Ever wonder in what ways technology can change not just our pop culture, but even the way we portray our characters in our books and short stories? Check out the article I wrote for Kings River Life Magazine on the influence of technology on how we write the modern crime novel.

California State Prison in Lancaster

What would you say to an inmate?
I have been given the go-ahead by my editor, and have received my security clearance to interview a group of inmates at the California State Prison in Lancaster, California. But these are no ordinary inmates, each one is a veteran who, before serving time, served their country in the US military. While in prison, they orginized a veterans group and run fund-rasiers to get money to send to our troops still searving overseas.

Before I head up to interview and write my story, I will be donating a couple of the One-Eyed Jack novels to be put into the prison library. I have been asked to personalize them for the veterans before I ship them off. The question is, what do you say to a person who has served our country, but now, for whatever offense, is serving time?
List your thoughts in the comments below.

Bobby and Wally the Water Drop

After a long hiatus, I am finally going to get back to my children’s picture book, Wally the Water Drop.  It’s the story of Bobby,  a young boy who happens upon a magical water drop that takes him on an incredible journey through the hydro-logic cycle.  I was inspired to write the story when my best friend Dave, a student of meteorology,  shared a poem he had written on the subject.  Just to give you an idea of how long some of these stories percolate in my psyche, that was in 1977.

For all of my “One Eyed Jack” fans, do not panic and think I am abandoning ship on you. I am still hard at work on the second novel in the series, “Russian Roulette” and will keep you posted on its progress.

Chris

BTW: If you’re wondering how I ended up in a group named “Sisters” in Crime, they have been accepting male writers into their ranks for several years now. We’re referred to as “Misters.” LOL

In honor of African American History Month, I’d like to re-post this article I wrote about a man in South Los Angeles who started his own African American Museum. I spent the day interviewing him and marveling at his incredible private collection.  The article appeared in the LA Weekly and you can still read it in its entirety here.

Click on the picture above to check out the One Eyed Jack video trailer.

Whew! I just got interogated by the police!

Actually, it was by retired police officer and author Kathy Bennett. She has me locked up in her interogation room and will all means nessesary to extract an author interview from me. You can check it out here to hear me squirm and see if I crack.

Check out Kathy Bennett and her terrific crime  novels, “A Dozen Deadly Roses” and “A Deadly Blessing” at her website .

I know that many of you who have read the novel have said that you wished it would have kept going. ..Well it has; I’m currently working on the second novel in the series, “Russian Roulette”  and just finished the first draft of chapter one. It picks up literally hours after the first novel ended, with the double-crossed and enraged Russian thugs coming after Jack. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter for your reading pleasure:

I got back into the van just in time to see the two hulks standing at the front door of my condo. Skinhead kept watch for any nosey neighbors, while Goatee went to work on the locks. He was good, and had them both compromised in less than 15 seconds. Suppressed Glocks came out of holsters in their jackets and Goatee gripped the doorknob. I switched screens to the camera in my living room just as they went in.

Expecting a fusillade of bullets to greet them, they expertly swept their weapons back and forth to cover any lines of fire. They were good, and I knew by watching them that they were no ordinary street thugs. They were either Spetsnaz or ex-KGB. Maybe they had even rubbed elbows with Putin at one point in their illustrious careers. The living room cleared, Skinhead covered while Goatee retrieved the gym bag from outside and closed the front door.

I switched cameras and watched them as they went through my dining room and kitchen, clearing them with the same expert tactics. That left only the bedrooms. I had two in my unit, one that I used as my office, the other where I slept. The door to the office was open and they went in and cleared it first. That left only my bedroom, with the door closed.

Goatee nodded to Skinhead and I saw him remove a small device from the gym bag. He unfurled what appeared to be a small wire from the device and dropped down to his knees in front of my bedroom door. He snaked the end of the “wire” through the gap at the bottom of the door and I knew then that it was a fiber optic camera. They may have been tough guys, but they weren’t about to take a chance of walking into an ambush if they could avoid it.

After a few seconds he looked up at Goatee and gave him a thumbs-up. Goatee nodded and Skinhead stood up and took his place on the opposite side of the door. He gripped the doorknob and turned it. They went in like lightning. I switched cameras again.

Inside the bedroom, they performed the same sweep before coming to rest on a form in my bed. It was an ancient trick, but I had propped up pillows to simulate a person sleeping under the covers. A wig, in my color and with the same pattern baldness of my noggin, was attached to a Styrofoam head with the back facing toward them.

