Dilemma: Why use a few original words when a great many clichés will do?

Excuse me for being existential. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

By Kevin S. Giles

Ever notice how we beat some words to death in the news? In social media? In everyday conversation?

For example, why is it important to continually state that all storm damage “looks like a bomb went off?” Or, that the aftermath looks like “a war zone?” Or why we redundantly describe every storm in winter (and sometimes in fall and spring) as “a winter storm?” What else would they be, in winter? A “summer storm” that occurred in winter would be far more newsworthy. And when did a thunderstorm become “a rain event?”

We also have “past history.” In the past? No kidding.

Beware false drama

Why do we engage in false drama, such as “a brutal murder,” heard habitually over the years? If you know of a “kind murder,” let me know. The same idea pertains to “grisly” murders and “tragic” deaths.

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And, the false drama category includes “rushed to the hospital,” one of the most overused and misleading descriptions in journalism. In these days of modern ambulances equipped with the latest medical technology, and EMTs trained in on-scene trauma care, rushing is rare. A newer false drama cliché (used everywhere all of a sudden to describe shootings) is “multiple victims,” lazy news reporting that obscures critical facts. How many people were shot? Two? Seventeen? Forty?

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I once enjoyed those winter days in Montana. In my memory, I still do.

By Kevin S. Giles

I reflect often on the majesty of snow and ice as seen through the eyes of a Montana boy.

Winter, you lost friend.

Sliding and skating captivated me mostly in my preteen years. I’m much older now and inclined toward frequent bouts of sentimentality. Barreling down a hill on metal runners holds no charm for me nowadays. Not that I care to further experience what’s done. Ice gives me shivers since I slipped and broke my shoulder a few years ago. The wonder of ice still astounds me, but only ice on a rink. Caution comes with age.

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Author Kevin S. Giles: Famous people I knew, or saw, and a few I wish I had met

By Kevin S. Giles

Soon after Dances With Wolves won Best Picture, as I drank beer in a Tucson hotel with fellow newspaper editors, a man watching fish in the nearby aquarium caught our attention. I recognized him even without the feathers.

He resembled Graham Greene, who played Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s epic. That very moment, Beau Bridges walked past with a woman on each arm. He wore a tuxedo. I went to the front desk to claim my room. A tall silver-haired man stood next to me. He was Lloyd Bridges, dad to Beau and Jeff, and star of Sea Hunt, a 1960s TV drama I watched in boyhood. Minutes later, I went to the elevator.

“Hold the door!” someone called. In walked Terrance Knox, an actor from TV’s St. Elsewhere and a subsequent Vietnam war drama, Tour of Duty. He stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Terry,” he greeted me. Being face to face with the TV doctor who became a serial rapist in the basement morgue of the St. Eligius hospital (the actual name of St. Elsewhere) gave me pause.

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Nothing like a death ride behind the wheel, but foolishness loses its appeal with age

By Kevin S. Giles

Navigating the insane traffic on a recent cross-country road trip reminded me how I once aspired to the simple pleasure of driving my parents’ car down Main Street.

The license I coveted would allow me freedom behind the wheel. The freedom I envisioned involved “cruising the drag” with friends in our small western Montana town.

A teenager doesn’t think ahead to crowded interstate highways where speeding multi-ton vehicles pass within inches of each other. That’s the stuff of adult life.

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Mystery behind the mysteries: Simple plots, made exciting with sleight of hand

Page shows text of 'Masks, Mayhem and Murder'

I wrote “Masks, Mayhem and Murder’ in the pulp fiction genre.

By Kevin S. Giles

The other night I watched the original Psycho movie. It features Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, a lonely forbidding motel that a new highway bypassed, and a beckoning second-story light shining from a creepy Halloween-style house.

And there’s producer and director Alfred Hitchcock, the brain behind the 1960 movie’s tense scenes.

I can’t recall watching Psycho all the way through when I was younger. Maybe I stopped at the shower scene.

clearing up the mystery

This time, I paid attention to how Hitchcock crafted the plot. He started with a crime, invented an escape, confused the viewer with some misdirection and, finally, brought a psychiatrist into the final scene to explain what had happened.

When I began writing mysteries a few years ago, I learned it was no easy take to mimic the masters. I learned something else, too.

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In search of stories: A young Montana filmmaker seeks projects full of emotion

 

¶ ‘In a film, each frame should be a masterpiece. That’s why I look for the beauty all around me.’

