HA-HA-HA and D.B Cooper

NSP Meditations, Writing , , , , , ,

In 2011, the newspaper formerly operating as the Oregonian published an installment of my Lost Pacific Northwest Books Column. Outside of my writing about euthanizing my dogs, I received more reader response to this piece than any other newspaper piece I have ever written and the responses I received came from all over the world and continue to this day. I just got another one this week.

Here is that column, slightly edited and updated:

In 1983, a publisher from Jefferson, Oregon called Signum Books Ltd. released a 330-page soft cover book titled HA-HA-HA. The cover features a drawing of a man in a suit holding a briefcase while parachuting from a commercial jetliner. The back cover features a graphic of a certificate announcing a contest called “Your Big Score.” The certificate’s first sentence reads: “It’s true. In this book are seven clues. By reading it carefully and discovering the clues, one could receive as much as $200,000 in twenty dollar bills.”

The book’s author is D.B. Cooper.

As every sentient Pacific Northwesterner knows, on November 24, 1971 a man who gave his name as Dan Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 from Portland to Seattle, extorted $200,000 from authorities, had the jet refueled, and then somewhere between Seattle and Reno, jumped out of plane with a parachute. His body was never found nor was an arrest ever made. In the subsequent 40 years, D.B. has gone onto become, alongside Bigfoot, the greatest legend in Pacific Northwest History.

Not only could Cooper successfully hijack a plane and elude the FBI, he also was (is?) an excellent writer. HA-HA-HA is a lively, often hilarious memoir that recounts his hard luck life before the hijacking, (failed real estate developer, boozer, petty thief) describes in serious detail what really happened that night (he smoked Raleigh cigarettes to deflect suspicion), how he made his escape (he rented a house and gassed up vehicle not far from where he landed near Pyramid Lake), and how he shrewdly invested the ransom money (in Boeing and silver!) and became very wealthy. He may yet be alive and reading this.

Besides writing well, Cooper also seems to have invented a new literary genre: a cryptic yet lucrative contest within a book written by a criminal mastermind who practically dares the law to locate him. Unfortunately, finding this Lost Northwest book is about as easy as finding D.B. Cooper. A recent search on the most comprehensive used/rare book site turned up only three copies for sale, each for around $30. I have never seen the book in a library.

HA-HA-HA originally retailed for $3.95. I bought mine for $6 at a used bookstore in Lincoln City a decade ago and never bothered to read it until the summer 2011 release of the latest D.B. Cooper book, Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper byGeoffrey Gray, and the revelation that the FBI had a new lead in the case. As it turned out, the lead went nowhere and the mystery remains, which begs the question: Did Gray and all the other D.B. Cooper buffs bother to read HA-HA-HA. I doubt they knew of its existence.

Wouldn’t it be something if D.B. Cooper did write this superb book and the Big Score was (is) for real? What better ingenious way to throw off the FBI? Tell everyone what happened and everyone thinks you’re a nut. And then to top it all off, stage a contest!

Whoever owned HA-HA-HA before me made an active effort to discover the clues and left behind outstanding notes. Is $200,000 just sitting somewhere in a safety deposit box or storage facility?

Back to 2021. I never followed up this story or exerted any effort to solve the mystery. But over the years many, many D.B. Cooper nuts or freaks or experts have contacted me wanting to know if I still have the copy I wrote about. I do not. I gave it away on a Portland street to a woman who came up to me after a wild D.B Cooper event at a bar and said she had to have it. Why not? It’s yours. I never wanted to discover the identity of D.B Cooper although 200 hundred grand would have been nice.

As I said, another D.B. Cooper tracker contacted me this week because of the column. He’d nailed the son-of-bitch down, an art dealer or something from Arizona. I don’t really know. But the sleuth maintains D.B. Cooper really did write Ha-Ha-Ha and I am the only writer who ever caught on to it.

So there is that to my resume.

