Notorious Glory

Al Capone and John Gotti are the two most famous gangsters of all time. They were famous while alive... in a business that is all about secrecy. They were brazen... in a line of work that favors caution. Both men were bosses who rose quickly only to fall just as quickly. Their supposedly inglorious downfalls instead proved dramatic tragedies, thus, legendary all the more.

A crime boss is a business man. His success can be measured by wealth and power. A legend is always a hero, even if the villain. His success can be measured by how many movies are made about him. Al Capone and John Gotti are real men who became legendary.

“For what should it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world yet lose his soul?”

– Jesus

A worldly success is a spiritual failure more often than not. The worldly successes of Al Capone and John Gotti meant nothing... no matter what. To die free and rich or imprisoned and poor is to die regardless.

Al Capone and John Gotti did not live in vain. They inspired people. They still do. Death was not the end of them.

The spiritual success of Al Capone and John Gotti was the very thing that ruined their temporal lives. They lived life to the fullest. They held nothing back. They shined their light for all to see. They did not hide it under a basket. Like the title character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, they refused to hide their plume. They wore it proudly... and are remembered forever for it.

Like Samson, Al Capone and John Gotti did deserve to fall. It was not because they were criminals, however. It was because they were proud. They were selfish. They should have been themselves in all sincerity, not as a matter of honor. Even as criminals, they would prove morally superior to those who brought them down.

Conan the Inspiration

I have been a Conan fan since my childhood in the 1970s. My interest began with the Frank Frazetta covers. It was intensified by a gory graphic novel by Marvel comics. I read the original Robert E. Howard short story Jewels of Gwalhur. I was not allowed to watch the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie till later because my mother disapproved of the nudity and gore.

I read every Conan story written by its original author... but they were modified by the pulp magazine Weird Tales and later by L. Sprague de Camp. I loved them... but was disappointed to learn they were not entirely true Robert E. Howard's work.

I read the true Robert E. Howard versions... and love them.

I write my own fiction. It is very much inspired by the works of Robert E. Howard. His relationship with H.P. Lovecraft encouraged me to read Lovecraft too, and I was not disappointed. I was inspired yet again.

Conan is about a hero in a world of survival-of-the-fittest. Savagery ultimately outmatches civilization. Even the civilized thrive as brutes. The universe is still one that favors good over evil, however. It simply distinguishes goodness from law and order and compassion from ethics or pity.

Like the original Conan stories, my work is mostly novellas, novelettes and short stories. The settings, like the Hyborean Age of Conan are worlds where the wars of tribes, nations and empires are not struggles of good against evil. The heroes are antiheroes until they do what they do for the sake of the innocent... and they are especially brutal when protecting or avenging the innocent.

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