“The Republican Presidential Debates have created renewed interest in the Ronald Reagan legacy,” said M.J. Hammond, president of independent publisher and media company, Minstrel’s Alley. “Beautiful Bad Girl defines some of the more personal situations of those who worked for one of the most popular President’s in American history. Readers have long been fascinated by this major sex scandal that for the Reagan administration had international repercussions. The book helped define exotic and obsessive sex practices of the late twentieth century.
“Beautiful Bad Girl has enjoyed brisk sales from the day we first launched the eBook version,” said Hammond. “Trade paperback sales have proved enduring for many years. Throughout the course of the Republican Presidential Campaign, at least, we will be holding the eBook Price to $7.99. Originally, the book was selling for $9.99.”

Hammond noted that Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story was first published in 1985 by Santa Barbara Press. At that time, the political and social climate of the times did not fully allow for it to achieve its rightful place as a best seller,” said Hammond. “However, this non-fiction novel began to sell steadily as the smoke cleared and people started to look at that period in the eighties with a much more critical eye. For a dozen years the audio version was distributed by Books on Tape, where it was one of their featured books.”
Minstrel’s Alley recently published “The Blood Orange, “a romantic murder mystery thriller, also written by Gordon Basichis. Basichis is also the Co-Founder of Corra Group, which specializes in background checks and corporate research and investigation. The publisher will soon be publishing “Ghosts of Havana,” by Cameron Lee, a romantic murder mystery thriller with exotic settings around the world.

M.J. Hammond is a former entertainment industry executive who founded Minstrel’s Alley to publish popular books not found in mainstream publishing.

“Mainstream publishing has its purpose,” said Hammond. “But the industry’s focus on celebrity and genre based books has left readers wanting. We hope to help bring a sense of adventure back to books and publishing.”

Background: Minstrel’s Alley is a Los Angeles based independent publisher that seeks to bring adventure back into the publishing industry by publishing books that have popular appeal but with more complexity than the standard mainstream fare. The new publishing group distributes its books through Amazon, Kindle, and assorted Internet outlets as well as through bookstores around the country. You can view Minstrel’s Alley at www.minstrelsalley.com

.   The book is available in quality paperback as well as in all ebook formats.

Minstrel’s Alley will be discounting its ebooks for the holiday season. The discount applies to all electronic publication editions, including Kindle, iPad, Barnes & Noble, Sony eReader, Smashwords, and Kobo.

We thought the holiday season would be a good time to introduce new readers to our books, ” said Minstrel’s Alley Publisher, M.J. Hammond. “People will be buying electronic reading devices for Christmas and other holidays.

“The Blood Orange, by Gordon Basichis, is our latest publication,” said Hammond. “The novel is a modern day take on the classic Los Angeles Noir Detective novels of Raymond Chandlder. As with his work, Los Angeles is a principal character in a modern day romantic mystery thriller that incorporates old California Bandit legends with contemporary intrigue. It’s a great story that would also be the perfect LA film.”

Hammond recommended The Guys Who Spied for China, also by Gordon Basichis. “It’s a roman a clef, based on Basichis’ experiences uncovering Chinese Espionage Networks in the United States,” she said. “It was a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.”

While The Guys Who Spied for China, is set in the eighties and nineties, it feels ripped from tomorrow’s headlines. Given the friction in current U.S.-China relations, the ramifications are still being felt. No small wonder the book is available in every Amazon around the world but the Chinese Amazon website.”

Hammond remarked that Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story is the best seller for Minstrel’s Alley. The non-fiction story deals with the tempestuous love affair between department store heir and Ronald Reagan Kitchen Cabinet Member, Alfred Bloomingdale and his longtime mistress, Vicki Morgan. This international sex scandal blew up the tabloids as it helped define exotic sexuality in the late twentieth century.

The ebook versions of the Minstrel’s Alley Publications are being reduced from $9.99 to $7.99 for the holiday season.