A nod was exchanged between them and Goatee grabbed the gym bag from outside the door. He placed his Glock in it and pulled out a Taser. He aimed it in the direction of the form in the bed and then it was Skinheads turn. He re-holstered his weapon and reached into the bag, extracting a narrow, cylindrical device about a foot long. He switched it on. It was a bull-prod.

Dam it! I was hoping these guys were only going to kill me. They want to bring me in alive!

Well, I finally received my first bona fide review –  and it was a great one. Underratedreads.com is unlike most sites that do reviews in that they will only review a book if it holds their interest and they feel they want to recommend it to other readers. They take no money for their tireless efforts, and do it strictly for the love of books and reading. They just posted a very in depth review of One Eyed Jack and you can check it out here:

At long last, and after much effort, my novel – the first in the series – is published and available for purchase. It’s currently available at Amazon in both print and e-book format.

I’ve also produced a video trailer which you can view here.

Enjoy everyone! And thank you for your support.

Chris

Oran Z’s Black Facts and Wax Museum: A Bizarre, Brutally-Honest African-American History Collection in Baldwin Hills

MICHELLE AND BARACK OBAMA AT ORAN "Z"S BLACK FACTS AND WAX MUSEUM

Oran Z began his quest for a wax head of Barack Obama even before the president took office. The creator and proprietor of the Pan African Black Facts and Wax Museum in South Los Angeles met resistance from his supplier, who wanted to wait at least six months after Obama had won to begin the molding process. “They said that every president changes after getting into office,” Z recalls.

He persisted, and soon he was putting on the final touches. Mrs. Obama also arrived just a few months ago.

TO READ THE FULL STORY, PLEASE GO TO:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/09/oran_zs_black_facts_and_wax_mu.php

Uveitis and juvenile
arthritis couldn’t
keep this hiker down

Melissa Hudson and her guide dog Anya

MELISSA HUDSON WEPT WITH PRIDE WHEN SHE STEPPED ONTO THE SUMMIT OF MT. BALDY.
She’d lived in the shadow of the 10,000-foot mountain – the highest point in Los Angeles County – all her life, but had never considered climbing it.
“The outdoors was something other people did; it wasn’t for the frail, little girl who lived in constant pain and spent most of her time in doctors’ offices or hospitals,” says Melissa, 37, who was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis (JA) at age 3.
Even more remarkable: Melissa is legally blind due to uveitis, an inflammatory condition associated with JA. And a few years ago, she had to re-learn how to walk after major foot surgery, which was also a byproduct of her JA.
But for Melissa, none of those ailments were going to keep her from accomplishing her goal.

Overcoming Setbacks
In elementary school, Melissa was relegated to an adaptive physical education class because of JA. “In high school, I decided to try to live my life more like everyone else and joined the cheer team. I knew that I would never be able to jump up and do the splits like a regular cheerleader, but I knew that I could do something to participate,” she says.

Although she was able to overcome some of the limitations from JA, her vision was another story. It degraded throughout her teens and early 20s. By the year 2000, at 27, she was declared legally blind and had to quit working as a project manager for a global Internet consulting company.
Melissa wanted relief from the pain, particularly in her feet, and she wanted to be able to accomplish something physical – something outside her comfort zone.
Through the Braille Institute of America, Melissa received mobility training and acquired her guide dog, a black lab named Anya. But then another setback: Her JA symptoms, which had been under control with medicines including prednisone, a biologic and methotrexate, returned. And it made walking almost unbearable.

“Ever since I can remember, my feet were pretty deformed,” Melissa says. “My toes never touched the ground and were crooked and on top of each other. Doctors didn’t think surgery was really needed until 2005, when it got so bad that walking was painful. So they did reconstructive surgery on both feet at the same time.” After the surgery, Melissa relied on a walker for some time – but the result was worth all the pain and recovery time. “I couldn’t have done that hike without that surgery. It was the first time in my life I could actually feel my toes touching the ground,” she says.

