The Dog Logic Triptych
Dog Logic
Hertell Daggett has just discovered a time capsule. Only this one is full of people, and they've been living beneath his pet cemetery since 1963 due to some bad information they got about the end of the world. Hertell leads the duck-and-cover civilization into the glorious, mystifying, and often dismaying modern world. What could possibly go wrong?
Book of the Year Winner - Humor/Satire - Independent Author Network
Book Of The Year Silver Winner - Science Fiction - Foreword INDIES
Bronze Winner - Literary Fiction - Readers' Favorite
Water Memory
Dog Logic Sequel -- And that's the funny thing about the end of the world, they never tell you how long it's going to take. Too bad they couldn't be more specific.
The earth's magnetic poles have reversed and civilization has just had its clock reset to the great cosmic flashing 12:00am from almost a million years ago, and humanity, and everybody in it, is pretty much forgetting everything it learned since the last time.
Everybody except Hertell Daggett, who remembers pretty much everything because he'd once been shot in the head—the doctors got the bullet out, but missed a few tiny specks of copper that remained, floating inside his brain, connecting him to the things everybody else on earth is slowly forgetting. Hertell sees an opportunity to start civilization all over again, and maybe even get it right this time.
1st Place - Satire - Chanticleer Mark Twain Award
1st Place - Fiction/Humor - Pencraft Book Awards
1st Place - Audiobook - Pencraft Book Awards
Silver Medal - Humor - IPBA "IPPY" Award
Bronze Medal - Literary Fiction - Readers' Favorite
Mustard Seed 1.0
Dog Logic Prequel -- This novel tells the story of how the duck-and-cover Mustard Seed civilization came to live beneath Hertell’s Lil'Pal pet cemetery, what their lives were like in their underground world while our world raged on above their heads for over half a century, and how an accordion player would ultimately lead them to Hertell and our world above. This novel (in progress) tells the story of what happened before Dog Logic and is due in 2024.
Plays
Dog Logic
This dark comedy is a hilarious but disturbing study of devotion to ideals in the face of urban sprawl. Hertell Daggett is the physical and spiritual caretaker of a run down pet cemetery in the California desert. His solitude is shattered by an aspiring real estate magnate, an ex- wife, and his long lost mother (presumed dead but actually living in Sacramento) who want to turn the property into a shopping mall. Hertell's fight to protect his forty burnt-out, dried-up acres from the forces of reality and real estate is a mix of the sublime and surreal -- dinosaurs, cave men, Egyptians, Godzilla and gospel music to answer the primal question: what makes man different than all the other animals?
Best and Final Offer (BAFO)
BAFO is a scathing black comedy set in the declining SoCal defense industry. It takes a group of middle class white men and one black woman from HR on a hilarious downward spiral from affirmative action to downsizing to a disgruntled ex-employee on a small arms rampage who asks each one for their "best and final offer." Described as "Dr. Strangelove" meets "Dog Day Afternoon", BAFO is an unapologetically testicular satire that asks the primordial question, "Where's the threat?"
Neon Psalms
The setting is an isolated trailer near Boron, California: site of the world's largest open pit Borax mine where the fragile truce between Luton Mears, a retired heavy equipment operator, and his born again wife Patina is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of their daughter Barbara, divorced, lost and bottomed out. She moves home, just to get back on her feet, only to find herself trapped in a comic but progressively vicious cross fire between Luton and Patina until a blast of hilariously fresh air arrives with the propane delivery man, Ray, who describes a bizarre but strangely comforting future.