pulps merely attaching female nom de plumes to our hetero work to make it seem written by loose and promiscuous women).

Books that once would have had, and did have, authors and publishers yanked into the court, with threats of long and heavy-duty jail time, are now readily available, not in sleazy back rooms, but in respectable middle-America brick-and-mortar book stores and literally everywhere on line.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that times haven’t, at least in some ways, exceedingly toward the better!

Of course, there are still a couple of areas of pornography that I avoid, and I would suggest any and all writers of porn, or potential writers of porn, do the very same:

1. Don’t even give a thought to writing anything sexual that includes anyone below the age of consent. If anything, the rules regarding what does and doesn’t constitute exploitation of children have increased over the years, and if you want to write a book that’s sure to cause controversy, get you hate mail, bring out of hiding those really angry mobs that used to exist in more profusion … with their hate, torches and firewood … show them something even hinting of kiddie-porn and that will do the trick and, likely, see you in court to boot. While I’ve had authors bemoan that they merely would like to write such books not by way of turning on predators but as condemnation of the trafficking in children as the evil it is, I only shake my head and tell them to gird their loins and prepare for the worst. After all, Earl Kemp got 1 year in jail, and Greenleaf Classics pretty much got drummed out of business, for merely publishing an official Washington, D.C. document — an illustrated edition of the PRESIDENTIAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON OBSCENITY AND PORNOGRAPHY.

2. You might want to steer clear of hard-core Sadism & Masochism. I’m not talking Bondage and Disciple books, which seem to pass relatively unscathed, wherein consenting adults team up and use a bit of dungeon game-playing with accompanying whips, chains, ropes, handcuffs, leather, rubber, “safe” words, and the like. I’m talking books that offer up genuinely horrible torture wherein pain is often so confused with pleasure that it becomes difficult for the readers, let alone the characters, to differentiate the one from the other. My only real dark-journey into this particular genre, SS&M, an appalling m/f look into Nazi death camps and Jewish genocide, had me thinking, during its writing, that I might actually be channeling the Marquis de Sade. When the book was completed, I was so disturbed by what I’d written that I stuffed it into the bottom of a deep dark trunk and left it there for twenty years, figuring it would never see publication.  That said … one, day I did have a publisher ask me if I had anything available and that did publish the work. While it has since been rejected for a Kindle version, because of its subject matter and violence, it has been available in ebook format for quite some time, both from the publisher, and from Nook. So, an author merely takes his chance, by way of finding a publisher, and maximizing profits, if and when deciding to head in this particular direction.

Killing wolves again

I thought the country was on the right track in the mid-1990s when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 66 wolves in Yellowstone and central Idaho. Finally, the wolf had returned from extinction. But in April of 2011 Congress removed wolves in Montana and Idaho from the protection of the Endangered Species Act. It didn’t take long for hunters to start killing wolves.

 

Personally, this is heartbreaking for me to see a beautiful, intelligent animal murdered for no good reason other than for the enjoyment of killing. The opposition to wolves has made false claims like wolves carry a tapeworm that can be transmitted to dogs and humans or that the Canadian wolves that were brought in are a different species and will kill elk, deer, livestock, even humans, for sport. I have never heard of a human killed by a wolf except for in fables. Wolves are elusive creatures and prefer to stay away from humans. They will normally run from people.

Wolves have been painted as demons and witches in myths, fables and in books like Cotton Mather’s On Witchcraft. What I don’t understand is why. It might be because wolves killed some livestock and competed with humans for food, but I can’t see that happening today. The ranchers complaining about wolves attacking their livestock ranch on federal land. Big game hunters don’t want wolves reducing the big game population. Boo hoo. I don’t feel sorry for hunters that hunt for sport. Find another hobby that doesn’t involve killing something just for fun.

If anyone has any doubts about wolves and how they live, I suggest visiting the Sawtooth Wolf Pack website, Living with Wolves, and watching the videos on the Sawtooth Wolf Pack on youtube. See how wonderful these animals live, how they are loving, loyal and intelligent, far from the vicious beasts they are portrayed as by those that oppose wolves. After having wolves welcomed back from extinction only to see them vilified and killed off again, is tragic. We have truly de-evolved as humans.

Note: I want to dedicate this post to my Grandma Betty who passed away recently. She shared my love of wolves.

Kelley Heckart, Historical fantasy romance author

Captivating…Sensual…Otherworldly

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/ Check out my long hair hotties!

