Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

The poster for the gig in the Cincinnati entertainment district. Using my Italian heritage family last name (Latham is too hard to pronounce), I opened my Big Band Show at Boswells in Cincinnati on Saturday. My wife, worked into the act during the past few months, did a wonderful job with our duet on Rain or Shine, and her renditions of Summertime, Cheek to Cheek, and Fever. We had some trouble adjusting our sound equipment to the room after it filled up. The background ambience, the high ceilings, and brick walls created quite an echo. Now that we know the room, we can fix any sound distortion for our return.   I performed almost three hours of my Sinatra, Bennett, Nat King Cole, and other Big Band and Torch songs. We had the Standing Room Only house rocking to swing music from the 30s to the 70s. Since real big bands are scarce, we use recorded background music with QSC speakers, Yamaha stereo board, a bank of accent spotlights, and Schure microphones. Some of my old Nashvi

My Marine  friend Dennis took this picture of the National Cathedral while we were in DC. There are 200 bodies buried inside the church, including President Woodrow Wilson. It has to be seen to be believed. In recent years, it has suffered earthquake damage.   Our World What it boils down to in all society or beliefs is money, power, and sex. That's it. Those three things are the end motivation for everything that exists. Even in the poorest of nations or centers of religion, someone in power has the money, and money means power and sex. All the other utopian beliefs are just a means to attain money, power, and sex. In every country there are rich and poor. It's always been that way and it always will. The End Is Coming? A lot of people think the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.  I say it's going to end on November 6, 2012, one way or the other. I have been bombarded by political email for the past four years, each and every day. It's unre

Stopping for all rodents is the norm somewhere.   Fragments From Observations I was in DC over the weekend for a Marine Corps reunion and discovered there are very few English speaking Americans around the Pennsylvania Avenue monument district. Sirens and flashing lights go off constantly. There are bomb gates and police everywhere, and in front of the White House, I stumbled into a Muslim protest consisting of them screaming about how peaceful they are. In the end, I felt like an intruder in my own country, caught up in some surreal landscape like the last scene in the original Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston sees the top part of the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the mud. It's a shock to find out that somewhere along the line that what you fought for has been given away.   How The Muslim Thing Works "Muslim attempts to export their law into the West have become altogether direct. America has faced the same treatment as any domestic minority gro

The Screaming Face at Cumberland Falls State Park   Three years ago, while on a hike at Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky, I took some digital pictures while we were on a wilderness trail. Overall, it was a bad trip for me because my left knee malfunctioned and I had a bad head cold and our cabin was down 65 uneven steps that the housekeeping personnel called the steps to Hell. The steps made my knee worse. Plus, it was about 90 degrees with 100% humidity, and the bugs sounded like Japanese zeroes in a WW2 movie.   When I dropped the pictures to my computer, I instantly saw the face. My wife didn't see it so I circled it and told her to concentrate on that area. She still didn't see it. The face is white. The white looking triangle is some drawn line mistake I made, but I can see a dark eye hole on either side of it, two nostril openings below it, and a large lip gloss mouth open in a scream.   I'm pretty sure this is an optical illusion like you often

An Excerpt From A Book You'll Never Read  The Welcome Sign at Sunnyvale Mental Rehab From the book Waiting For An Open Bed, written at Sunnyvale Mental Rehab in Fermonga, Ohio. Chapter 41 Vito Nazarini and Monk Spitzanelli watched as the man they were supposed to kill stepped from a parked car. In a moment, they were at his side. "Hey, Frankie," Vito said to the victim. "Big Elmo says dat you is supposed to take a ride wit us, ha-ha." Frankie Garbaroni knew his executioners well, and though trapped with two ice picks jabbing his back, he had a plan. "Big Elmo who?" Frankie said. Vito and Monk looked at each other, and Frankie knew their limited third grade education might save his life. "Frankie, you know who it is," Monk said. "Big Elmo Maraconzon, uh, Maracuzzo, uh, you tella him, Vito." "Hell, Monk, I can't a pronounce dat name, either. It's Big Elmo Macaroni, I think." "It

