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Lionel A. LaVergne Lionel A. LaVergne was born in Louisiana and lived there until he joined the USAF. After his honorable discharge in 1959 he moved to the Houston, Texas area. He operated business machine sales and repair compnies till 1994 when he bought several postal centers. After divesting himself of all of his operations he semi retired in 1999. He worked for the state of Texas, part-time, teaching teenagers how to drive and one night while his class was practicing simulation driving while he read Hannibal, he decided he could write a villan that was more horrible. In 2002 he retired completely and began doing the thing he had always wanted to do, write On completion of his first manuscript in 2003, titled Houston Beast, he sent it to a publisher and it was accepted. Two years later, in 2005 his second book Innocence Lost was published. He has since completed three more manuscipts and has three more in various stages of completion. He now resides in a small town just north of Houston Texas with his wife Monna and his dog Poco, the smartest dog in the world. Lionel's Latest e-Books: http://samhainpublishing.com/authors/lionel-lavergne http://samhainpublishing.com/books/judgment-at-johns-hollow Visit his website: http://booksbylavergne.com/ Read Chapters to "HOUSTON BEAST" & "INNOCENCE LOST"  Read my latest...  Read my latest e-book...  by Lionel A. LaVergne “Sam, we’re really hurting, what are we going to do?” Asked Albert. The huge office where he and his partner sat was filled with expensive oak furnishings. The wood paneling on the walls were richly polished and hung with paintings by famous artists. The desk Sam sat behind was large enough to house a poor Chinese family, if there had been any poor Chinese left in the world. In his fingers he rolled a Cuban cigar, no longer illegal, since the USA had been trading with Cuba for years now, since Fidel had finally died at the age of 120. The Tiffany lamp that sat on his desk was much too gaudy for a business setting, but he always wanted people to know just how rich he was, or had been. As he waited for the answer to his somewhat redundant question he gazed out into the large room that held fifty work stations. Once that room had been constantly filled with motion and activity, now one lone editor sat and read a manuscript. Which one is that? Albert wondered. Oh yes, the latest from a female porn star, titled, How I turned two pounds of silicone into two billion dollars. More crap. “Hell, don’t ask me. Anyhow, we’re not the only ones. When was the last time you saw an original movie, I mean a new one, not a 13th sequel or remake of something that came out before 2010?” Sam asked. “How did this happen? We had a successful publishing company, my dad made millions off of this enterprise, now we’re going broke.” Albert whined. The year is 2050 and the two friends are at a complete loss and cannot comprehend what has happened to the entertainment business. People no longer read books and there haven’t been lines at movie houses for several years. He recalled that many major publishing companies had begun to file for bankruptcy in the early part of the 21st century. His company had managed to hold the line but their assets were fast being eaten away, no income, all out-go, did that. As established authors became too old and senile to write, or simply died, publishers found there was a shortage of original stories. No one seemed to know why. Tell-all books, or my experience in government, or how I did this or that and why I did it, and I swear it’s all true, were no longer selling. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and all of the other major book sellers were now strictly coffee emporiums. For Starbucks it had been simple, they had moved out B&N’s shelves and placed their counters in the empty building. It was a short and easy move. Albert was aware that the movie industry had finally remade every film ever made that had been slightly successful, now they had run out of things to film, at least stories that would bring customers in. Somehow, dimly, Albert was aware that since there were no new stories being written, there were no new books or movies, not to mention television shows. But, why? Albert wondered. The two businessmen, if they had investigated their own company’s history, the business practices decided upon beginning circa 2005, they would have understood, why. The beginning of the end went something like this. The outside of the envelope was dated July 1, 2015. The return address, Titans LLLP, 120 Broadway, New York, NY, was printed in gold lettering. The young man’s hands trembled as he carefully removed the sheet of stationery. The material felt expensive, even to his calloused fingers. He was aware that the material used to make this paper was probably very costly, but he was a house roofer, and knew little about the finer things in life. But, he had dreams and spent every spare moment trying to achieve his goals. Many hours, days, weeks and now years had been spent at his computer; typing, editing, retyping, reediting, retyping, changing this, adding that, looking for just the right word, the catchy phrase, the poignant statement that would catch an editor’s eye. “We’re sorry,” the rejection slip stated. “Unless your mss. is submitted by an agent we can’t accept it.” On his lap lay the unopened manila package containing his heart and dreams. No one had even bothered to read one single word of his novel. Mike shook his head and turned to his wife. “What a catch-22 that is. I can’t get an agent because I’ve never been published, yet the publishers won’t even look at my manuscript unless my agent sends it to them.” “It’s kinda weird. I was at the book store yesterday looking for something to read, and all I could find were volumes about, cooking, gardening, macramé, and books by former presidents, first ladies, generals, the guy that tried to kill the vice president, has-been movie stars and several by porn queens. I got excited when I saw a novel by one of my favorite female authors, on the cover was, New Release. Inside I read, fourth printing, the cover illustration was new but the insides were the same as the book I had read twelve years ago. I swear the fiction section was empty.” Said Sue, Mike’s wife. “I guess my ideas for stories aren’t any good, might as well give up.” Mike said feeling sorry for himself. “Hon, you write wonderful stories. They make me laugh and cry, they make me happy and although bad things happen, everything always comes out great in the end. I love the things you write.” Sue said encouragingly. “Thank you sweetie, at least I’ve got one fan in the world. What do you want to do tonight, anything special?” “I thought we could take in a movie, but all that’s playing are remakes of stuff we saw ten years ago. How many times are they going to redo “Psycho” and “Guess who’s coming to dinner?” “What’s on TV, sweetie?” Mike asked. “Let me see, channel 2 has three reality shows in a row. “Marooned On An Island”, “Twelve People Living On Insects”, “Scare Your Pants Off,” I saw that one they really do scare people’s pants off.” “How about one of the other channels? After all we’ve got 400 hundred.” Mike asked. “100 through 300 has “Paid Programming” on every channel for 24 hours straight. 301 through 400 are MTV type line ups featuring rappers. 11, 13, 26, etc has reruns of old, old, old movies and sitcoms, and some one-hour mysteries that were popular years ago.” “What happened to the seasons TV once had? Now the few new shows are all that reality crap which is about as real and believable as car commercials.” “You’re right, there hasn’t been a new sit-com, drama series, now even many new movies, unless it’s those so-called docudramas, whatever that means, in I don’t recall how long ago, a long time for sure.” “That is strange.” Mike observed. “I wonder what’s going on?” Picking up the TV remote he began searching for a news broadcast. “This just in, horror writer, Dino Kueen, committed suicide this morning. He left a note saying, “I can’t live in a world where no one gives a F--- about great writing. No one cares.” His publisher was quoted in a written statement as follows. “We loved, Dino Kueen, and believe he was the greatest writer that ever lived. But due to the direction in books, movies and television today, we needed for him to turn his writing talents to ghost-writing. We have hundreds of famous and important people who have wonderful stories to tell. But due to having spent a life building their exceptional talents as, politicians, actors, military heroes, porn stars, CEOs that bankrupted their companies, directors that no longer make movies, former mob members, disgraced CIA agents, and the list goes on, none of these great citizens have the necessary talent to relate their engrossing stories, so we are asking all of our writers that are on our staff to use their abilities in this new and exciting endeavor.” Mike immediately knew what was meant, none of these great people had the ability to spell or was aware of the difference between a semi-colon and the one found inside their respective bowels. I wonder where this is going to lead? He wondered. Where will we be thirty five years from now, by the middle of this century will there be anything at all worth reading or watching? I know. Lionel A. LaVergne author Houston Beast and Innocence Lost. 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