License Plate Watch 12

Seen yesterday evening on a bright green VW Beetle: "GO KERMT"

The car had daisy pattern taillight covers, just like this. And as I passed this Beetle, there appeared to be lots of little dolls sitting on the interior's back shelf.

Someone's being too cute for their own good!

Fiction by Tim Dorsey: An Appreciation

One of the areas of fiction I have enjoyed (and still am enjoying!) for some time is what I'll call comedy crime novels. I don't remember precisely how I started with these, but one of the first was Donald E. Westlake's novels featuring his on-going character John Dortmunder. I also early on found Carl Hiaasen's novels, especially those that include his major on-going character, Skink.

I recently discovered the novels of Tim Dorsey. This happened when I was amused by the cover art for the paperback of his Torpedo Juice. I picked up a copy of it, looked at the back cover copy, and decided to give it a try. And proceeded to be thoroughly blown away by one of the wilder and funnier novels I've read in some time. Since finishing it I've been proceeding to find and read all of his other novels.

Dorsey's novels consistently feature the state of Florida and his anti-hero character, Serge A. Storms (get it?). Serge has been a diagnosed psychopath most of his life. Since the diagnosis the state has attempted to keep him under control by requiring him to take multiple anti-psychotic drugs. But Serge hates the condition the drugs put his mind into, and actively avoids using them as much as he can. When he is off the drugs, he becomes a serial murderer. But, he does not murder just anyone. He's selective; he only kills persons he comes across who are preying on innocent third parties, or who are otherwise (at least in his opinion) deserve to die. He tends to find these people in clusters, thus making himself known as a serial murderer.

There are also instances, to a much lesser degree, where Serge murders those who directly get in the way of his own goals. Such as the two fellows who have the misfortune (in The Stingray Shuffle) of unwittingly interfering in Serge's dogged pursuit (which goes on over multiple novels in the series) of a briefcase that holds five million dollars in cash. I suppose people such as these two are seen by Serge as deserving to die because they're interfering with his ability to get that cash.

And he is wildly inventive about how he carries out these murders; for instance (I won't get into too many details), the first murder he does in Torpedo Juice involves a certain very precise placement (without use of a gun) of multiple bullets followed immediately by activation of a MRI machine.

When he is off his drugs, Serge is also highly obsessive-compulsive, especially about the folklore and history of Florida. He is an extraordinary fount of knowledge about the entire state; no matter where he is in Florida, he knows something about the history of that immediate area. And he likes nothing better than to share that knowledge with anyone he is able to speak to, whether or not they like it.

To illustrate Dorsey's humor, I will mention one specific moment of laugh-out-loud humor in Dorsey's novels. In The Stingray Shuffle Serge finds himself confronted by a group of armed members of the Russian mob, who are looking to take the cash briefcase from him. This meeting takes place at a display at Cape Canaveral of replicas of the various rockets NASA has used through the years. Serge is horrified when the Russians accidentally shoot some of the replicas: How dare they shoot these pieces of Florida history! Seeing this reaction, one of them walks over to the replica of the first booster the U.S. used for manned space flight, points his gun at it, and says "Hand over the briefcase or the Mercury-Redstone gets it!" And Serge immediately does surrender the briefcase to them (but also starts thinking about how to get it back).

Tim Dorsey: heartily recommended!

License Plate Watch 11

Among the varieties of California special interest, or "vanity", license plates is one that funds children's safety programs in the state. This plate is distinguished by use of one of four symbols:

• a hand
• a heart
• a star
• or a plus sign

Last night I saw one of these plates. It read: "RU(star symbol)DEVO"

I can only assume that references the group Devo, but I'm stumped about what the star symbol means in this case.