A Little Dollop of Happy

Please visit the Bookstore tab above to browse  
Pssst! Going to jail, buying documents, and everything else it takes to get this kind of info for the blog takes time and money! Every time you make a purchase here, it helps me be able to do more for you!

Crime takes me terrible places. Sad places. Outrageous places. 

So the opposite, a sudden discovery of pure cheerful-happy, makes me feel like a luscious swirl of molten gold and melty chocolate is pouring over me.

This afternoon I noticed a tweet from Dick Van Dyke asking for requests. You know, like a piano playa' in a saloon.  I saw the responses he got and added my own. Not too long after I saw him post a no-frills tweet with a link in it. I clicked on the link, noting happily that it was labeled with the very first request on the list.

The many faces of D. Van D. make crime author go from sad to happy!

What could possibly make you smile more than Dick Van Dyke singing in his living room, apparently, with what I assume are family members, a number they cooked up instantaneously from a twitter request?  If this does not make you smile, you are a lost cause. 

Look at how much fun Dick Van Dyke is having in his living room. And look how he can't contain himself from sharing that playful outlook on life with a world that is full of madness and sorrow. I know nothing about Dick Van Dyke's personal life other than his brother is fabulously talented and that his son and grandson made their way into his show, Diagnosis: Murder. 

But his public life certainly provided many moments of magic and laughter for my own personal life. From Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins through that weekly trip over the ottoman in Rob Petrie's living room to the hapless divorced dad re-wooing Debbie Reynolds in Divorce American Style and so many others, all Dick Van Dyke has to do is appear on screen for me to start smiling. Is it any different for anybody else? 

I spent today talking to victims of crime and re-reading my essay on the downward spiral they sometimes take and giving my thoughts on the criminal mind to TV producers. None of these are happy thoughts. Then Dick Van Dyke popped up directly from his own living room to mine, like a jack-in-the-box whose spring can arc all the way from California's beaches to Arizona's deserts. 

Or like a chimney sweep who can jump from a sooty hearth directly into a bright sidewalk painting....

Awwww....for just a moment or two, no more crime, gunshots, or twisted psyches, just rivers of melty-golden-chocolate!  Thank you, Mr. Van Dyke!

"Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand." Mark Twain, I wish you could have known Rob Petrie. Hit me, baby!

Please visit the Bookstore tab above to browse 

Every time you make a purchase here, it helps me be able to do more for you!

Pssst! Going to jail, buying documents, and everything else it takes to get this kind of info for the blog takes time and money!

  

BUSTED PHONE TODAY

UPDATE: NEW PHONE HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD!  CALL ME AT THE REGULAR NUMBER NOW. Don't have my number? Reach me through Facebook or email a s u d d e n s h o t @ g m a i l dot com  (remove the spacing, of course!)

 


It was overdue. My phone had lasted 18 months. I should have known it was living on borrowed time.

Now it's time is up. It could not resist a quick bath in a small amount of liquid last night.  Despite concerted efforts to save it, it is no longer functional.

Sooooo....I am not reachable by phone for a day or two while I get my ducks in a row.  Please find me on Facebook or email me.  If you need me by phone I can call you back once I get your message.

Thanks.  RIP, phone - o - mine.

Brandi Hungerford: A "Pretty Bad Girl."

Crime writer Camille Kimball on set for Pretty Bad Girls on ID

Please visit the Bookstore tab above to browse

Pssst! Going to jail, buying documents, and everything else it takes to get this kind of info for the blog takes time and money! Every time you make a purchase here, it helps me be able to do more for you!


Show: Pretty Bad Girls
Episode title: Hungry Heart
Main character: Brandi Hungerford
Network: Investigation Discovery
Date: Friday, December 28, 2012

9:30 pm or CHECK YOUR LOCAL LISTINGS



 Tonight, Friday December 28, 2012, Investigation Discovery debuts a new episode on Brandi Hungerford.  That's me, getting set up for my interview with the "Pretty Bad Girls" crew.

Brandi was one of those petite young women with thick long hair that makes them a "10" for a lot of admirers.  She started off her adventure into adulthood after high school with a short-lived attempt at higher education. She quickly turned to stripping instead.

And a highly dangerous form of stripping, at that. Brandi was paid to visit men privately, often in a hotel room, where she'd do her dance while the man often, ahem, kept his hands to himself, so to speak.

Or not. Only Brandi really knows what went on between her and her clients.

Robert Donald Lemke II

While Brandi played the vixen for lonely men, she herself fell under the spell of another skin trade worker, Robert Lemke.  Lemke was an aggressive young man with plans and schemes and very bulky muscles. Their attraction for each other was intense.

While these two were taking their clothes off and bumping and grinding away for hire, television sets all around the area of Tempe, Arizona and surrounding Phoenix communities were regularly blaring out commercials for auto glass replacement. The beaming face of entrepreneur Rick Chance would offer you a substantial batch of free restaurant meals, if only you'd allow him to replace your windshield when it caught a rock.

Rick was a born salesman, an idea man, a pursuer of dreams. And his hard work had brought him quite a comfortable lifestyle.

Rick was never one to stay in the same gear for long. By the time Brandi Hungerford crossed his path, Rick had set his sights on the jewelry business.

In a scheme notable for both its brutality and its clownish errors, Rick Chance would lose his life to this pair, his corpse discovered in a hotel room by maids, a briefcase full of jewelry dribbling clues as police chased Brandi and Robert on the lam to the Pacific Northwest.

I'll let Pretty Bad Girls fill you in on the rest of the story.

Brandi happens to make an appearance in my book, WHAT SHE ALWAYS WANTED, which is about Marjorie Orbin. Brandi, housed in the same jail for awhile, became a lesbian lover of convicted dismemberment murderer Marjorie. And then, this girl who marched boldly into hotel rooms of strange men and plotted a murder of her own, became afraid of Marjorie. 

When Pretty Bad Girls came to town, they set up a green screen while we talked. So we can expect some fancy post-production effects. I rather expect some actors will be playing out my words behind my head while I speak. I do hope I was coherent. In order to keep the sound quality pristine, the crew turned off the air conditioning!  This was in the summer time in Phoenix. It's a wonder they didn't have to call an ambulance for me by the time we were through.  A business suit, a small room, and TV lights do not mix well with unabated heat!