Oh yeah, I’ll add it it to my other scoops, like the real story of the drowning-under-the-log scene in Sometimes a Great Notion (book and movie), the secret weapon of Bill Walton’s MVP performance against the Philadelphia 76’ers in the 1977 NBA championship for the Portland Trail Blazers, why Neil G really didn’t run for a second term as Oregon governor, why Conde McCullough really built those alcoves on his Oregon Coast bridges, and of course, the real story of Vortex I, which I spent 250,000 words to explain.

Do I have anymore up my sleeve?

Yes, and his name is Zane Grey.

Meth Town by Lark Jameson

NSP Meditations , , , , , ,

My former author client Lark Jameson has just published a new kink crime thriller and I want to promote it here. It’s fantastically raunchy and funny, but also provides some savage political and culturally commentary. She certainly brings something original and exciting to the genre. It’s available on Amazon in print and e-book formats and published by Pacific Coast Smut

Description below:

In Meth Town, Hank was a teacher who lost someone he loved to meth. In despair, he joins a secret mission to eradicate meth in the Pacific Northwest funded by a kid tech billionaire whose younger sister was obliterated by the drug. Hank chooses Driftwoodville on the Oregon Coast. It suffers the worst meth infestation in the West. He moves into an RV park managed by the otherworldly gorgeous and devious Colette. She’s dealing meth out of the park with her henchmen, the Brittanys, a pair of wild, meth-deranged sex fiends who Hank is powerless to resist. Hank tries to disrupt Colette’s meth trade through acts of kindness while Colette tries to seduce him with her sensational ass and outrageous outfits. Their conflict sizzles, then explodes, in a savage finale of kink and violence in a raunchy, socially conscious-themed thriller for these terrible times.

The Rake Versus the Leaf Blower

NSP Meditations

Fall arrived. The leaves have fallen. Now they must be gathered and hauled away. Out on the neighborhood streets men and women had a choice: to rake or to blow. In other words, night and day.

On a recent Sunday morning walk, mere hours before the city’s military force of leaf removal plowed through the area, I estimated about a 50/50 split between the rake and the blower. I closely inspected the wielders of the rakes and the blowers to discern a type, a mood, an ideology. I looked at their clothes and faces. (Note to reader: I didn’t see a see single kid raking. Not one! Raking a chore or punishment is dead!)

Let us consider a supposed metaphorical comparison/competition between an old fashioned metal rake and a new fangled leaf blower. The tines versus the tumult.

First let me admit, I absolutely loathe leaf blowers and applaud the municipalities that ban them. They are a menace to any civilized neighborhood and a perfect illustration of how the grotesque and obnoxious commercial transformation of something so simple and sublime (raking leaves and listening to the world around you) into a mechanized and polluting monster says everything about contemporary American life. More noise, less thought. More chaos, less order.

So I admit my bias in moderating this competition, but so be it. Here we go.

Consider this:

Would you rather have a rake or blower as a:

Parent?

Lover?

Partner?

Chef?

President of the United States?

Neighbor?

Writer?

Musician?

Judge?

Friend?

General?

Comedian?

Platoon leader?

Cop?

Tarot card reader?

Doctor?

Boss?

Contractor?

Teacher? (I was a bit of both in my career. I wish now I had been 99% rake.)

I invite you to make other metaphorical comparisons. Obviously, contemporary American culture is dominated by the leaf blower mentality. Maybe it always has been. But I certainly believe we need more rakes and rakes and rakes in all aspects of our lives. In the long run, the rake will win out, because well, the blower always runs out of gas.

Oregon Tavern Age: Martinis and Gravy

NSP Meditations, Oregon Tavern Age ,

I sat at the bar of an OTA joint and drank a beer. Outside, a homeless man sat on a bench and smoked a cigarette while reading a Zane Grey Western.

A crap show played on television. An OTA woman gambled in a far corner. I had my writing materials with me but wasn’t feeling it. Torpor hung in the air and in my mind.

The female OTA bartender shook up a martini. She strained it into a glass and then took it over to an OTA man sitting in booth and eating a massive spread of biscuits and gravy slathered in Tabasco sauce. He’d just finished his first martini.

So, here was an OTA man drinking martinis and eating biscuits and gravy on a weekday afternoon and I knew I would use this observation in a novel I write at a later date.