Haylie Sunshine, Films of the Human Heart

By Haylie Peacock

Early beginnings of Haylie Sunshine

John Denver and Three Dog Night floated around my childhood home through the 2000s, bumping my little hips back and forth while I head-banged with Dad, the horrific green carpet our backdrop. The treasured cassette stereo worked day in and out to keep up, while the boxy TV gathered dust a few inches to the left.

I grew up living a life that didn’t need television. It was better than anything you would see on screen: grandiose mountains of Glacier National Park rose above my backyard, an escaped elephant from the local circus at the backdoor, daily adventures with my grandparents, and riding horses bareback through the woods hardly left time for sitting inside.

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Sad stories: The fire-charred legacy of Butte, Montana’s legendary Mining City

Medical Arts fire in Butte, Montana

One of Butte’s most sensational fires occurred on July 28, 1973, when the Medical Arts Building burned. Numerous businesses were lost. The prominent building previously was known as the Owsley Block. Photo permitted by The Montana Standard.

By Kevin S. Giles

Fire stories: Butte burned again and again in its first century, killing 359 people in nearly 500 fires.

In a city built too fast, sprawling as it was across Butte Hill’s broad face, fire departments couldn’t win the battle of the flames. Buildings of all descriptions pressed against one another. When one caught fire, others did too. Commonly, entire city blocks perished.

Sadly, the fires continue in Butte’s second century.

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Revival of closed Montana hotel back on track after a discouraging year

Hotel Deer Lodge, Montana

Hotel Deer Lodge as it looked soon after it opened. The building, now shuttered, dominates the Deer Lodge, Montana, business district.

By Kevin S. Giles

The pandemic and a $400 city fine nearly killed the latest effort to restore Hotel Deer Lodge, an abandoned 33,000-square-foot brick structure at the heart of a western Montana town’s business district.

“When they shut us down it took the wind out of our sails,” said Kip Kimerly, who leads the nonprofit venture to revive the long-shuttered hotel that opened in 1912 to a burst of civic celebration.

Now, he’s promising a renewed effort to bring the historic building back to life.

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The woeful Montana tale of mysterious boy killer Lee Smart, riot ringleader

Photo shows riot ringleader Lee Smart

Lee Smart, a teenage murderer, was 19 years old when he joined with Jerry Myles in a violent takeover of Montana State Prison on April 16, 1959.

By Kevin S. Giles

(c) copyright Kevin S. Giles

(I derived the following material from my prison memoir, Jerry’s Riot: The True Story of Montana’s 1959 Prison Disturbance. My investigation into Lee Smart included personal interviews with people who knew him and research of documents related to his crimes. Jerry’s Riot, written from interviews with dozens of eyewitnesses, remains the only authoritative and copyrighted source of information about the riot.)

Photo shows cover of the book 'Jerry's Riot: The True Story of Montana's 1959 Prison Disturbance'

Jerry’s Riot tells the story of the 1959 takeover of Montana State Prison by career criminal Jerry Myles and his 19-year-old boyfriend, Lee Smart.

Today’s criminal laws would prohibit sending a 16-year-old boy to prison where he mingled with adult men. Yet that very thing happened in 1956 in the strange case of murderer Lee Smart.

The teenager’s romantic interest in a hardened career criminal more than twice his age led to a deadly takeover of Montana State Prison in April 1959.

Smart, 19, and his co-conspirator Jerry Myles seized the prison for thirty-six hours. Myles, a recognized sociopath, wanted glory. Smart’s motive hinged on his mistaken belief that Myles would help him escape.

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What lyrics would John Lennon write to tell the story of his unfinished life?

There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain

From “In My Life”

Meet the Beatles album cover

Fans remember John Lennon, left, as the political Beatle. His rebel image remains, 40 years after his murder. Photo by Kevin S. Giles

By Kevin S. Giles

Think of it, murder of a Beatle. Hard to imagine John Lennon growing old. Think of him, wrinkled at 80. The rebel Beatle. Still working, kicking out chart-topping tunes? Or, retired at an American-style Penny Lane built for octogenarians?

December brought us the 40th anniversary of Lennon’s murder. If we carry any significant burden from that sad night in New York City, it’s knowing that a psychopath with a beef and gun consigned us to yet another ugly “what I remember about the moment I heard” conversation.

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