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kelley-Heckart/111838455604

http://kelleyheckart.com/TheEnchantedMeadow.html

http://kelleyheckart.com/BookShelf.html

WILLIAM MALTESE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL #16 — IT’S THE HOLIDAYS! SO, PIG OUT … GET FAT … AND, THEN, BUY “EVEN GOURMANDS HAVE TO DIET!”

It’s that time of the year when everyone, including me, chows down, pigs out, and, likely, despite all of our resolves to the contrary, still gains unwanted weight.

 

As if it’s not already difficult for me to stay thin, what with two cookbooks out —

THE GLUTEN FREE WAY: MY WAY —with Adrienne Z. Milligan

Print: http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Way-My-Guide-Cooking/dp/1434457192/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323650391&sr=1-1

—and—

BACK OF THE BOAT GOURMET COOKING: AFLOAT, POOLSIDE, BACKYARD —with Bonnie Clark

Print: http://www.amazon.com/Back-Boat-Gourmet-Cooking-Pool-Side/dp/1434411540/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323650469&sr=1-1

 

Kindle : http://www.amazon.com/Back-Gourmet-Cooking-Afloat-Pool-Side-Backyard-book/dp/B004HW7DFC/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1323650469&sr=1-1

 

—as well as with four more contracted to be finished by the end of next year—

THE GOURMET HUCKLEBERRY —with Bonnie Clark

DINNER WITH CECILE AND WILLIAM —with Cecile Charles

SWEET AND EASY VEGAN DESSERTS —with Christina-Marie “GonzoMama”

Wright

—and—

THE WILLIAM MALTESE HOTTIE SPICE mix COOKBOOK)

—me continually testing new recipes to see what should and shouldn’t be included in my cookbooks.

Over the years, though, I’ve simply accepted the fact that there’s going to be weight gains, especially over the holidays, so I just tell everyone else, during the triad of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, to go ahead and pig out, right along with me, with whatever your favorite recipes from whatever your favorite cookbooks (hopefully, one or two of mine).

Just BE SURE to include in your cooking, by way of “the” ingredient to add a little heat to your life (and I’m not JUST talking at the holidays but ALL YEAR ROUND), my very own namesake WILLIAM MALTESE HOTTIE SPICE mix — presently available exclusively at the brick-and-mortar The Heart of Spokane gift boutique, BUT, available on-line, everywhere, via —

 

http://theheartofspokane.com/the-heart-of-spokane-notable-people-spices/32-the-heart-of-spokane-notable-people-spices

 

—especially since .50 from every purchase goes by way of donation to Inland NWbaby, an organization that’s devoted to seeing that all children who desperately need diapers get them.

 

While larger jars of the spice are soon to be made available, the small-size, presently offered, makes for ideal stocking stuffers.

 

Then, anticipating that moment when the holidays are finally over, when we all look in our mirrors and wonder who in the hell those plumped-up people are, looking back at us, we should THEN follow the health regimen Bonnie Clark and I have carefully laid out in our—

 

EVEN GOURMANDS HAVE TO DIET

Print: http://www.amazon.com/Even-Gourmands-Have-Bonnie-Clark/dp/1434435563/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1323650612&sr=1-1

 

Kindle : http://www.amazon.com/Even-Gourmands-Have-Diet-ebook/dp/B005H3EPT2/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1323650612&sr=1-1

 

—and see how we can all still eat well, eat chocolate (albeit Xocai Healthy Chocolate), lose weight, AND feel even better than we did before our last food binge.

 

Following the EVEN GOURMANDS HAVE TO DIET regimen, Bonnie and her husband lost a combined weight of over 160 pounds (See Before and After pictures). If that doesn’t tell you our plan works, I don’t know what will.

Buy the book early, though, rather than wait until after 1 January 2012, because if you buy it afterwards, it’ll seem like you’ve made a New Year’s resolution, and we all know difficult those are to keep.

 

 

My Way: Missing in Action

That’s where I’ve been. MIA.

Totally blew off my last column because I was partying in New Orleans at the first annual GayRomLit. But I’m back now, been back a couple months now, and once again, settled down, so there’s no “excuse” for me not posting a column. Not the two edits that are due Monday, the holiday shopping I still have to do, and refereeing the boys and their decorating and cookie baking. Nope. No excuses.

 

Quite a bit has happened since August. Zack graduated Marine boot and will be stationed in VA come the first part of 2012. More layoffs at the EDJ, but I’m editing for another publisher now, so hopefully when (notice I say when, not if–it’s only a matter of time) I get chopped. I’m okay.

Divinity is now out with Riptide Publishing. Mixed reviews, which is how I like it. Everyone who’s read my work knows I do NOT write traditional romances, not even close. So if you’re looking for a light and fluffy read, do us both a favor–Go elsewhere.