M.J. Hammond is a former entertainment industry executive who founded Minstrel’s Alley to publish popular books not found in mainstream publishing.

Minstrel’s Alley has scheduled two additional books for publication. “Ghosts of Havana, ” by Cameron Lee, is a mystery thriller, spanning Pre-Castro Cuba to the modern day. “Letters from the Sisters,” chronicles the lifelong friendship among a dozen sorority sisters over the past four decades.

Background: Minstrel’s Alley is a Los Angeles based independent publisher that seeks to bring adventure back into the publishing industry by publishing books that have popular appeal but with more complexity than the standard mainstream fare. The new publishing group distributes its books through Amazon, Kindle, and assorted Internet outlets as well as through bookstores around the country.    You can view Minstrel’s Alley athttp://www.minstrelsalley.com.

This article was written in August 2010 by one of our authors, Gordon Basichis.   It predicts an Occupy Wall Street type movement.  A great read for anyone wishing to understand the current economic climate.

Will They Serve Frozen Yogurt at the Next Revolution

By Gordon Basichis

All rhetoric aside, revolutions are not started by the poor.   The poor may contribute later on, or pile in and take the revolution to certain extremes, but they are not the ones who start it.  I realize it is romantic to think of the poor rising up to break the yoke of poverty, but it is simply not the case.    It could be argued that if the poor were that well organized, then they would get it together enough not to be poor.

It’s the disaffected bourgeoisie, the merchant class, the middle class, that always  always gets the ball rolling.    If at first it is not the middle class directly then it is their progeny, their erstwhile sons and daughters who grow restive in the coffee houses or on the job, in the schools, where discussion leads to protests, and protests leads to violence, or the series of incidents that set it all off.   Robespierre, one of the leaders of the French Revolution, was from a family of lawyers.  Castro, in Cuba, was from a wealthy middle class family and also a lawyer.

Lenin was also an attorney; his father a director/inspector of the public school system.    Trotsky was raised in a family of wealthy farmers.  Che Guevera was from an upper middle class family and was himself a doctor.   Mao Zedong’s father may have started life as a peasant, but by the time Mao was still a young boy the old man was doing just fine as a  farmer and grain merchant.

The American forefathers were largely merchants or gentrified farmers.   Those frocked coats and powdered wigs cost a few bucks, and none of them have been cited as showing up in a peasant rags. In the case of most revolutions, the leading intellectuals and rabble rousers took their cues from  principles and doctrines in the literature of choice.    The French and the Americans cited passages from the Age of Reason, while the Russians and Chinese took their cue from Karl Marx.   Most peasants weren’t reading Marx at the time, and the literature found in  Age of Reason or the Enlightenment was mainly accessible to those that had money, and certainly those who could read.

Another misnomer is that revolutions occur out of principle.   That they are driven by the abstracts of ideology and their anticipated application.   Revolutions, at least successful ones, are based in economics and not the more higher minded principles as some would believe.   Most successful revolutions emanate from self-interest and economic necessity before being disseminated to a greater mass through rhetorical ideology.   Even in today’s world where even the most complex strategic considerations are boiled down to simple jargon and sound bites, embedded at the root core there is short and long range self-interest and its related economics.  The higher minded rhetoric, all that stuff about liberty, equality…whatever…comes after when you need more bodies to sacrifice themselves for the greater cause.

I think about revolution not because I am encouraging it.  I do ponder at what point the middle class once again decides it has had enough of the chicanery and double dealing that leaves it holding the bag.   I think about the Tea Baggers and realize that some laud them while some mock or hate them, fearing the worst from the dregs in their lot.  But the Tea Bagger thing didn’t come out of nowhere.  People are pissed off.   The middle class is pissed off.  These are the people who have lost their houses, their jobs, their dignity, and their chance to make life better for their children.   While with the Tea Baggers all that anger is being channeled almost entirely to the wrong places, the frustration is real.

