All posts by mepurfield

Latest Release!

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A_Sandwich_Cant_Stop_A_BulletThis is a collection of short stories from mystery and crime writer M.E. Purfield, best known as the creator of the highly rated and long running ‘Miki Radicci’ series, which reveals Purfield’s continued talent for quirky, unconventional characters struggling through realistic, tense, and desperate situations.

A young girl trapped in a cage finds salvation in the darkest corner of an abandoned hospital, a thief with a bag full of stolen money hides under the cover of a serial killer’s rampage, a mother blinded by fame pushes her child into the shadow of modeling, and a hit man takes one last job based on morals. These are some of the tales you’ll find within the stark streets of the city to the outer reaches of South America.

Buy the Paperback, Kindle, Nook, iBook.

Also available in other ebook formats.

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A Call For Movie Rights

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I was laying about with the kids the other day and the land line rang. I never pick up the phone. Since I have no friends, the only people I expect to call me are organizations asking for money or votes or doctors reminding us about appointments. But this time I got a strange message. Some guy who’s name I couldn’t make out said he read one of my novels written under one of my pen names, said it was perfect, and was interested in the movie rights.

Of course my cognitive empathy kicked in and I grabbed a pen and paper and played the message a few times to write the details down with no emotion going through my being.

“Mike, someone wants to make one of your books into a movie,” you ask. “Why aren’t you jumping out of your skin?”

I’ll get to that.

Okay. So I still can’t make out this guys name but I got his company name and number. Readers Magnet. 619 – 354-2643 ext 1743. Call back Monday – Friday through the hours of 10 and 7.

My son, who was behind me and watching TV, asked, “What’s that about?”

“Probably nothing,” I said.

Instead of calling the guy back, I grabbed my phone and did a search on Readers Magnet and found out that they are some kind of POD, vanity press scam company. Most likely they would take me for a rube who would pay them hundreds or thousands of dollars to shop my movie rights or whatever service they offer.

You can read about previous complaints HERE HERE and HERE.

The rights would never be shopped no matter what excuse they claim.

They are another company like good old Publish America that promises new authors fame and fortune if they shell out lots of cash.

Now why more than  just my autistic mind kicked in. I come from a film background. I studied film law and contracts and I’m also familiar with literary contracts.  Also, I have worked as a screenwriter before. Any gig that I’ve gotten was through referral, a friend of a friend or whatever. No one ever cold calls in this biz. It’s either referral or a talent approaches or auditions for the job.

Yeah, maybe a foreign publisher would be interested in my rights for their country but I doubt they would call me. They would probably email me.

And if someone were interested in movie rights of my book it would surely not be someone called Readers Magnet.

So if no one has ever heard of them or if you get a phone call of someone kissing your ass about your book, be weary.

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Walking Through the Tombstones

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We watched Eyes of Laura Mars with Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones. I had never seen it before. Neen has since she is all about the seventies and early eighties (disco disco) before we met. I had read the novelization and although they’re similar the visualization does add to it.

Another bonus was seeing all the familiar actors through out. Raul Julia, Rene Auberjonois, Brad Dourif. I didn’t care too much for Jones. Never found him much of an actor or even after he found fame a second time with The Fugitive but I give him props for the last ten minutes of this film.

Also the script was written by John Carpenter, another added attraction. The story is a bit trashy and odd to have Dunaway in it. A high class photographer sees through the eyes of a killer who slaughters the people in her life. Turns out the photographer has been getting famous recreating images from the crime scenes in her visions. The role was once aimed for Barbara Streisand. Um, no. Dunaway, a much better actor in my opinion, took it up. Still…I’m a bit surprised to see her in it coming off the Oscar high of Network.

Also watched Dan O’Bannon’s The Resurrected. Another film had not seen yet but I have been dying to see almost all my life. It stars John Terry, Jane Sibbett, Chris Sarandon and Robert Romanus. Sibbett hires Terry, a PI, to figure out what is going on with her rich scientist husband, Sarandon, when he goes off into his secret labs. Of course it’s not good and based on the Lovecraft story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I have read bad reviews of this film but I found it visually captivating and the story fun and disgusting. Compared to his first film, Return of the Living Dead, it walks a more complex road. The actors, especially Terry and Sarandon, are wonderfully subtle and excel in their contrast. The creature FX, all practical since it was made in 1991, are superb. Scream Factory created a great blue Ray of this disc. Can’t wait to dig into the extras.