 

I’ve joined in with a couple of great initiatives: The Safe Reading Zone–“The Safe Reading Zone Campaign is a website designed for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender individuals. There are several resources on the site…”–Find out more about the Safe Reading Zone here.

And the Embrace the Rainbow campaign–”to help us increase awareness, acceptance and support for the trans*, intersex, intergender and questioning people in the m/m romance community and broader community…”–Find out more about Embrace the Rainbow here.

The best quote that can sum up my feelings for writing, for breathing, and for these great campaigns comes from the Embrace the Rainbow post:

…this excerpt from an interview in September 2011 between genderfluid Andrej Pejic and ABC’s Nightline Juju Chang :

Chang:  When you see yourself in the mirror, do you think of yourself more as a man or as a woman?
Pejic:  I like to keep my options open.
Chang:  What does that mean?
Pejic:  I see myself.

‘I see myself.’

That, friends, says it all.

 

I have no wit or any of my usual sarcasm to add today. The year’s worn me out. I simply want to be at peace for a while, enjoy the silence in order to refurbish my spent self. I refuse to go back into hiding, no matter who tries to push me there. It’s time to recharge.

Until next time.

Bryl R. Tyne
bryltyne.com
Author, Editor, & Graphic Designer

Blogs I write for:
Defying Description
The Rainbow Studio
Frothing Authors

 

Christian and Pagan holidays

A friend brought to my attention a rant she had over the Wiccans and Pagans not getting their holidays versus Christians demanding that we not offend their rights. Well, I have to agree with her. If they want the respect they deserve, why can we have ours? Since the days of Author and Merlyn, our “kind” has been hunted down. In the past they were told bluntly, “convert or die”. In this era, no one can get away with slaughtering which is a good thing. But we’re still shunned, insulted, banned, and to add insult to injury, have our holidays completely over run and taken away from us. Including Samhain. So where can there be a compromise made? Finding a dividing point of respecting one another.

I can’t speak for ALL Wiccans and Pagans, but I can speak for those I know to be really good people. We’re not all bad. Judging us is like judging all Christians and putting the good in with the bad. Talk about not fair. I purposely wait before telling anyone my religion for a reason. Now, mind you, I am more open than I ever was in the past about it because I’m tired of having to “keep quiet”. But, back to the subject at hand. I always seem to get off topic, don’t I?

Well, in this case, I guess that’s a good thing because today’s blog is about how I personally feel along with some others I know. All the good in every religion seeks to follow their “deity’s” word and law. They want to do the right thing and they want to just be able to do their thing and feel good about it along with themselves. I agree that we should all be able to have that right.  Now, if you pull up a search on the web about the “origins of Thanksgiving”, you find mostly Christian explanations for it. I found one site that tells the gruesome tale of the slaughter of the Indians after they took the time to “teach” the Pilgrims how to grow food. Talk about unfair to the Indians. They were here first and certainly didn’t have to “teach” anybody anything. So really there is more at stake than just Christians versus Wiccans and Pagans, it’s against the Indians too.

History is filled with violence, modern day’s society is filled with violence, so, unfortunately will be our future. Another really good friend brought to my attention about racism still being in existence, but that’s for another blog.

Fact of the matter is, every generation, starting with our ancestors, had their own holidays each and Christianity did what it knew to do, take it away from others as the Muslims took it away from them. I can certainly understand that they want what’s theirs. We do too! When you think about it overall, there has been someone somewhere that has “taken” away from others. So, now the next question is, when does it stop? When do we all, “Just Learn to Get Along”? Apparently that’s not going to happen anytime soon because you have new “groups” forming everyday just to raise hell over the name D.C. which means District of Columbia. Which apparently has something to do with a Pagan Goddess. Ok, that’s all good too, but I believe it was named from an explorer who discovered it, IE Christopher Columbus.

Here are some sites who give their meanings of the holidays Christmas (Xmas), Easter (Ostara), and Thanksgiving. I found them to be really interesting. Along with the site listed, here are a few quotes from each.

Thanksgiving…”A harvest feast did take place in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621, probably in mid-October and the Indians who attended were not even invited. It later became known as “Thanksgiving” but the Pilgrims never called it that. The pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural expertise of the Pilgrims’ Indian friend Squanto had produced 20 acres of corn without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished.” The rest you can find here from the author Bruce K. Gagnon.