Their jobs are going offshore.  Their trades skills if not obsolete are being transferred to other countries, leaving crafts people to work in humiliating call center positions where they try to accommodate those as pissed off as they are.   Small businesses have watched the stimulus money get kicked back to the larger banking and financial interests.  They have watched the money go offshore so domestic interests can make nice with foreign interests, so everyone is happy for the next financial shell game.  Many small and medium size business owners realize they are in a game of musical chairs, and when the music stops they may lack a place to plant themselves.    The less evolved make irritating claims about wanting their country back.  Few realize that while there were always virtues there were also the ugly elements of sexism, racism, and the economic leverage of the Robber Barons that is not at all unlike the way things work today.

But the smarter souls realize the middle class is dissolving.   It is a species facing extinction, or if not extinction then certainly a serious depletion among their ranks.   It is becoming increasingly evident, at least to me, that both the right and left are creating a permanent underclass.  The Conservatives may be more calloused and venal, willing to exploit cheap labor, and under the guise of free enterprise ship people’s livelihoods to other places, in order to serve their bottom line.    But then the Liberals or Progressives, or whatever they are this year, in offering meager entitlement without any real job training or actual support of industry have policies that may keep people alive but eliminate their chances of obtaining the skills that will empower them toward gainful employment.   At the end of the day, it is really two sides of the same coin with both sides pandering to their bases.  One caters to the rich, and the other tries to garner votes from the poor.  The middle class pays the tab and then finds itself ignored.

Common sense would be that rather than just hand people money, it would be wiser to re-purpose factories, even in the supposed archaic industries.   Develop a modern version of Roosevelt’s WPA where younger folks can form in teams to  employ modern technology with seasoned business sense to make stuff.   No country survives by merely shuffling paper around.  You need to make stuff.  Even in a global economy you cannot constantly suffer trade deficits for goods you can be making here.  Or, more to the point, you can not do it and survive.  Re purposing  factories would allow the government to supplement production.    The factories might even operate at a loss to stay competitive, but that loss would not be nearly as costly as just laying out billions for stand alone entitlement programs where nothing comes back to the coffers.

But then some argue, why bother with outmoded industries?   Well, for one thing not all of our citizens are technological geniuses.   Some of the work may be mind numbing, but it is a living, and a better living than either the call service job that has filled in in many blighted cities, or the government check that covers close to nothing.     It is better to have people working at something,  especially products that would reduce our imports and overall deficits, than not working at all.

We talk about what great innovators we are.  We love to revel in our inventions and our technological brilliance.    We boast of our start ups and how great technological achievements have originated from that humble garage workshop.   It may be true.   But as Co-Founder of Intel, Andy Groves, points out in his terrific article on Bloomberg Business Week, entitled How America Can Create Jobs, even when we innovate through the start ups we no longer scale these companies but instead the big outfits buy them out and ship most of the work offshore.  There is little chance for a new Microsoft or anything else when either that fledgling company is left to fend for itself, having no access to the kind of capital that would enable scaling to competitive levels.    There is little chance when that nascent company is bought up by the big kid and its resources moved offshore.

And both sides of the aisle are equally culpable.  The conservatives bark about free enterprise and the lack of government intercession.  These were the same people who couldn’t wait for government handouts from the bailout, where many suffered little or no consequences for their duplicity and lack of sensible business practice.   On the other hand, we have the current majority in government boasting of its reforms.    They boast of a  financial reform and a bill that has no teeth.  Companies too big to fail are still too big to fail.   As for much of the legislation, five minutes after  its passing any corporate interest with a team of lawyers and common sense has figured out a way to beat most of it.   There is little pressure for this current or any future administration to reduce or eliminate tax credits for shipping its jobs offshore.   There is little incentive via added tax credits to encourage even foreign companies to set up shop over here and hire American laborers.

So, in all, minus the rhetoric from both sides and all the concomitant window dressing, you have people either out of work or working jobs so meager they can’t support their families.   Credit extension to the regional banks who would in turn provide funding for local businesses is little more than a passing topic of conversation.    The economy is once again stalling.   Consumers are reluctant to make purchases.  There is talk of a double dip recession.   There is talk the housing market could slip even lower with increased foreclosures.

