Well, Ok, not really, but I noticed the term Black Wind in the song when I was listening to the GREAT John Prine today and had to post it.

Sweet Revenge
John Prine

I got kicked off Noah's Ark
I turn my cheek to unkind remarks
there was two of everything
but one of me
and when the rains came tumbling down
I held my breath and I stood my ground
and I watched that ship go sailing
out to sea.

Take it back
take it back
oh no, you can't say that
all of my friends
are not dead or in jail
through rock and through stone
the black wind still moans
sweet revenge
sweet revenge
without fail.

I caught an aisle seat on a plane
and drove an English teacher half insane
making up jokes about bicycle spokes
and red balloons
so I called up my local deejay
and he didn't have a lot to say
but the radio
has learned all of my favorite tunes.

Take it back
take it back
oh no, you can't say that
all of my friends
are not dead or in jail
through rock and through stone
the black wind still moans
sweet revenge
sweet revenge
without fail.

The white meat is on the run
and the dark meat is far too done
and the milkman left me a note yesterday
get out of this town by noon
you're coming on way too soon
and besides that
we never liked you any way.

Take it back
take it back
oh no, you can't say that
all of my friends
are not dead or in jail
through rock and through stone
the black wind still moans
sweet revenge
sweet revenge
without fail.

I watched every episode of this. I kept saying I wasn't coming back, but then I would.

Maybe because I kept wondering about Timothy Olyphant without the facial hair. He has an intensity and demeanor that I can see in Jack. Right age too.

But the reason I think I kept coming back was Ian McShane's job of playing Al Swearengen, the most complex villain I've ever encountered. He's a lying, cheating, murdering whoremonger who beats up women when he's in the mood. And yet...and yet...

Anybody up for some CRISSCROSS discussion?

The other day I was in the book store I frequent in the poetry section, when I looked to my left and, at eye level, sat The Haunted Air, completely in the wrong section, and the only RepairMan Jack book I don't have yet. Some divine force must truly love me, although I'll keep my fingers crossed as I hope that it's not the otherness.
PS. sorry if this is uneventful, uninteresting or irrelevant.

For those who haven't read it, you can find it at:

http://www.doingfreedom.com/gen/0600/fa....eggin.html

And while you're there, check out the rest of the Doing Freedom site.

This has become must-see TV on Monday nights in my house.

Take David Caruso at his most pretentious. Add some of the worst dialogue ever written. Then have the former mouth the latter with grave portent and Shatneresque pauses, and you've got yourself a good time.

The stories are ofen gripping, and that saves the show from complete self-parody, but who writes the dialogue? (Unless Caruso the auteur is writing his own.)

After rereading Hosts and starting again on Haunted Air, I was wondering: did we ever see Joe and Stan K before in an earlier novel and I missed it? Same question in the very beginning of Haunted Air, when Jack recalls a fix-it job where a tattoo on his knuckles landed him in hot water, and also the big job he did for Burkes with terrorists in The Tomb; did these jobs ever appear in a short story or other novel, or is Jack just recalling them for the heck of it?

From the Science Fiction Weekly newsletter:

-> SITE OF THE WEEK
Ray Harryhausen, F. Paul Wilson and other celebrities sound off in the
"Sci-Fi Overdrive" audio interview archives housed at "Interstellar
Transmissions."

http://www.interstellartransmissions.com.../index.php

(If this topic doesn't belong here, I apologize. I seem to have a knack for creating topics in the wrong places, even when I'm not new to a forum. Sorry if this topic is taboo or insulting or something, but the opportunity to communicate directly with the creator of Jack...it's more than I can take!)

This is directed mostly at you, FPW, and to any published authors in this forum.

FPW, I know you're a working physician and yet you're still able to write lots of unique, tightly-plotted, detailed books, and do research for them, etc, and that amazes me. Would you be willing to give some tips about getting a full story out on paper? (or on the computer screen?) Do you run with a beginning and see where that leads, or plan out the entire plot before you begin writing?

Becoming a published author's one of my dreams, and it seems dauntingly difficult to become one by a major publishing house unless you already have connections or lots of money. Or both. A key example is the new fad Eragon, a fantasy book by a 19 year-old which was no better or worse than any other fantasy I've read. But it's the Big Thing with the tweenagers... mostly because the author's parents have their own publishing company. Is it impossible for an unknown person to catch the eye of a publisher? What's it like going through the publishing-house machinery out there? I read Stephen King's autobiography, and I think it was him who said that when he was first trying to get published, he had enough rejection slips to wallpaper his bedroom. Was it also hard for you to get published? How'd you get started writing in the first place?

I appreciate anything you'd or anyone else would like to share.

I just finished reading Sims last night and absolutely LOVED IT. I'm already a huge FPW fan, and this book was awesome. I work in the biotechnology industry so the premise is particularly interesting to me. I was just wondering what other thoughts were about the book. BTW, I'm new to the forum, but I've been stopping in periodically to read what's here for a long time.