Xmas(Christmas)…”Where did Christmas originate? From the Bible or paganism? What is the real origin of Santa Claus—mistletoe—Christmas trees—holly wreaths—and the custom of exchanging gifts? Many are concerned about putting “Christ back into Christmas.” Was He ever there? Here are the stunning answers!” Find the rest from the author David C. Pack.

Ostara (Easter)…”Modern-day Easter is derived from two ancient traditions: one Judeo-Christian and the other Pagan. Both Christians and Pagans have celebrated death and resurrection themes following the Spring Equinox for millennia. Most religious historians believe that many elements of the Christian observance of Easter were derived from earlier Pagan celebrations.” See  more here from the author B.A. Robinson.

Hope you enjoyed these, and see you soon! One more thing, something has to give as far as hating each other just for religious or sexual preference. We’re human, would Angels want us acting like this toward one another? Would the Gods and Goddess’ or the One True God above all want us acting like this toward one another? I think not. So Blessed Be to all of you, have a safe holiday, whatever it may mean to you. And last off, whether you’re Wiccan, Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever, think about how many issues would be solved if the hate just stopped and we all found a compromise. The compromise being, Loving each other, respecting one another, and most of all, trying to find the compromise that ALL can learn from one another to find the most important thing to all life,

Spirituality.

 

Kardashians—Is their 15 minutes of fame over?

It seems that the Kardashian family has finally done something so horrible that people have started a petition and a campaign on Facebook to get them off of the E! Channel.

Did they kill someone? No. Did they get arrested for a felony? Nope. I guess all it took for a hate campaign against them is for Kim Kardashian to allegedly fake her wedding to Kris Humphries.

“In a grass roots effort, we have collected (thousands of) signatures for a petition asking E! Entertainment to remove the Kardashian suite of shows from their programming,” petition organizer Cyndy Snider said in a statement. “We feel that these shows are mostly staged and place an emphasis on vanity, greed, promiscuity, vulgarity and over-the-top conspicuous consumption.”

 

All I have to say is—what took so long for people to see through their façade?

I mean, come on, you really thought that their shows on E were real and not staged? I still can’t believe they have been on television this long. I don’t even know anyone that actually watches this show so just where are these Kardashian fans? I’m presuming they are too embarrassed to reveal themselves.

I guess getting duped on Kim’s fairy tale wedding that cost, what, 10 million dollars, was the last straw for some people. What a waste of time and money. This is exactly the kind of behavior that has mobs of people pissed off all over the country. The Kardashians are greedy and so starved for attention that I actually pity them. What will happen to them when the cameras finally turn off? Even if this petition doesn’t go anywhere, eventually, if there really is a God, their reign on television will end. Stars (I’m using that term very loosely here) rise and stars fall. And it’s way past time for them to fall.

Kelley Heckart

‘Timeless tales of romance, conflict & magic’

http://www.kelleyheckart.com

http://kelleysrealm.blogspot.com/ Check out my long hair hotties!

http://twitter.com/CelticChick

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Three different women, one ancient curse…

http://kelleyheckart.com/winters_requiem.html

WILLIAM MALTESE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL (#15) IS THAT A SNAKE IN YOUR PANTS; OR, ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?

 

Excerpt from m/f JUNGLE-QUEST INTRIGUE by William Maltese —

Laura awoke to dense morning mist clinging to the water and among the trees. Kurt and Jim were already up, and the smells they’d produced with powdered eggs and dehydrated potatoes were a joy to the senses, even if the reality didn’t live up to the come-on.

After that, it was all uphill. Each new discovery of a discolored piece of plastic, or piece of metal tubing, elicited a disintegrating level of excitement.

By the time Laura used a stick to push back a blanket of vines to uncover the thigh-thick anaconda coiled covetously around three rusted, dented, and now-empty metal tanks, she was ready for a break. Not that she was one to get hysterical over a snake. If she were, she certainly wouldn’t have honed her camping skills in the Arizona desert which boasted more than its fair share. However, this one was larger than any Arizona-born-and-bred variety, and a grotesque bulge in its midsection recalled a nature show where some wildlife authority gleefully narrated as just such a monster unhinged its lower jaw to swallow a guinea pig. Laura was sure there was a message there somewhere: snake swallows guinea pig; jungle swallows Peter Lexly, Karl Reiger, Daniel Kenner; jungle maybe-yet to swallow Jim, Kurt, and her.

She shuddered and bumped into Kurt when she made a quick turn. He’d noted her intense concentration and had come for a look. Laura took hold of his arm for balance and left her fingers on his forearm after her balance was regained.

“Those the fuel tanks?” Kurt asked, having referred to an entry on the list of scrap the Brazilian investigators had chronicled during their run-through of the area. “I thought they I.D.’d only three.”