And the middle class?   I have to wonder at what point does the toxic mismanagement reach critical mass?    It is one thing to wear a ridiculous hat with tea bags draped from its brim.   It is another to consider the twenty-first century version of tarring and feathering, vandalizing, and otherwise making life miserable for those who have reduced this country to a shadow of itself.   I think about this recent little fiasco in the California City of Bell where it was recently discovered that four of the five council members were getting paid about $100,000 for their part-time jobs in the blue collar city of 40,000 people.   The Bell city manager, who made nearly $800,000, which is roughly three times the salary of the President of the United States.  For the City of Bell.

Why did it take so long to figure out that these conniving individuals were getting paid so much for so little?  The salaries were only made public after a Los Angeles Times investigation, based on California Public Records Act requests, uncovered the ugly fact that the city payroll was bloated with six-figure salaries.  Since the discovery, some of the grand city officials have resigned.  Others are defiant.  Attorney General, Jerry Brown,  is contemplating criminal charges.   There is much rancor about their very generous pensions.

But supposed they hadn’t resigned.  Suppose they all remained defiant and the state government ignored this outrageous transgression on the public trust.  One has to wonder at what point do the riots start where some of the city officials are dragged into the street?  Maybe never.  Maybe the citizens of Bell all toss back a beer and a Zoloft and go back to American Idol.    But suppose this incident or an incident much like it does get out of hand.   And then suppose in other parts of the country the citizens there think a little tar and feathering of sorts is not at all a bad idea.   You know, little local and regional things that suddenly erupt beyond the point of control.

I know it is a lot of supposing here, but if history tells us anything,   major changes gestate for years before breaking out to a greater order.   History demonstrates it takes just a series of minor incidents that evolve from miniature rebellion to considerable revolution.    America had its Boston Massacre, it’s Tea Party, and Lexington and Concord. Russia had its riots in St. Petersburg.   France had the storming of its much hated Bastille.  And so it goes.

I am not saying we are about to see a full scale revolution, replete with Civil War and all the other accouterments that give new meaning to dangerous living.   No extreme sports are necessary when you have massive rioting and killing in the streets.   But we  are not a country that angers easily.   On the top side of our national persona, we have an embedded sense of law and fair play that if it doesn’t hold us back from theft and duplicity at least burdens us with guilt.

On the down said, we are spoiled, fat, lazy, and have far too many distractions.   A revolution is hard work and takes focus and a great deal of concentration.   Between channel surfing, texting and gossiping, focus and concentration is not particularly our strong suits.    It  may be difficult to sustain anger when you take mood elevators and believe your critical assignment is attacking the nearest buffet.  We are out of shape and eat a lot of frozen yogurt.   It could be argued that unless Fro Yo wins the concession for the next American Revolution, turnout will be minimal at best.   And if there is a turnout, then is everyone proclaimed a hero?  Does everyone get a trophy?  Hard to say.

But then that anger is growing out there.  It is diffuse and misdirected, concerned with petty concepts like racism and people’s sexual preferences.   It is concerned with lifestyle choices and religious beliefs or lack of them.   But then we aren’t there yet.  We aren’t at the place where that slow to anger big dog finally gets off the porch where sensibilities start to galvanize and find articulation.  Where the middle class declares, “enough of this,” and decides that voting for the same thing regardless of party cannot turn it around.   When it becomes clear that it is not an issue of wanting one’s country back but moving it forward.   Against the deliberate intransigence.  And in the face of those who wish to keep you right where you are.

The Blood Orange by Gordon Basichis

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 19, 2011

Minstrel’s Alley announces the publication of a new novel, “The Blood Orange,” a romantic mystery thriller. The story was written by Gordon Basichis and is set in modern day Lo Angeles while drawing upon the legends of Spanish California.