My friend, David Nelson from Kansas  KIA July 4, 1968 Ambush near An Hoa, South Vietnam The Vietnam Booby Trap   (Taken from part of my personal writings on Vietnam for a PTSD session) I stepped in the hole and froze. I don't know if it was from training or just self-preservation. We had been keeping 30 foot intervals between each man in the thick jungle terrain, and we were spread out along a sort of beaten path to make better time. You had to keep the others in sight or risk getting lost. If you got lost and captured as an enlisted man, you were going to die. My left foot went into the hole almost past the top of my jungle boot. That's when I froze. "I'm in a hole," I yelled to the men in front and behind me. Everyone stopped as word was passed along. They called for an engineer. I was told one would be along shortly, and then I was left to myself as the Marines cleared out to a safe distance around a bend. There was jungle all around me, an

Could this frog be a terrorist? I grew up in a neighborhood called Northside during the 50s. When I was a kid, maybe ten or eleven, they had a Northside Day at a place called Stricker's Grove. I rode out with one of my friends' Dad. Since it was in the 50s, all the girls had those long skirts, some of them were poofy like hoop skirts. All the older guys looked like hoods with duck tails and cigarettes dangling. Anyway, we were doing kids stuff, trying to peek in the girls john and running around like nuts. I found this giant frog, and we let it go near dark underneath the main shelter on the dance floor while a bunch of couples were dancing. The frog got under some girl's skirt and jumped up in her crotch or somewhere between her legs. She screamed like in a horror movie and her boyfriend thought the guy behind her had grabbed her butt and he punched him. That started one hell of a fight involving 20 or 30 hoods while we were trying to act innocent and find the

The cover for the current book. The Bad Season Origin When I was eighteen and worked the night shift for the post office in Cincinnati, we used to get breaks every three hours, to smoke, go to the bathroom or whatever. A lot of guys went to the bar across the street for drinks. (I could imagine what would happen if someone did that now. In many ways, society has been regressing to something like Puritan society.) The Postal Annex is still there, but the bar is long gone. One morning I went to the bar across the street with another guy from work. He told me a story about Harlan County Kentucky. He said when he was fourteen his grandfather died, and he stayed with his grandmother that summer to help her. The house had a root cellar with huge heavy doors. The first night he was there something came and broke into the root cellar. They put a heavy padlock and chain on the door. The next night the thing tore the door off the hinges, a feat beyond human strength. My friend went to

A Marine childhood friend, Bill Maag, took this picture of another childhood friend, US Army Paratrooper James Englert. Jimmy was killed by a sniper in August 1968, not long after I came home. Memorial Day When I was younger, I used to attend Memorial Day services at monuments where I live, and sometimes, I would participate. I don't do it much anymore, but I'm glad people honor our war dead a lot more than they did during my tour of Vietnam. Governments start the wars, not the troops, but we became easy targets for radicals and draft dodgers. I believe as long as a person is in your mind, they still exist. So, Jimmy, up there on the wall, will be 19 forever in the minds of his family and those who knew him: skinny, handsome, full of hope for the future. He is gone, but not forgotten. The Numbers Game Of War I'm currently reading Matterhorn by Karl Malantes, about the fictional 24th Marines of the 5th Marine Division in Vietnam. I was in all three Marine di

Could he be the first real zombie? The First Real Zombie?  Reported to be the n ew Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, was also reported killed by a drone in 2008. He's not the guy with a kind of same name who was beheading people in Iraq. This guy above was one they showed on television as being killed in Afghanistan a few years back, Bin Laden's right hand man. Seems like a wag the dog scenario and they (the government) are forgetting who they say is dead and who isn't. Either that or the guy came back from the dead, which would make him the first real zombie, making him eligible for the Book of World Records, if they can find him to kill him again. I figure maybe they can kill him ten or more times before it's over; just to keep our terror level at an all time high. Mantyhose Nylons for men? One company thinks so. I saw this Mantyhose story and thought this company is working daily to take man out of the word man. Mantyhose even sounds like a s

The sword I keep near my desk, just in case gladiator games break out at my house. La Macha Grande Someone in the media made the ridiculous comment that 110 pound woman can have the same upper body strength as a 200 pound man. All I can say is that's why they have weight divisions in boxing, and this person obviously watches too many Hollywood movies where 90 pound women knock out 250 pound men with one punch in the jaw. Each time I see that happen in a movie I just shake my head. I never realized that some people actually believe it. You're An EXTREME Redneck When...... 1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids. 2. The Blue Book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas is in it. 3. You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws. 4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night.. 5. You wonder how service stations keep their rest-rooms so clean.