The man drained the martini in one prodigious gulp. He got up to pay and turned toward me. I said to him, “Martinis and biscuits and gravy for lunch” because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Tanqueray’s my middle name,” he said, smiling

I laughed.

I knew I would use this line in a novel I would write at a later date.

He paid his bill then sat down on a stool in front of a slot machine and began playing. It was then I noticed he was wearing tan shorts and black loafers with no socks. I knew I would use this image in a novel that I would write at a later date.

Roy Marx: Socialist Portland Detective by Lark Jameson

Fiction, NSP Meditations, Writing , , , , , , , ,

My former author client Lark Jameson has just published a new collection of fiction and I want to promote it here. It’s a fantastic crime and kink thriller set in the Rose City that also employs savage and funny social commentary. She truly has an original take on the genre. It’s published by Pacific Coast Smut and available on Amazon in print and e-book formats.

Description below:

Roy Marx is a socialist Portland detective with a ferocious mutt named Trotsky. Together, comrade, dog and their strange brew of a crew, fight crime, injustice and inhumanity wrought by the evil and destructive forces of capitalism.

In three Left wing, lusty and action-packed novellas, Roy and Trotsky kick some serious ass in the defense of working class heroes such as burger flippers, strippers and teachers.

Utilizing his highly specialized knowledge of all things commie and eccentric detection methods, Marx is unlike any private dick you’ve ever met. And don’t even think of messing with his dog, lest you want parts of your reproductive system chomped to smithereens.

Readers of the crime world unite, and meet the new sleuth, not the same as the old sleuth.

In the Case of the Burger Town Murders, Marx investigates the savage killing of a union-forming employee of a progressive fast food joint who was kinking it up after hours with horny burger flippers.

In the Case of Stripper Collective, Marx looks into the murder of two dancers by a deranged Bible thumper in what later becomes the world’s first socialist strip club.

In the Case of the Teacherless School, Marx digs into the shooting of a high school teacher by a foxy, sex-starved android created by a fiendish corporation hell-bent on replacing all teachers with robots.

Random Thoughts While Watching Perry Mason

NSP Meditations

It might be a good thing for every American to begin their morning by watching Perry Mason.

I finished reading George Stewart’s 1941 novel, Storm. It is a mysterious masterpiece of American fiction where a massive storm generated by the Pacific Ocean is the setting, plot, protagonist and antagonist. There are also an electrocuted owl and drowned wild boar as characters. I urge anyone with an interest in American literature to read it and marvel. It is utterly original, visionary and hypnotic. I found the book at random in a library and had never heard of it before. I can’t get this book out of my mind and feel its influence forming within me.

I raked leaves yesterday for the first time in a decade or so. My back hurts.

I bought a copy of Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard for 99 cents in a thrift store. I’ve read it four or five times and it has helped me immeasurably in life to make sublime transitions through cataclysmic personal setbacks. I bought the book for a friend with the intent of helping her make a transition through a turbulent personal crisis, but she disappeared on me. I’ll keep the book and hope she reappears.

I finished writing my latest Oregon Coast Christmas tale. It’s about a homeless veteran in Coos Bay who takes a job on a Christmas tree lot owned by a veteran of the Vietnam War. It’s got Steve Prefontaine and Silver and Golden Falls in it. I’ll be posting it here next month. I sometimes don’t know why I continue to write these tales after my collection was published last year. I think I write them so I can live in a micro world where Christmas works out for people. Rarely has Christmas worked out merrily in my adult life. But there are a few worth remembering.

I read in the paper that Oregon’s only documented lynching of a Black person occurred in 1902 in Coos Bay. His name was Alonzo Tucker and he was accused of raping a white woman. Three hundred people watched in broad daylight. In all my vast reading of Oregon history, I’d never heard of him. You can always keep learning about a subject. I don’t want to ever forget that as I age.

More accounts keep surfacing of unmasked mobs shouting and threatening at public meetings, in person and online, and meetings being shut down. It’s happening all over America, every day of the week. Is democratic government withering in America? Is it finally on the brink?

«‹ 107 108 109 110›»