“The Blood Orange,” has been listed on Amazon.com and is released as an EBook on Kindle, and Apple’s iBook, as well as all other electronic publishing venues. It is available through Barnes & Noble, Ingram Book Company, Baker & Taylor distributors as well as various independent bookstores around the country.

“We have high hopes for the publication of ‘The Blood Orange,’” said M.J. Hammond, publisher and president of Minstrel’s Alley. “The novel is a modern day take on the classic Los Angeles Noir Detective novels of Raymond Chandler, Ross Thomas, and other mystery novelists. As with their work, Los Angeles is a principal character in a modern day story that incorporates the old California Bandit legends with contemporary intrigue, violence, and internecine struggles. It tells a great story that would also be the perfect LA film.”

Hammond describes the book as quirky and edgy filled with dark humor that Basichis seems to capture in even the most dire moments. “It’s a long way from the classic mystery thriller. Not what you call a tepid tale with predictable dilemmas. With this book you get the feeling the characters are playing for keeps. Sexy, too, which doesn’t hurt anything.”

Gordon Basichis is the author of three previous books. “The Guys Who Spied for China” was first published by Minstrel’s Alley and was a quarter finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Fiction Awards. Basichis also wrote “The Constant Travellers,” and “Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story.” He is the co-founder of Corra Group, a Los Angeles based company that conducts employment background checks and corporate research for companies throughout the United States and around the world.

M.J. Hammond is a former entertainment industry executive who founded Minstrel’s Alley to publish popular books not found in mainstream publishing.

“Mainstream publishing has its purpose,” said Hammond. “But the industry’s focus on celebrity and genre based books has left readers wanting. We hope to help bring a sense of adventure back to books and publishing.”

In addition to “The Blood Orange, a summer release, Minstrel’s Alley has scheduled two additional books for publication. “Ghosts of Havana, ” by Cameron Lee, is also a mystery thriller, spanning Pre-Castro Cuba to the modern day. “Letters from the Sisters,” chronicles the lifelong friendship among a dozen sorority sisters over the past four decades.

Background: Minstrel’s Alley is a Los Angeles based independent publisher that seeks to bring adventure back into the publishing industry by publishing books that have popular appeal but with more complexity than the standard mainstream fare. The new publishing group distributes its books through Amazon, Kindle, and assorted Internet outlets as well as through bookstores around the country.    You can view Minstrel’s Alley athttp://www.minstrelsalley.com

The Blood Orange, a hard-edged romantic mystery thriller in upscale modern day Los Angeles, is a story of transition and transcendence, a quest for a treasure and a search for the soul. Former cop, Max Brodie, returns to his native California as a grisly murder sets in motion a deadly conflict among the rich and notorious. Old Bandit’s treasure and the romance of Spanish California are inextricably woven into a grand scheme of duplicity and intrigue where powerful factions are pitted against each other in the deadliest game of all. With the help of his childhood friend, Lee Jonas, and the beautiful and mysterious Juliette Darcy, Max must uncover a vast puzzle, sorting out the realities of an old California legend from the illusory landscape of modern LA. As is often the case in the City of Angels, nothing is what it appears to be. And everything is up for grabs.

Basichis is the author of another Minstrel’s Alley book, The Guys Who Spied for China, which was a quarter finalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Awards last year.

The Blood Orange is available as an ebook and will be available as a trade paperback in late June.

Evergreen Review‘s New Edition:

The Guys Who Spied for China

By Gordon Basichis

Evergreen Review reviews "The Guys Who Spied for China"

(Minstrel’s Alley, 2010)

Review by Kevin Riordan

The narrator remains something of a cipher, nameless, wise-cracking, ready for action despite no evident training for international political intrigue. He seems to get all the good lines, as when one hard case tells him

“I put myself through school that way. Assassination.”

“Yeah? Me, I worked in a drugstore.” {page 41}

The entire story takes place over the length of the Eighties, but we are never reminded of who’s president or what’s on the radio, nor are we bombarded with period detail. The ready availability of phone booths is the main clue that we are in the past at all, although the technology invoked is both elaborate and quaint. The historical framework is what holds it together, culminating just before the infamous protests in Tiananmen Square.