Today we too M to the Jersey City Oddities – Living Dead Market at the Harsimus Cemetery a few blocks from where we live. It was small and cozy. They had some great oddity art. (Oddity to regular folk) We walked through the historic cemetery and saw the goats that they use to mow the lawn. I’ve been there myself with my niece and of course we pass it all the time where ever we go in this damn city.

Picked up two great greeting card prints from Ghost Girl Greeting. One for Ash Vs The Evil Dead and Friday the 13 for Neen. She also got an Intention Candle from Houss Freya.

We had a good time. Got our exercise and M passed out some candy from the Ghost Girl Greetings table. I’ll post some pictures on Instagram by tomorrow.

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Does Everyone Have An Agenda?

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Worked on paperback files, some tweaking after I discovered a new trick. Now I look more like everyone else. Yay! Right. That’s what it’s all about, right? Looking like everyone one else.

Until they start reading the words inside and they find out that you’re not quite like everyone else. You start making them uncomfortable. You’re filling them with ideas and politics. You have an agenda. They throw your book across the room and write a horrible review about you.

Or they really dig it and buy the next one.

Whatever.

But yeah. Those are the times we live in. You hear the way people talk. The key words.

“The Conservative Agenda.”

“The Liberal Agenda.”

Or Democratic or Republic or whatever.

Y2K did bring the end of times but it wasn’t with a meteor or a total system crash. It was a clash of culture. It was with a black president that brought out the Aryan Movement. It was the biggest recession that revealed who was in power. It was the people that are just so fucking tired of it all.

Out with the old and in with the new.

But it’s not easy because the old doesn’t want to go so easy.

So yeah, people talk funny these days. Talk like they’re in some movie or in a dystopian novel. I’m used to it. I grew up watching that shit. Mad Max films and Warriors of the Wasteland and Solar Babies (haha) and what have you. I read all the books before like Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Handmaids Tale, etc. You would think that sales for these books would go down because people would need a break from real life but I see that they have been going up (here and here). I guess people need how to books to get along in this world.

How much of this shit can you take? Fiction has become reality

When shit started going down after the last election I wasn’t so surprised like others. I have been seeing the world like that all my life. I was happy. Finally, I was validated.

But you know what? They story isn’t new. Don’t get mad at Trumpians when they say that Trump didn’t start this. Yeah, he did start this, this shit that is going on NOW, but a lot of it has happened before. Government has always treated non whites like shit. Yeah, whites are treated bad, but most white people are sheep. You see the symbolism don’t you. White people = white sheep. Sheep take it. They’re submissive. Ready for slaughter. Easily led to food.

Look at history. It goes through phases. Some presidents are worse than others. We’re going through the worse right now. He’s even got his own language and world. It’s brilliant. And dangerous. But the people who follow him have always been here. Always. They were here since the beginning of the country. Shit. Since the start of the world.

Hate never dies.

Hate has an agenda.

So does love.

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Safe With Your Own Kind

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Watched Narrow Margin. A tense little noir with great one liners that had it all: humor, twists, violence, style, voice, and a little kid in danger. A gravel voice cop escorts a mob boss’s wife to court via train to testify but the mob wants her dead. If I see it on DVD I’ll definitely pick it up.

A lot of times people say to me:

“You hide behind your keyboard and your views, safe with your own kind and your own people.”

I’ve explained myself with the first part of the comment. I am a keyboard warrior. Being autistic, a keyboard is my preferred choice of communication. My weapon and skill.

Now, what is wrong with wanting to be with people who share your view, no matter your view? If you see black and everyone one else sees white, living in that white world is going to be hard on you, no? (no pun intended)

I grew up in a little hick town called Howell in New Jersey – Monmouth County – and it sucked. Today you would call it Trump country. It was full of Aryan, racist views. Narrow minded, stuck up middle class and white trash. Homophobic. I did not share or fit in. I was a freak, a weirdo, and a loser. I got my ass kicked a lot.

Why should I fit in? I mean, I could but who wants to vomit three times a day?

So of course I wanted to leave and find someplace to fit in, to share my views. And I did in Jersey City.