Working at the car wash...is this one of those new jobs the government keeps bragging about to replace all the high paying jobs eliminated in recession? These recent college grads are finding out. The Tax Code <><><><> The tax code has something like 19,879 pages. The questions Americans should demand to know is why this is possible? You work for money and you pay taxes. Why would anyone need over 19,000 pages to tell you how to pay taxes? How did this get so out of hand. No one at the IRS could possibly know all 19000 pages. It's like Obama's health care. It's 2500 or more pages. How is that possible? How was it passed without anyone who voted on it having read the thing? America is in a Twilight Zone story.   Smoking at the VA When I parked at the VA, right near the door there was a huge older fat woman with an oxygen tank sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn't. As I walked past her I sai

The cover represents this twisted telling of the possible second coming of Christ. Meet the Lord of Homicides Since I write comedy or satire, I have to admit I had a ball writing this book. My version of demons and angels as being a little simple and on the dumb side allowed me to create an entire new world. Lucifer had a change of heart, came back to earth as mother Teresa, and went back to Heaven. This left all of Hell and earth to be run by a demon named Balberith, known as the Lord of Homicides. He has figured out that Nathan Bright, a drunken Indiana gambler, could possibly be the second coming of Christ because he is the first human to ever see them. Things really get screwed up when millions of demons come to live with Nathan so their boss can watch him. The novel has a cast of bizarre characters and sub-plots involving terrorists and the war between good and evil. Michael the Archangel and his outnumbered legions try to continue their endless war to save humanity wit

Sign right outside a Congressional meeting in DC. Hearts Do you want to know where a vast majority of the worldwide psychos, misfits, degenerates, brain dead, insecure, mongoloid, and midget brained, non-card playing perverts are on the web?   Try playing free hearts on the MSN network. You can chose a player name like groinescratch, or bigpoleman or hautvajeana and join a rousing game of hearts. It's difficult to get a game because people often quit before the game starts or right as the game starts, in an attempt to mess with other players. By the time you go through the eight steps or so to even get a match, you'll find out that most people actually believe it's a game of skill instead of a computer dealing the cards in a pre-chosen way. It's 90% cards and 10% playing skill, but people will act like you killed their mother if you give them the Queen of spades. They will call you every name in the book. Some people stall for as long as possible, believi

The monster, Michael Rooker, from Slither, who also got whacked, uh, maybe, on The Walking Dead. Bizarre Stuff This Week Dangerous To Your Health According to an article in AARP, over 100,000 deaths a year are caused from hospital mistakes; the same as if four jumbo jets crashed daily. Forty times a day, the wrong body part gets an operation. Most of the deaths occur because of infections by unwashed hands. Hospitals seem to be more dangerous than being in combat. New Pants For The Army The Army has new pants with built in knee pads, costing $100-125 per pair. I can see where the gay jokes are going to be flying all over the place, and they already have started. Think about how much that is going to cost just to buy pants for people in the military. (They call them pants now instead of fatigues.) I don't remember ever needing kneepads in Vietnam, and I don't understand the concept of kneeling so much that you would need kneepads. Or why have Americans sudden

The Kindle cover for Sudden Victims I received a great review from Horror World reviewer T.T. Zuma. Very few people have read this collection because I'm not exactly Mr. Promotion. The review was for sure the highlight of my week. I don't work on many short stories, so the majority of them are in this collection. Most of my stories have some basis in truth; either things I've done, had happen to me, witnessed, or places I've been. The review link is below. Sudden Victims Horror World Review I have six unfinished books right now, and I work on them at different times and not so much in any particular order. I'm putting the finishing touch on my solo singing act and practice five to six hours a day. Waiting for demo disks to return before I actively seek representation. A swing band contacted me off  one of the two demos I sent out, and I'm going to meet the leader this weekend. Still no sign of winter in the lower midwest. It's going to be almost 70

The Crusader Moth (photo taken outside my kitchen window in 2006) They say if you see one, you are a powerful white light warrior against evil or doomed to be crazy. (I'll take the white light warrior part, please.) The Famous Campers Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, naturalist John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone used to go on camping trips along the eastern coast. They brought a cook and five servants. A heavy truck carried their camping equipment, a refrigerator, and food. They would wander through small villages where Edison would often get them lost, but they brought an entire new concept to the world of camping. I visited the Edison house in Florida. They had light bulbs there that had been used daily since 1910 and still worked. Makes you wonder what happened in the process of manufacturing light bulbs because some don't last two weeks now. Could it be, uh, making money? Mark Twain quotes: "I believe our heavenly father invented me   because he was disappoin