The most outrageous incidents are related and then retold as they appeared in the press, which is nicely disorienting, as we follow an odd couple of citizens who unravel a huge Chinese spy operation involving satellites, munitions manufacture, survivalists, college professors, even an oddball Bishop. None of the Chinese characters get much exposure, but you don’t want to get too attached to them. Crusty Noah Brown steals the book, evoking William Burroughs as he appeared in the 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy. The book also brings him to mind through its similarity to And the Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks, in its thinly veiled confessional aspect.

After being introduced to the narrator as someone capable of using deadly force, we are drawn in to a gradually clarifying stew of dubious men and squirrelly subplots. In contrast to the beach read spy novel, the violence and weaponry is not depicted with a lascivious glee, but with genuine frustration and concern. By the storm-drenched climax, there was no place else I would rather have been than on that mission, from the safety of my armchair.

In hindsight perhaps the great irony is that the Chinese didn’t need to spy on us in order to see that what we value the most is cheap pedestrian crap, and we don’t much care if the dignity of labor was involved in its mass manufacture, as long as we can buy it on credit.

http://www.evergreenreview.com/125/review-guys-who-spied-for-china.html ]]> http://www.minstrelsalley.com/2010/12/evergreen-review-reviews-the-guys-who-spied-for-china/feed/ 0 http://www.minstrelsalley.com/2010/08/175/ http://www.minstrelsalley.com/2010/08/175/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:00:54 +0000 Gordon Basichis http://www.minstrelsalley.com/?p=175 Minstrel’s Alley Acquires Kindle and eBook Rights to The Constant Travellers

(Los Angeles)Minstrel’s Alley has just acquired the Kindle, Smashwords, and other eBook publishing rights to “The Constant Travellers,” a novel written by Gordon Basichis.  The ad copy refers to itself as sex and drugs in the West That Never Was and tells a comic, but metaphysical Western tale involving a journey between  a young Civil War veteran and an Indian Shaman.  The two meet in the middle of the desert, and as they embark on a journey where they encounter endless colorful characters, they discover their destinies have long been intertwined.

“We are thrilled to be offering  “The Constant Travelers,” in a Kindle, Smashwords, and other ebook versions, “ said M.J. Hammond, president of independent publisher and media company, Minstrel’s Alley.   It is part of our program where we bought all electronic rights to Gordon’s books.   Film rights for “The Constants Travellers” had been optioned by two different film studios, Twentieth Century Fox, and MGM.  But at that time special effects technology could not fully render the scope and texture of this wonderfully funny epic Western.”

“The book was first published in hardback by G.P. Putnam’s, but it was so quirky and psychedelic, mixing genres, that it was way ahead of its time.   It was then published as a trade paperback when Basichis and  iUniverse published it as part of the Author’s Guild “Back in Print” program.

“The Constant Travellers,” we believe,  is an unsung classic, a story set in the old West but told in the modern idiom.   The novel is fresh and relevant and should appeal especially to a younger audience as well as the Boomer set”

Hammond maintained that the steady flow of sales in trade paperbacks inspired Minstrel’s Alley to acquire the E-rights to the book and publish it through Kindle and Smashwords.  It will soon also be available through other electronic books platforms, including the Barnes and Noble’s Nook, Sony Reader, and Apple’s  iBooks.

Minstrel’s Alley recently published “The Guys Who Spied for China,” its first publishing effort.  “The Guys Who Spied for China,” also written by Gordon Basichis, is based on his real life experiences uncovering Chinese Espionage Networks operating in the United States in the eighties and nineties.   Basichis is now the Co-Founder of Corra Group, which specializes in background checks and corporate research and investigation.

“We look forward to treating the world to “The Constant Travellers.”  The book is like nothing else on the market.  It is irreverent, philosophical, and very funny.  It is a joy to read.”