“The fourth, in case you’d care to notice, is a snake,” Laura provided.

***

Excerpt from m/m SS MANN HUNT

“I know what you’re thinking,” Kurt says. [How many alternatives are there to explain swastikas on the cave wall?] “Two victims of my ex-Nazi father found themselves in here, possibly wounded and dying, no way out, and drew these to disclose their fate to any too-late rescuers?”

His light scans the adjoining wall and stops on the scrawled representation of a monkey. Below the monkey are three snakes drawn in an intricate entwining.

***

Excerpt from m/m SNAKES by William Maltese —

A lone Gerald met them halfway. The manner in which his right hand bunched the waistline of his trousers bespoke his missing belt which was moonlighting, once again, as rope in case Ken revived during Gerald’s absence. “I thought maybe something had happened.”

“Something has happened.” Ian proceeded to fill Gerald in; he wished he hadn’t hit Ken so hard so the young scientists could do some informative talking.

“Oh, yes,” Ralph finally saw fit to add, “watch your step, because whoever did all the mischief also maliciously let lose some of the snakes. We’ve rounded up three of them, but we figure there are still ten missing.”

***

What is there about the snake that has so fascinated people over the ages … at first attributing to it pagan wisdom and healing, and then, with a 180-degree turnabout, putting it as the catalyst for Judo-Christian original sin by having it offer up that apple (or whatever) to Eve in the garden of Eden?

Certainly, I’ve included snakes (literally and figuratively) in more than one of my novels, as evidenced by the excerpts I’m providing. My m/m SNAKES, and its m/f equivalent DARE TO LOVE IN OZ, are entirely plotted around the why of murder and mayhem suddenly rampant in a venom-research facility, in the Australian outback, when it’s suddenly cut off from civilization by a giant sandstorm as someone releases poisonous reptiles from their cages. The cover of each book contains the image of a snake; the former by way of the tattoo on the cover model…

Excerpt from m/m SNAKES by William Maltese —

Shem dropped his pants around his feet and stepped out of them and out of his shoes (he didn’t wear socks); he was naked from the waist down. He had nice legs, as hairless — except for his thick head hair, his eyebrows, his eyelashes, and the bush grown thick at his crotch — as the rest of him.

Even before Shem peeled off his black T-shirt, which he proceeded to do, Ian could see the blue-snake tattoo curled on Shem’s muscled belly, the snake’s open mouth seemingly intent upon biting the young aborigine’s navel.

Ian had asked Shem about the snake and received a rather vague response, Shem seemingly embarrassed, about it having been not Shem’s idea to get it but that of Shem’s father. Ian had asked Leith about it, too; Leith had been a little less reluctant to discuss it but had very little to offer by way of additional insight, except, “Noah once expected far more of Shem than he does now. Had Noah known what he now knows, such early preparations, as the totem snake tattoo, would likely have been unnecessary, but who could have guessed?”

Actually, whatever the reason for the snake being where it was, on Shem’s muscled body, its tail trailing to disappearance in the pubic hair at the young man’s crotch, Ian found the tattoo sexy as hell and always had.

Ian watched while the rest of Shem’s T-shirt was stretched off the young man’s body and slipped completely from his torso.

***

… the second by way of the wee snake-head icon located directly above the final “E” of the m/f DARE TO LOVE IN OZ book title.

Excerpt from m/f DARE TO LOVE IN OZ by William Maltese —

Jane shuddered at the sight of a snake inscribed in macabre black aborigine-paint on the rose-tinted wall directly behind Gerald and staring menacingly over his shoulder at her.

He saw her shiver and reflexively offered her the warmth of his arm and body; she took both in the spirit in which they were intended; they nullified much but not quite the entire ominous chill gripping her.

***

By way of commercial marketing for my m/m novel SNAKES, I commissioned a candle from wax artisan, Jfay, which included the snake tattoo.

By way of commercial marketing for my m/f novel DARE TO LOVE IN OZ, I made a template of most of the snake drawing I commissioned from Dutch artist Johan Ekkel for the cover, and I had the image sandblasted onto the crotch of a pair of Levi 501 jeans. By the time I was finished, the pants in question cost me a cool $2500.00, and I don’t wear them all that often; but, when I do wear them, they always draw more than their fair share of attention.

Most likely, my inclusion of snakes in my plotlines and merchandising efforts has mostly to do with serpents being so-long recognized as phallic symbols, although not one of my face-to-face encounters with any snake, and there have been several, has ever been all of that much of a personal turn-on.

