Noir at the Bar 2--the Anthology!

There's a trailer for the second Noir at the Bar anthology, edited by Jedidiah Ayres and, nominally, by me. Featuring a whole bunch of terrific writers and filthy stories!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1-5A1V0Oag&feature=youtu.be

Unfortunately Blogspot won't let me upload the video itself for reasons I don't quite understand. The music is by Modern Silent Cinema, also known as Cullen Gallagher! Here's the cover by Erik Lundy:

And it's available at Subterranean Books at 6275Delmar in St. Louis MO, or from the link below:

http://store.subbooks.com/product/noir-bar-volume-2

More of Cape Girardeau

 Coca-Cola Ghost Sign!

 Stag Beer Ghost Sign!

 Spooky Abandoned Restaurant! Inside and Out!

 And finally, the Cape Wiggery Shop, sadly defunct but with its sign intact.

Ghost Signs, Beverage-Related

 The first two were taken in Nice, France in 1987. I don't know if they really qualify as Ghost Signs since they're painted on glass, but the loveliness of their deterioration is similar. As always, click to enlarge!

And this one is from Brussels in 1982--too modern to be a proper Ghost Sign, perhaps (the number at the bottom reads 1/23/68, which could be a date, though in Europe it's usually Day/Month/Year.) 

Hipsters and Hammett in Redbook, 1933

I picked this up a few years ago in Wichita, the issue of Redbook featuring the first appearance of "The Thin Man." It's a full-length novel, although I don't know if the text is precisely the same as the finished book.

It's right purty, though, ain't it? Sorry about the bottom of the scan, the mag was just too big for the scanner. And here's the back cover:

 PBR! That's all it took to be a Hipster back in '33, just frameless glasses and a white moustache and a three-piece suit and a meat fork! Look at the posers in the mirror, trying to out-hip this guy! They look so self-conscious and defeated!

Jake's Wake/Kirby's Reunion!

Last weekend in Wichita some friends organized a reunion of the grizzled sots and wised-up former grifters who hung around in Kirby's back in the 8-0s and early 90s. Unfortunately the thing turned into a wake for uber-regular and comic genius Jake Euker, who died earlier in the week. Nonetheless a good time was had, as they say, by all, and in the best tradition of wakes many Jake stories were told and many glasses lifted.
Without naming names:

 Standing outside in the grand parking lot tradition.

 Who is this sultry, leering temptress?

 Someone looks surprised! Perhaps an "off color" remark?

Music! Featuring on vocals a young lady whose parents were regulars before she was even born. Proud papa is on sax at left.

This guy's laughing because he doesn't own the place any more.

For a view of the place in those long-gone, halcyon days, see: http://pocketfulofginch.blogspot.com/2010/03/kirbys-88.html
More to come!

For Amusement Only!

Here are a couple of one-armed bandits from the old days. With the top one you put in a penny and if you got three of a kind on the reels you got free smokes.

 With the second one, you put in a nickel, but if you didn't win free smokes you got a gumball as consolation.

Not quite related but I found it on the same day, so here's your beer-related memorabilia for the day:

It's an old National Beer crate from Baltimore, featuring an early version of Mister National Bohemian, better known as Mr. Natty Bo!

TOMORROW: The Triumphant Return of Troy Cutcross!!!

Good Taxidermy

Mrs. Phillips and I, on the way home from dropping our little one off at camp, stopped in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, to see my elementary school pal Barry "Manolo" Sanders and his significant other Chantelle, and while there we went to the "Blind Pig" Brew Pub, wherein hangs this magnificent Gnu head.

ALL HAIL THE GNU!

Also, the Blind Pig makes some lovely beers.

Four unusual gifts, in order of strangeness: Part One

Every day I eagerly await the arrival of the day's mail, even though there's almost never anything for me. Imagine my surprise and delight yesterday, then, when I received three packages addressed to me, and all of them gifts. The above Natty Boh t-shirt was the least weird of the bunch, so I'm starting with it. It's from my friends Jeff and Jane of Baltimore, and I am delighted to wear it here. The other two will come up on the site in the next few days, followed by the weirdest of all, an anniversary present from my wife. It will freak you out.

More Rathskeller!

Top: Agent to the Stars David Hale Smith, Dapper Dan O'Shea, and the lovely Theresa Schwegel; 2nd, the chipper Anthony Neil Smith, old sobersides Victor Gischler, and Kieran "I Like Scaring Little Old Ladies" Shea; 3rd, parts of D. O'Shea and the always classy T. Schwegel; and finally the imperturbable Jon McGoran (D.H. Dublin, to the public). A good sudsy time was had by all.

Beauty and the Beasts

Left to right: uber-agent Stacia Decker, old-lady-frightening writer Kieran Shea, mega-agent David Hale Smith, up-and-coming sicko novelist John Rector, and King of Comics Duane Swierczinski, from DHS's Bouchercon party at Indianapolis's Rathskeller, a building designed by Kurt Vonnegut's grandfather. More pictures to come soon, along with some pencil pages from Roger Petersen for this comic we're soon going to have to come up with a title for.