New Heights
Empowered by her repaired feet and a renewed sense of purpose, she joined the Braille Institute’s Baldy for the Blind program. Volunteers from the Los Angeles Meet-up hiking club worked with a select group of blind hikers toward the goal of tackling Mount Baldy. Melissa’s climb was in July 2010.
“When I first joined the program, I gave myself about a 30 percent chance of making it all the way to the top,” Melissa says, “but with each successful training hike, my confidence grew.”
After four months of enduring rugged trails, stream crossings and intense heat, the big morning arrived. Melissa stood with the rest of the hikers and guides at the 6,000-foot elevation trailhead to Mt. Baldy. Between them and the summit were seven miles and 4,000 feet of elevation. It was nearly twice as far and as high as any of them ever had hiked.
“I hadn’t slept well the night before and was extremely nervous when I got up,” Melissa says. “My husband David gave me the best words of encouragement he could have: `Don’t think of it as the big one,’ he said. `Think of it as a training hike for Mount Everest.”‘
Melissa pushed through safely, and eight hours later, stood on the summit with her fellow hikers. It was one of the proudest moments of Melissa’s life. The little pain-wracked girl that couldn’t, now could.
“Now, any time I’m feeling a little low, I just think of that moment and of what I accomplished,” Melissa says. “Four little words – `I can’t do this’ – no longer exist in my vocabulary.”

A documentary film is being produced of the adventure. You can view a trailer and see Melissa and her fellow hikers at: www.baldyfortheblind.com

It takes a lot to call attention to yourself at Venice Beach. Then again, sometimes all you have to do is stand around for half a century.

This year, the iconic art walls of Venice Beach — 3,120 square feet of concrete canvas that beckon to the artist like a siren song — turn 50. The walls have outlived wars, the presidents that waged them, recessions, VCRs, disco and TV’s Donny & Marie. How can a Statue of Liberty juggling chain saws or a medical-marijuana dispensary compete with that?

Built originally as a part of the Venice Pavilion, a venue for concerts and performances, the walls once stood nearly 10 feet tall. A constant target of illegal tagging over the years, the pavilion soon became known by the moniker “Venice Graffiti Pit.” It fell into disrepair and became inundated with homeless people and trash.

Support for the walls ebbed and flowed through time, depending on which way the aerosol was blowing. In the late 1990s, the stage and some walls were removed and several tons of sand were brought in and bermed up to the level of the old concrete tables, some of which are still visible today poking through the surface. The addition of the sand created an elevated knoll that effectively cut the remaining walls down to a height of 6 feet.

See full story at LAWeekly.com.

Like shoplifting or ending a relationship, it just gets easier every time.

The mouse drags the cursor to its target, hovers briefly and I left click onto the “X” in the far right corner. Immediately a dialog box pops us asking me if I really want to delete Joe as my “friend?” I confirm and move on to the next. They are my collection, the ones I have ferreted out or answered response to in the affirmative when a “friend” request rolled in. But for the most part, they are not my friends; some I have not seen since grade school, most I would probably not loan money to, and I doubt if I would attend their funerals if they died. They are the watered down versions of friends, the occasional, random and erstwhile acquaintances that we all can do nothing to avoid in our lives. But the “delete” key on this social media site thinks otherwise. It cautions the operator with all the finality and import of a switch pulled on a criminal in the electric chair, or a revolver held to the side of the head.

“Are you sure you want to do this? There’s no turning back now,” it seems to ask?

If it’s one less thing we need in our society; it’s a dilution of a word that used to mean something.

I scroll further, clicking and “X”ing my way through the list; a co-worker, people I may have hiked with once or twice, and my oldest son. I know where they live, play and work if I need to get in touch with them.

Thanks to a CNBC special on the ills of Facebook and the difficulty of opting out, I’m laying the groundwork at this point, culling the list so that when I eventually deactivate my account, it will be as seamless as possible. One by one, out will go all of my “friends”, followed by my pictures. It’s liberating.

Like most of my baby-boomer contemporaries, I was late to the party setting up a Facebook account. I only started one after my son asked me to look at his “Wall.” I complied and soon found myself pulled into the whirlpool of the freedoms of social media sites. I searched out old school mates, people I had lost contact with, and others whom I had only a passing familiarity with. I was seduced.

Before long, I was sharing my own postings, commenting or “liking” on others. It was fun in the way that cocktail party chatter is, but then it became stale. I no longer found value in reading about someone else’s bad day, or the great cheeseburger they had, or how it was raining. I knew it was raining; I looked out the window.

And like all things “free”, a price was to be exacted in the form of a further erosion of privacy. My privacy sold to the highest bidder. The DMZ (Devious Mark Zuckerberg) was making bank off of my info and lining his own pockets while the masses playfully wallowed in their mud of connection with long lost buds. We were duped, and PT Barnum would have been proud of the young charge from Harvard.

I reached the last of my friends and kept just the one before beginning the exorcism that had begun hours earlier. I moved through the steps to deactivate and had to swear to my decision one final time.

“Are you sure you really want to deactivate your Facebook account? Evan will really miss you.”

I hovered over the “confirm” soft key and thought I saw a tear form in the eye of my last Facebook “friend”. Yes I really did want to deactivate. I clicked.