While in the Amazon Basin, between my university junior and senior years, hunting for Inca treasure, I saw a 32-foot anaconda that had just swallowed a native baby.

While on the island of Zanzibar, in Jozani National Park, doing research for my m/m novel, SLAVES, my guide pointed out an at-rest 20-foot python.

While in “the wilds” of Australia, a country noted, by the way, for being the home for eight out of the world’s most ten poisonous snakes, I saw a coastal Taipan, a western Taipan, a common death adder, a tiger snake, and a Collett’s snake. I was informed by someone who had lived in Australia all of his life, and had never seen nearly as many, that I was lucky, most snakes being shy of humans. Funny, but I didn’t feel so lucky at the time.

***

Excerpt from m/m GOLDSANDS by William Maltese —

“When I was eight years old,” Abdul said reflectively,” Rashid al-Hidda told me to beware of cobras. Cobras, would you believe? The only cobras seen in Egypt, by that time, were the fangless serpents used by fakirs and dancers in the marketplace. Once, of course, they had been so prevalent that they were made the symbol of Lower Egypt and put with the vulture of Upper Egypt on the pharaoh’s crown, but they had long been driven into deep-deep desert by the constant tramp of tourists’ feet. Two nights after Rashid’s warning, though, the servant he sent to my bedchamber to check on my sleep killed a cobra only inches from where I slept.”

***

Excerpt from m/f FROM THIS BELOVED HOUR by William Maltese  —

“Mmmmmm,” Abdul responded. “Actually, I’m probably more interested in what’s gone wrong in your world,” he told her, sending her into an overreaction of denials that wouldn’t even have convinced someone far less astute than Abdul. “Come on, Jenny!” Abdul chided when she had finished. “Did a snake somehow manage to slither into your Eden?”

A little extra from “Angel in the Middle”

Hi all,

Since we’re just past Halloween, I’m going to go for a little extra “treat” today, but with a “trick.” My newest M/M paranormal erotica just released. Chapter 1 is available on the Liquid Silver Books website here. The trick is, you’ll have to go to the publisher’s site to read Chapter 1. But the treat is that I’m putting the first part of Chapter 2 below as a little extra preview.  So, read and enjoy a little bit of Angel in the Middle.

Chapter Two

Franco sat in a corner of the Heretic Bar with his chair tipped back and a bottle of Corona in his hand. He’d changed in the Hummer to make sure he met the “leather night” dress requirements. His chest was bare under a leather vest, and he’d left his dark hair loose to fall to his shoulders. He expected to attract attention, and he wanted the action to come to him. He raised the beer bottle and flexed a muscle.

A wide-eyed twink paused by his chair. “Wow, dude, you must have some workout routine.”

“I wrestle demons for a living.” Franco let his gaze dismiss the boy. He wasn’t in the mood for wide-eyed innocence, even fake innocence. Not tonight. The twink danced away with a shrug.

A bit of wannabe rough trade swung near. “Wanna wrestle me?”

Franco snorted. Another twink, but with spiky blue hair and nipple rings twinkling on his bare chest. The wannabe turned, revealing tribal tattoos shaped like wings on his shoulders, and shimmied his hips down to the floor and back up. Tight jeans cupped a perfect ass. The short, spiky hair wasn’t Franco’s preference, but the kid moved like a professional. He looked over his shoulder and winked. “Come on, Big Guy, you know you want me.” He raised his arms and humped back and forth to the beat. Franco considered the offer.

And cursed when a fog settled over the scene, blocking out the music and hiding the tribal tattooed kid behind a white veil. He took a swig of his Corona and waited. When Raguel strode out of the mist, the hint of a sneer tweaked lips so perfect they could have been chiseled by an Italian master. Franco sneered back. Raguel hadn’t approved of Da Vinci or Michelangelo.

“Why do I always find you in places like this?” The angel held his white robe up off the scuffed concrete floor and positioned himself so that he didn’t touch anything.

Franco dropped the chair down to four legs. He couldn’t tell Raguel that he frequented these places in hopes of being left in peace with his mortal lust. He’d spent seven hundred years doing both Heaven and Hell’s bidding, and Raguel’s sneers made the opposition look appealing. “Just finished a job. Another one of the fallen claw his way out of the pit?”

Raguel pointed a finger, and a figure took form in the air. Tall. Slim. Blond hair down to his waist. Franco’s gaze moved down the fall of hair. He’d always been a sucker for long hair. White mist covered the figure like a robe. The chest was flat and smooth. Male. It was always hard to tell from the facial features. Raguel and his type didn’t grow beards. Franco doubted they grew hair around their balls either. Not that he’d ever figured out why they needed balls. Raguel certainly never put his to use. Prick wouldn’t even show him a beauty like this unclothed. Franco studied the fading figure, drinking in the unique light of his soul. “Doesn’t feel like one of the pit dwellers to me.”