That’s not to say I didn’t learn about other points to view. I learned a lot about hate and prejudice during my childhood. I learned how sad they were. How they lived in fear. How money controlled them. I saw their POV clearly.

I also saw POVs of LGBT, Latinos, Chicanos, Blacks, Africans, Muslims, etc. I spent my life learning POVs since leaving Howell. And I made them my own POV. I’m still learning. I’m a fucking sponge.

So if anyone says that I’m hiding behind my kind’s pov where I feel safe, then yeah. I am. And I do feel safe. As an autistic who has been abused by neuro typical white people through out my life, I do feel safe on my side.
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Too Busy Saving Other Kids, No Time For Their Own

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Heat wave is subsiding. I’m not doing much but I have plans in July.

Watched Warlock. I don’t watch many westerns except for the classics or if they stick out for some reasons. This one stick out for Richard Widmark. I’ll watch anything with him in it. I know he doesn’t seem like the type to be in a western. He was in another one (The Last Wagon) where he played a half breed Native American who helps a group of Christians across the territories to safety while Native Americans and Military are after their asses. It was pretty good. So is Warlock. Anthony Quinn and Henry Fonda starred in it also. Not into Henry Fonda. Quinn was great and out of character. They whole movie was complex about good and evil even though it used the same story about a town bullied by bad guys. The story tore the characters up. The ending was not wrapped up nice and dandy.

Speaking of bullies.

My son’s bully keeps escalating. Just will not stay away from him, keeps his hands to himself or his mouth shut. Now that my son’s pedophile homeroom teacher is out having heart surgery, they have a sub for the rest of the year and the kid can what ever he wants to my son to torture him. Like regular teachers, subs do even less.

I did more research on his family. Turns out his grandfather is a Council Man Eugene Skurnick and not only is his aunt a former writer but a publisher, Lizzie Skurnick Books. Maybe that’s where he learns such phrases as “No one is going to believe you,” and “They will listen to me and not you,” that he says to my son. Classic terms you say to a girl before you rape her, no?

People in power over little people.

I’ll call the school again today. I don’t expect much. Bullies have more rights than victims. That’s just how it is. How it’s made.

They already talked to his father numerous times and the kid is in bully counseling. Kid has no fear of his father or his father just doesn’t care. Maybe he’s one of those liberals that is too busy saving other people’s kids, has no time to save his own?
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PULL the Tail

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Summer approaches and the heat has increased here. Today has gotten so hot that the schools decided on a half day for the kids. I think it only reached 92 as of now. Not that hot but hot enough.

Different from when I was a kid. I don’t remember schools closing because of the heat. We never had air conditioning and sometimes the teacher had a fan going in the classroom. We were allowed to make those paper fans and they kept the shades down.

Children’s rights have changed some.

No work. Had to prove rights to A Girl Closer to Death so the proof can be mailed. This is getting tedious. Still waiting for them to release it even though it was cleared yesterday. Slow.

People picking out the cover for Sandwich Can’t Stop A Bullet is going well. Looks like a contender and it’s not the one I favor. Interesting.

Watched James Whale’s Old Dark House Friday night. So fucking crazy. I loved. An eclectic group of young, contemporary, party people are stranded in this old, dark house in the middle of this absurd storm. Of course the people in the house are old, odd, and borderline psycho. Boris Karloff plays a mute butler who you don’t want to get drunk. It reminded me of a Tobe Hooper film, the tone of escalating insanity by use of characters; ala Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2.

Also saw Babysitter Wanted. A nice gory film about a Christian college girl who takes a job babysitting for this couple who live out in the boonies. The night she sits for the shy little boy, a man comes to kill him. Nothing is what it seems and there is a nice religious theme running through it. We’ve rewatched it many times. The only things that bothers me is the use of Scream jump scare music the first 45 minutes of the movie when there is nothing scary going on. Speaking of Chainsaw 2, Bill Mosely is in it as the town sheriff; a good guy!

Now I have to work on saving one of our cats. M is back to pulling her tail again and is getting way too aggressive. Even pushing at her to hear her meow. Going to try some visuals since distraction and hand-over-hand isn’t working much, or at least not fast enough. I printed out some pictures to make a don’t pull the cat’s tail sign. Hope it works.

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