I sat at the computer for a long while, waiting to endure the coming wrath. When nothing happened, I checked my pulse; I was still alive. I listened through the window to the house next door. A neighbor who had been one of my FF’s was out in the yard with her children. It sounded just the same. I switched on the news and observed that the world was no better off or worse because I had been an apostate. The herd of one half billion had been thinned, if only by one. And no one would ever notice.

How Wall Street Kicks L.A. Pets Out of Their Homes

Unlike some on Wall Street — or the regulators tasked with watching over them — Ike and Tina never saw it coming. They didn’t see the debt piling up, the warning letters arriving in the mail or the bank account hemorrhaging. Maybe they felt the tension growing in the air, read the expression on their owners’ faces, heard the edge in their voices. But by then it was too late.

One minute the brother-and-sister cocker spaniels were enjoying a comfortable existence in a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath home, and the next they were staring out through the chain-link of their 5-by-15-foot kennel at the Carson Animal Shelter.

See full story at LAWeekly.com

by Christopher J. Lynch

The tweet arrives around noon on Saturday, Dec. 11. The information traveling through the crowd is repeated, digested, repeated again. Finally, like the long-delayed report from the starting gun of a foot race, the masses are off, a red river of empowered lemmings bustling and “ho-ho-ho-ing” their merry way down Sixth Street toward Clifton’s Cafeteria downtown, the first of many designated stops for these sweaty Santas.

Welcome to Santa-Con L.A. 2010, an annual event in which costumed revelers rove around and generally have a good time. Santa-Con bills itself as both secretive and anarchistic. In fact, it is neither. Take a look at the official website, which lists, by date, the various Santa-Cons in cities around the globe. I’m sure the allies took out ad space in the Berlin Daily when planning the D-Day invasion, so the Santa-Con announcement is consistent as far as secret plans go.

See full story at LAWeekly.com.

Adam Buckley living the Dream. Photo by Nick Meistrell. (www.nickmeistrell.com)

“I knew I came out strong,” Adam Buckley said. “And by the time I hit five miles I just kept my head down and kept going. I didn’t look back, and I didn’t want to hear anything from my boat crew about where anybody was.”

The straight ahead strategy paid off for the 32-year-old, Hermosa Beach paddler who had an unremarkable, 19th place finish in his first Catalina Classic paddleboard race last year.

Despite a headwind, bumpy water and taking what he afterwards acknowledged was too high a course, Buckley arrived at the Manhattan Beach pier finish line Sunday morning 23 minutes ahead of his last year’s time and seven minutes ahead of second place finisher Brian Rocheleau, of Hawaii who finished fourth in the Classic last year.

Buckley took an early lead out of Catalina Island’s Two Harbors, followed closely by Anthony Vela, a Los Angeles County lifeguard who was competing in his first Catalina Classic.

See full story at Easyreadernews.com.

Dinner with a side of Diamonds

by Christopher J. Lynch
Marriage proposals run from the prosaic and awkward – Who could forget Sylvester Stallone’s dopey proposal to Talia Shire in Rocky II — “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind marrying me very much” — to over the top: skywriting, underwater, the Jumbotron at a nationally televised sporting event. Somewhere between these two extremes is the classic dinner date: some wine, some nice conversation, romantic lighting and then after dessert – or maybe as the dessert – the big question is popped.

See full story at EasyReader.com

How Lynette Miya turned a passion for helping newborns  and their mothers into a thriving South Bay business

Stand outside Bright Beginnings and Beyond on any given day before the store opens for business, and you’re likely to be surrounded by a cadre of women in various stages of ante and post-partum conditions waiting anxiously. Follow them inside as the lock is unlatched and the doors swing open, and you’ll soon realize that this is no ordinary Riviera Village boutique shop. Far from being your standard retail establishment, Bright Beginnings and Beyond is a gathering place and support system for new and expectant mothers seeking everything from the purchase of breast-feeding aides, to having their babies weighed and recorded, to training classes, to advice on skin rashes and other maladies.

A friendly social atmosphere pervades the store and this has led to many of the clientele forging friendships far beyond the racks and shelves. But this brainchild of Lynette Miya wasn’t conceived out of intense market research or focus group meetings; rather it was the result of a confluence of events as disparate as county healthcare cutbacks to the birth of her niece in Seattle, Washington.

