By the time you read this, it will be Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Today is considered by many to be the worst travel day of the year. Day after tomorrow will be Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year. In this jobless recovery, will it be a retail boom or bust? Good question. No matter the answer, I will be thankful. (more…)
Sail Cat Road, the sequel to No Good End, continues below. It is being posted tweet-by-tweet daily on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ttaylordude). I will post each chapter here (in chronological order) when finished. Thank you for your time.
Chapter 13
“Was this a sniper shot?” Ritko asked, flashing his badge to different people, expecting the answer to be yes. He was wrong.
“Best we can tell,” said a nurse at the door, “A woman walked in, called for Agent James and pulled a pistol on him right in the lobby.” (more…)
Few companies see their product as a character in a story. All of their customers see it that way, but they don’t. They see it terms of operations and org charts and marketing plans and manufacturing and distribution and they forget that all of this orchestration only works when the product or service is a character in a story that people relate to and want to make part of their own stories. (more…)
Sail Cat Road, the sequel to No Good End, continues below. It is being posted tweet-by-tweet daily on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ttaylordude). I will post each chapter here (in chronological order). Thank you for your time.
Chapter 12
Jimmy Gantt slapped a mosquito into a splotch on the back of his neck. He knew every cop in the southeastern U.S. had his picture memorized. (more…)
Sail Cat Road, the sequel to No Good End, continues below. It is being posted tweet-by-tweet daily on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ttaylordude). I will post each chapter here (in chronological order). Thank you for your time.
Chapter 11
Drinking a diet Coke, Ritko scribbled thoughts on a small notepad. His writing was only legible to him.
The abductors wanted Bren alive, but damaged. Maybe they wanted her to know fear like her father had put into people in Jersey. (more…)
Sail Cat Road, the sequel to No Good End, continues below. It is being posted tweet-by-tweet daily on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ttaylordude). I will post each chapter here on Posterous (in chronological order). Thank you for your time.
Chapter 10
Mama Jean called a cab for Jolene. “The bus might be a good option,” she said. “People don’t ask too many questions on a bus.”
Jolene hugged her and went back to collect her things. “I will try to repay you somehow,” she said. “May take me a while, but I will.” (more…)
A new idea is floating around Wall Street. It involves investment companies buying your life insurance early and cashing in on it when you die. Can you say reverse mortgage? Yeah, like that.
Let’s say you have a $250,000 life insurance policy. They would give you $75,000 immediately in cash for your policy. When you die, they get the $250,000. If you have a million dollar policy, they’d give you, perhaps, $400,000 and collect a million when you’re safely in the box. Interesting concept.
Twitter is not the salvation of your branding. There. I said it. Even though I spent a lot of time on Twitter in the last 3 months, writing a novel and a short story Twitter will not save your business from the lack of a story. But it can help you tell your story.
I have been in hurricanes all of my life, so I understand what is involved. They are unpleasant and destructive and kill people. Hurricanes are horrible things. My family lives on the Gulf Coast, so this time of year, I spend a lot of time watching The Weather Channel. But like it or not, hurricanes are a part of the natural cycle of life on earth and when one churns across the Atlantic, it gets a lot of airtime.
We give them names like Isabel and Ivan and Bill. With so much time being allotted to these swirling storms, why not name them after brands? Corporate sponsorships flood our TV, Web surfing and sports. Why not get companies to sponsor hurricanes? To be brutally honest, generator and chainsaw manufacturers, large hardware stores, bottled water and battery companies already profit from hurricanes (not that it is their business plan, it just happens). All types of brands run commercials and Web banners inside the blustery confines of hurricane coverage by every media outlet. Why not take the next logical step?
I have lost my tomato war with the squirrels. I admit it. I tried to fight the good fight, but I am beat, whipped, defeated. My plants grew the size of trees, yet furry-tailed thieves stole every tomato but two runty lumps, which I ate like a cave man right off the vine while staring at them in anger. After that small taste, the minute a little tomato appears, so do three hungry-ass squirrels.
Part 7 (the end) from ttaylordude’s Twitter novel.
“Mr. Gantt, I have something for you,” said Kamal. He held a gym bag. Gus could see he was carrying a weapon. He figured that much.
“What’s that?” said Gus, gripping his .45 tightly at his side, kicking the bag gently. “I’m tired of this mysterious shit. Lay it out.”
“A young lady will meet you here. Just give her the bag,” said Kamal. “All of this will end after that.” Kamal slid the bag closer.
Gus made no effort to pick it up. “This should have ended a while before now,” he said. “But it will end right here one way or another.”
When my grandfather died, we inherited his rusty, 1949 Chevrolet truck. It was ancient and I thought everyone who saw me riding in it would start humming the tune to The Beverly Hillbillies. To make matters worse, my father painted it dark green using Sears exterior paint applied with a brush. It gave the truck a homemade recklessness, as if it was just crazy enough to hump a Pinto at the traffic light. The Chevy was my grandfather’s favorite thing on earth besides my grandmother (I think).
No Good End (originally posted as 140 character tweets on Twitter)
Revised and in chronological order.
PART 1
Gus Gantt watched the alligator slice a V across Blue Lake. The odds of this gator having the man’s arm inside was 100 to 1.
Gus took notes. The alligator was 11 feet-long. The man with the missing arm was 6 feet-tall. He was also shot in the head at close range.
The hand at the end of the arm inside the gator likely held a 9mm that Gus needed to match a casing against, or maybe not.
The arm was worthless to Gus. He knew where it came from: Bass Johnson, a 300-pound pimp from Florida. He just wanted the gun.
When temperatures rise and shorts begin to sprout pale legs, Hawaiian shirts sneak out of closets and ride the backs of Boomers everywhere. Pat Sajak was Hawaiianing tonight on Wheel Of Fortune.
The Hawaiian shirt is almost a uniform for men of a certain age (mine) who go casual more often than not. It hides girth or lack thereof. It is comfortable, cool and screams, “Look, my hair has no color but my shirt has hundreds!”
Tuxes, gowns, flowers and limos mix with music, dancing and hangovers. Across the South, teenagers are proming this time of year. Something else is going on as well: old school segregation. George Wallace would be proud.