Deep 6 News: Exclusive Interview with the Geezer Bandit

The Geezer Bandit: Still at Large, Still a Mystery

Nineveh Westin Gets the Scoop!

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Nineveh: Good evening. This is Nineveh Westin for Deep Six News. One of the stories that has captivated the nation over the last few years is that of the Geezer Bandit, the elderly gentleman who is responsible for a string of bank heists in the San Diego area beginning in 2009. There was a lot of speculation about the Geezer Bandit, both by authorities and in the media. back when his crime spree was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

The Geezer Bandit’s last robbery was in December of 2011,  5 full years ago. He’s not been apprehended, and he’s not held up another bank. Speculation has died down, but the mystery surrounding the man and his fabled run are just as intense as ever. How did he do it? How did he get away with it? Is he really elderly, or is he wearing an elaborate disguise? What possesses a man in his eighties to suddenly embark on a career of dangerous felonies? And, perhaps most curious of all, where has he been since then? Did he give up his life of crime? Did he flee the country? Did he die? Continue reading

Yes, I Broke the Window

True Confessions

broken windowThere is a story deep within A Cup of Pending wherein the main character, Cliff, confesses to having broken a window in a hometown park when he was a boy. That story is true, and I’m the kid who broke the window. I’ve carried the guilt for more than half a century now, and I got one of my fictional characters to take the fall for the crime. If you click here, you can see the log cabin featured in the story. The window is on the opposite side. The surroundings are much changed in the intervening years, but the cabin is exactly the same. The house I grew up in is visible through the trees to the left of the cabin. The structure behind and to the right of the cabin was our garage. It held three cars, and had a full attic where we had our secret clubhouse. We didn’t use it much because we had to share it with wasps. Continue reading

The Ant and the Grasshopper

A Fable for Our Time

grasshopper photo in orange and yellowI always liked the Aesop fable about the grasshopper and the ant. The ant spends the summer storing up grain and supplies for the coming winter while the grasshopper sings and plays the fiddle and, in some tellings, ridicules the ant for wasting the idyllic days with industry. When winter comes the ant is warm and well provisioned Continue reading

How to Write Realistic Dialog

whatwehaveherecoolhandlukede2I worked with a really great editor at Wag’s Revue several years ago while prepping my short story, “Mourning Jimmy Crooks,” for publication there. We had a lengthy discussion about dialog in which he told me that sometimes it is useful to write dialog as if the parties to the conversation are not talking to one another. In other words, no one is responding to what the others are saying. He seemed to think that this was a good way to end up with realistic dialog, even if the process seemed somewhat counter-intuitive.

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