Born into a medical family (sister-dentist, sister-internist, mother-psychologist, father-general practitioner) in South Torrance, Miya attended South High before moving onto undergraduate studies in nursing at Mount St. Mary’s. This was followed by a post-graduate degree from UCLA in Maternal Child Health. She entered the Los Angeles county health system as a labor and delivery nurse at near-by Harbor UCLA Medical Center in 1984, and soon realized she wanted more. She signed up for the Nurse-Practitioner program soon afterward because in her words, “It gave me more autonomy to do more for the women and babies I was dealing with.” Her scope of work soon broadened to include pre-natal care, obstetrics, gynecology, and baby wellness training. Life was good and she felt like she was making a difference in people’s lives.

CONCEPTION
Beginning in 1994, the Los Angeles County Health Care System went through a series of budget shortfalls and the resulting cutbacks, lay-offs, re-organizations, et cetera. Unlike others, Miya avoided the axe, but was demoted and moved around in a medley of re-organizations as the county tried to right its ship. She realized at that moment that her position and ability to help women was tentative at best, and began seeking options. She met Dr. James Scharffenberger and took a part time position as an OB/GYN nurse practitioner with him as an insurance policy against further labor reductions. It was a fortuitous move that would serve her well down the road

The county eventually stabilized, but it was only three short years before the system’s well had run dry again and another round of down-sizing ensued. It was during this time that Miya’s younger sister in Seattle was giving birth to her first child and she decided to fly up and support her. She lamented the dire economic situation with the county to her sister and how it impacted her ability to consistently be able to help women and their newborns. She wanted something else in her life, something where she could help women and was not at the mercy of a fragile county system.
Her sister suggested that she take a look at a store in the Seattle area that she had patronized during her pregnancy. The name of the store was “Birth and Beyond” and Lynette Miya fell in love with it the moment she stepped through its front doors. Not having any experience in running a business, she implored the store’s owner to let Miya hire her as a consultant for a week and work in the store with her to gain valuable first-hand experience. Realizing that a store located in Los Angeles would represent no competition to her, the owner agreed and Miya was given a crash-course in retail store operation.

She flew home to Los Angeles a short time later and put together a business proposal, which she promptly presented to her part time employer, Dr. Scharffenberger. Scharffenberger readily agreed to the concept, and the two of them soon became 50/50 partners in the business. Each of them would invest half of the moneys, but Miya would be in charge of the day to day operation and have creative control. And with that, Bright Beginnings and Beyond was on its way to becoming a reality.

BIRTH PANGS
The store opened its doors for the first time on February 1 5th, 2000. Miya easily admits that, like many new business owners, she was nervous and constantly asking herself if she had done the right thing. “My head was spinning for the first six months we were in business,” she recalls with a smile.
Before long though word began to spread, and her customer base grew rapidly. Classes in breast-feeding were offered and became an instant hit. To this Miya places the credit for the success of these and other classes firmly at the feet of her assistant Hillary Gray, a neo-natal intensive care nurse. Other classes have recently been added to the store’s curriculum such as Lamaze, infant CPR, child safety and many others.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Besides adding to the repertoire of classes, changes in the store’s inventory have evolved as well. Miya says that soon they will be getting out of the maternity clothing arena altogether as it has become apparent that it is too difficult to compete with the Targets of the world. Regardless the reduction of one product line, her sales have quadrupled in just eight short years and the business appears to be recession-proof.
“I was worried after 9-11 that our sales would fall off like many other businesses” she said. “But we didn’t see any change.” The current economic crisis has had no noticeable effect as well and Miya credits this to the fact that in tough economic times, mothers will still always put their babies first.
The store also donates its excess inventory to two charitable causes. One, known as “SAM’s Club” which stands for ” Substance Abusing Mothers” and is located in Miya’s old stomping grounds at Harbor General Hospital. And the other, “Casa de los Angelitos” which is a support group for abused pregnant women and their families.

MEMORABLE MOMENT
Asked what her most memorable moment has been since that day when she first opened her doors, Lynette Miya recalls a mother with a Down’s Syndrome child who attended one of her breast-feeding classes. The mother was very withdrawn and shy about others knowing of her child’s affliction. Before long though, the other women in the class began to bond with her and offer words of encouragement and support. Many became good friends with the woman and it became a very warm and inspiring moment in the history of Bright Beginnings and Beyond. The woman even remarked to Miya at one point that it was through her experience at Bright Beginnings and Beyond that she “Finally felt like a mother, like all of the rest.”
“That was when I knew I was in the right business, and for all of the right reasons,” Lynette Miya says. Bright Beginnings and Beyond is located at 229 Avenue I in Redondo Beach. They have a website: www.brightbeginningsbeyond.com