“He fell.”

“Looks like he missed the target.” A demon who could mimic a human was dangerous. One that still looked like the angel he’d once been was the worst sort. “What’d he do to get kicked out?”

“Questioning is not your job. Hunting is. His name is Darius. Find him. Banish him.”

“Like I said, I just finished a job. You’re interrupting my rest period so this one will be twice the agreed-upon rate.” Raguel paid in something more valuable than coin, forgiveness for transgressions.

Raguel chuckled, surprising Franco. He’d never heard the Archangel laugh. “I find you here, and you still think to redeem your soul? Twice, three times, what difference will it make?” Raguel leaned over and put his hands on the table. “I lose patience with you, Franco. You were a bad bargain then, and you still are. How long do you think to hover between salvation and the pit?” He stood and wiped his hands with a look of disgust. “Find the fallen one and banish him.”

Bastard wasn’t even going to tell him what he was up against. Raguel would be just as happy if one of the damned dragged him down to Hell. He’d learned to gamble with his soul long ago. “Twice the rate.”

“When I have confirmed the job is done.”

Ah, so he’d read him right. Something about this one had caught in Raguel’s craw. Maybe he should have demanded three times the rate.

“And done quickly.”

“I hear and obey, oh master.” Raguel waited, staring at him. Franco raised his Corona and gestured toward the dance floor. “I have plans for tonight.”

“Finish them.” Raguel gave him a final disapproving sneer before he turned and vanished into the mist. At least the bar didn’t burst into flames. Franco often suspected that Raguel had been involved in the fiasco at Sodom. Everyone was more liberal these days.

He closed his eyes. Damn Raguel and his kind. They were so perfectly formed that he couldn’t keep his body from reacting, but this time he pulsed with need for the blond. Even that one’s soul light felt wrong for a demon. A dangerous hunt, but he didn’t plan to begin with his cock pointing the way.

He opened his eyes. With a sensuous twist of his hips, the dancer with the tattoo caught his attention again. “Whadaya say, Big Guy? Want some tribal action?”

Franco slapped a fifty on the table. “I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to hear you talk.”

Tribal tattoo opened his mouth, and Franco pulled back the fifty. Tribal shrugged and closed his mouth. Franco dropped the fifty again. Tribal crossed his arms over his pierced nipples and looked up at the ceiling. Franco slapped another fifty beside the first. Tribal’s gaze flicked down at it.

Franco picked up the bills and held them out. “Look, you’re not the only talent here tonight.”

Tribal pulled his lips into a pout. Franco didn’t move. With a sigh, the other took the money, folded it, and tucked it into his jeans. Franco rose, grabbed him by the chain he wore as a belt and headed to the back door of the bar. Tribal wove through the tables with practiced ease that told Franco he shouldn’t have bothered with the second fifty. This one liked being bossed around. Hell, he could have had him without any money at all. But money kept the encounters from becoming personal.

Seasonal Topical Re-post: Why Iron Maiden Didn’t play the song ‘Transylvania’ in Transylvania

This article originally appeared in my Druid blog at
http://wp.me/py9sz-Y I thought we might want to gaze upon the splendour of space zombie Eddie the Head while discussing global events and the effect of the arts.

Better late than never– I think I know why Iron Maiden did not play the song “Transylvania” in Cluj,Transylvania on their most recent world tour, one year ago.

http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?categoryid=1

Some fans complained at this supposed omission– first time in the province, and they do not play what might be a local favorite? But if I actually try to put the song, an instrumental of astonishing and elegant simplicity, together with the nation that happens to be the origin of its name, they seem to spring apart from each other like the opposing poles of two magnets. They are nothing alike, despite being completely logical fits for the label, more homonyms than homologues. There is too much going on in the actual Transylvania, perhaps, to make harmony of it.

So why is it not possible for me to think of these two Transylvanias at once? Let’s take them separately. First came the land, of course, the southern reaches of the Carpathians with millenia of history layered with wave after wave of human infestation, frosted over in our perceptions with a veneer of 19th century vampire lore. From that lore, built with stereotypical polarization of good and evil, dark and light, human versus monster, grew a mushroom of popular horror culture. That monstrous mash has thrived as a counterbalance to the mainstream and flourishes even now. It is typified by today’s trendy love of all things ‘black’, ‘satanic’ or ‘goth’, reactions to perceived social shortcomings of the ‘normal’.

