Last night at the Gory Ghoul Ball, F. Paul Wilson sang the Tom Snider song “All Right Guy.” What’s that, you say? You missed it? Too bad. If only there was a way for you to have been there.

Wait! There is. Unfortunately for Paul, I happened to be there.

The room was dark, so the footage isn’t as clear as I’d wish, and the camera gets a little shaky near the beginning, when I’m moving to avoid letting the dancers drift into the frame. But hey, it’s better than not getting to hear Paul sing and play the guitar at all.

For those wishing to follow along, here are the lyrics (the official ones, anyway):

Well just the other day, I was sitting around in my house.
I had that new book with pictures of Madonna naked.
I was checking it out.
Well, just then a friend of mine came through the door,
She said she’d never pegged me for a scumbag before.
She said she didn’t ever want to see me any more,
And I still don’t know why!
I think I’m an all right guy.
I think I’m an all right guy.
I just want to live until I’ve got to die.
I know I ain’t perfect, but God knows I try.
I think I’m an all right guy.
I think I’m all right.
Well maybe I’m dirty and maybe I smoke a little dope.
But it ain’t like I’m going on TV
tearing up pictures of the Pope.
And I know I get wild and I know I get drunk,
But it ain’t like I’ve got a bunch of bodies in my trunk.
My old man used to call me a no-good punk,
And I still don’t know why!
I think I’m an all right guy.
I think I’m an all right guy.
I just want to live until I’ve got to die.
I know I ain’t perfect, but God knows I try.
I think I’m an all right guy.
I think I’m all right.
Well, the other night, The cops pulled me over outside a bar.
They turned on the lights,and ordered me out of my car.
Well, I was only kidding when I
called them a couple of dicks,
But still they made me do the Stupid Human Tricks.
Now I’m stuck in this jail with a bunch of dumb hicks,
And I still don’t know why!
I think I’m an all right guy.
I think I’m an all right guy.
I just want to live until I’ve got to die.
I know I ain’t perfect, but God knows I try.
I think I’m an all right guy.
I think I’m all right.

Oh, go ahead, sing along. You know you want to. Besides, Repairman Jack would.

When I first heard that F. Paul Wilson was going to write three YA novels about Repairman Jack, his popular fixer of the unusual, my initial reaction was a cross between “Huh?” And “What the—?”

If Paul was up for sharing Jack’s back story, I knew that I’d show up to read about it, for I’ve long enjoyed the character, but I always figured that when the time came, he’d interpolate that information into one of his novels for grownups, and let us look back at the early days from the perspective of adulthood. It didn’t seem to me that just because a book was going to be about Jack as a kid that it should necessarily be marketed as a book for kids, in a YA format. After all, if the age of a protagonist determined a book’s format and marketing, would that mean that a book about Jack as an old man (though he’s unlikely to survive that long) should be written for and targeted at the elderly, and only be made available in large-print editions?

So as you can see, I was wary. I knew that once this YA incarnation was published, I would read it, but I assumed I’d be … let’s just say … confused by it. I’d grown used to the tone used in the dozen or so Repairman Jack novels I’d already read. I was unsure how I’d feel about that voice being, for lack of a better word, simplified. (more…)