By 1980, when Steve Harris and his bandmates first perfected his song, calling it “Transylvania” was merely a way of referencing this world of harmless matinee horror, typified as well by the band’s mascot, a rubber-faced zombie. Your average pub-crawling yob then would likely not think of the modern nation and its province. And Maiden had no way of knowing that thirty years later they would be still playing together and regularly traveling around the world with their show, playing for fans of all ages waving banners that read ‘Iron Maiden is my religion!’

Maiden’s fifteen albums contain a spectrum of paeans to social consciousness, though they seem to never advocate a side, only recognize the suffering our species invariably unleashes upon itself. “Brave New World”, for example, does not describe a utopia, but rather a post-apocalyptic graveyard littered with the dying. Suicidal impulses are contained and channeled in songs such as “Remember Tomorrow” and “Another Life”. The glorious warrior’s life is often celebrated too, short as it often is; for some of the most popular numbers the lead singer dons antique uniform and waves a Union Jack.

In the actual region of Romania that bears the name Transylvania there are very real and endemic miseries. The British band may wave their own flag in a song based upon the past, but they are not going to advocate for some other land by appearing to advocate it in its present state. They supported Romanian heavy metal music by including a local band in their Cluj lineup. But Transylvanian emigres to the UK have been in recent news as ethnic minority Roma, some of them human traffickers in the business of importing children to beg on foreign street corners, or worse.

The reasons they are forced into poverty that spawns such heinous practices that foster more misery cannot be bandaged or eliminated by a mere song. The roots of the social illness are centuries deep. It is not fear of an undead plague that keeps Transylvania an exporter of its poor, but humanity’s own capacity for inhumanity and fear of one another.

In far too many parts of our world there still exist starvation, slavery, and witch burnings. In the world of Iron Maiden’s music, we are all Eddie the Head, wrestling with our inner monsters and “The Evil That Men Do”. But it is a message meant for those who can afford recorded music, and concert tickets in lands that can afford to build large stadiums. Transylvania now has a venue like that. But of the tens of thousands who filled it, how many of them had to worry about their next meal, or where they could raise their children in safety? How many of them could not read, much less understand lyrics in a foreign tongue, English?

The music of Maiden may be the product of a working class ethic, but in far too many parts of the world, only the educated middle classes can afford it. That does not mean it’s not good music, and good for its listeners to hear. Maiden inspires its fans to educate themselves by basing many of its songs on literary and historical themes. It addresses philosophical issues and encourages its listeners to think, with multiple interpretations to many of its songs, at least in my mind. However, multiple interpretations can only be played out in a very limited fashion with an instrumental piece, whose only nod toward significance is its title.

“Transylvania” is in a minor key, like virtually all of Maiden’s songs. It showcases Harris’ bass line, from which the twin guitar overlay seems to spring naturally like spray from the crest of a wave. It was written for two guitars, and in recent times, the Maiden line-up has featured triple guitars– Gers has been the constant companion of Murray and Smith for more than a decade. That alone is reason enough to exclude the number from a 2010 performance.

But if they wanted to, the guitarists of Maiden are all such consummate practitioners of their craft that they could easily devise a third guitar line to “Transylvania” and offer us fans a whole new iteration of the number to enjoy. The point is, they didn’t want to. Maiden evidently feels that the song “Transylvania” is part of their history and should remain so. The land, Transylvania, did not need to hear that song live in 2010. Whatever spiritual fodder it would offer to perform it in that land might nourish monsters with human faces. There are plenty of those already.

Actually, I am speculating about these deeper possible reasons for Iron Maiden’s refusal to satisfy the expectations of the literal-minded, that they would play an eponymous favorite at their concert in Cluj-Napoca. I can’t know; I don’t have any insider information. More likely it was a matter of convenience; they’d probably admit that they are too set in their ways to depart from their touring custom, which is to play an identical set list at every stop in a tour. It’s value for money; that way fans know exactly what they are getting. You don’t alienate the potential audience, and you do not disturb the digestion of a band whose members are all now in their fifties.

I would never dream of doing such a thing! I find Maiden has only gotten better with the years, not being one of those who laments when they don’t play my favorite ‘oldie’. Even though I was part of their potential market when first they formed, back when I was a collegiate teen, back then they were not my cup of tea. Maiden and I have grown to fit one another, you could say. I’m sorry it took me so very long. But then it took me an entire year to think the thoughts behind this sermon.

But I am sincerely glad they chose not to play “Transylvania” in Transylvania. Peace, Peace, Peace.