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WORK TITLE: Gimme 15 Inches
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.davemolter.com/
CITY:
STATE: PA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES: Quote from Forword is found in littsburgh website.
PERSONAL
Male.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, columnist, and musician. Works as a freelance writer and as a bass player in various bands, including Johnny Angel & the Halos, Johnny Angel’s All Star Jam Band, and Mojo Jojo. Previously worked various jobs, including as retail manager and in communications.
AWARDS:Keystone Press Award (two), Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association, for columns; Pittsburgh’s Golden Quill Awards for journalism.
WRITINGS
Writes a biweekly humor column for the Observer-Reporter, Washington, PA; contributing writer for Dead Center magazine.
SIDELIGHTS
Dave Molter is a writer and a musician. He grew up in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, just northwest of Pittsburgh. Although he thought about becoming and English teacher, he got caught up in music after hearing the Beatles when he was fifteen years old. On his home website, Molter admits he still wants to be a Beatle. Molter played bass in a series of rock band when he was young while working not only as a musician but also as a writer and editor. He has continued to play bass in bands throughout most of his life.
Molter is a longtime columnist who draws his inspiration from a variety of sources, from comedians such as Steve Allen an Mel Brooks to cartoons such as Looney Tunes and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Many of Molter’s columns are satiric as he writes about the absurd, often getting his inspiration from newspaper headlines as well as back-page stories that could slip by the casual reader.
In his debut book, Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline Driven Observations, Molter presents the best of his columns and essays written over the years. Writing in the book’s foreword, Molter explains the “Gimme 15 Inches” in the book’s title, noting: It is “a variation of what newspaper editors say to reporters who arrive back at the office after an assignment, at deadline, ready to write. Editors create page layouts in advance, leaving a certain number of ‘column inches’ blank. This they charmingly call the ‘news hole.’ Reporters fill that hole.”
Many of the essays in Gimme 15 Inches examine the world of consumerism, such as the$6,000-plus toilets that include forced-air drying. In another entry, Molter discusses Gerber’s Apocalypse Survival Kit. Produced by the U.S. company Gerber, which specializes in the production of knives and tools, the kit provides the essentials needed to survive a Zombie attack. It includes knives, machetes, and an axe in a canvas carrying case, complete with lifetime warranty. It also includes pork-infused bullets to add insult to injury when attacked by Islamic terrorists.
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Molter, Dave, Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline Driven Observations, Handbasket Books, 2017.
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, January 15, 2018, review of Gimme 15 Inches, p. 55.
ONLINE
Dave Molter website, http://www.davemolter.com (June 26, 2018).
Littsburgh, https://www.littsburgh.com/ (June 27, 2018), “Start Reading Gimme 15 Inches by Dave Molter…,” book excerpts.
Readers’ Favorite, https://readersfavorite.com/ (June 4, 2018), Jack Magnus, review of Gimme 15 Inches.
Meet the Molter
Dave picture
Musician and writer Dave Molter grew up in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. He lived a rather normal childhood and planned to become an English teacher. But at 15 he discovered the Beatles, and everything changed. After teaching himself to play bass guitar, he joined a series of rock bands, slipped the surly bonds of the Beaver Valley and took up residence in the suburbs of the nearest large city that begins with a “P.” There he lurked, disguised as, variously, a musician, writer, editor, retail manager and communications wage slave.
He is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association Keystone Press Award for columns and a recipient of Pittsburgh’s Golden Quill Awards for journalism. Dave freelances today by writing a biweekly humor column for the Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter newspaper and as a contributing writer for Dead Center Magazine, a quarterly arts publication based in State College, Pennsylvania.
He still wants to be a Beatle.
For more than 50 years, Dave has played bass in rock and R&B bands, opening for acts as diverse as the Allman Brothers Band and Night Ranger. In 1970, Dave's band BlueByrd released "I Hear You Knockin'" on Buddah Records, and in 1973 his band Pyewacket released "Boogie Boogie Boogie!" on Western World Records. Look hard, and you may find these 45s on eBay.
Dave currently holds the bottom line with Johnny Angel & the Halos, Johnny Angel's All Star Jam Band (appearing several times monthly at Atria's PNC Park, on Pittsburgh's North Side) and Mojo Jojo, a four-piece combo that plays American and British rock from the 1960s.
Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline-Driven Observations
Publishers Weekly. 265.3 (Jan. 15, 2018): p55+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline-Driven Observations
Dave Molter. Handbasket Books, $16.95 trade paper (214p) ISBN 978-0-692-85557-7
Reporter and humor columnist Molter attempts to showcase his wit from nearly three decades of his Washington, Pa., Observer-Reporter columns in this lackluster collection of his favorite entries. His column employs a style of observational humor that's somewhat reminiscent of Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck, with musings on a variety of mundane, inconsequential topics, such as the "socialist threat" posed by compact fluorescent light bulbs and the lack of vampire movies in 1993. Unfortunately the collection is ridden with predictable puns and other lamentable dad jokes, as when Molter employs the phrase "a right wings conspiracy" in a story about a stickup at a chicken-wing joint. His penchant for referring to himself in the third person in the introduction to each chapter adds an additional awkward element to the mix. Molter fares better when he's not trying so hard to win laughs. His best entries are on more serious topics such as the evolution of manhood in the 21st century or the armed militants who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. Unfortunately, the majority of this collection falls short of funny. (BookLife)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline-Driven Observations." Publishers Weekly, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 55+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A523888944/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4543f687. Accessed 4 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A523888944
Gimme 15 Inches
Gimme 15 Inches
Rants, Raves and Deadline-Driven Observations
by Dave Molter
Non-Fiction - Humor/Comedy 222 Pages Reviewed on 12/15/2017Buy on Amazon
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Dave Molter is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association Keystone Press Award for column writing and a recipient of Pittsburgh's Golden Quill Awards for journalism. Today he freelances by writing a biweekly humor column for the Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter newspaper and as a contributing writer for Dead Center Magazine, a quarterly arts publication based in State College, Pa.
Inspired by Looney Tunes, Steve Allen, Mel Brooks, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Mad magazine and a raft of punsters and social commentators both famous and infamous, Dave for almost 30 years has written columns about the absurd and made them "absurderer," drawing from the headlines or stories buried on life's back pages,
Gimme 15 Inches, assembles the best of Dave's columns and essays in one place for the first time.
BOOK REVIEW
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline-Driven Observations is a nonfiction collection of humorous columns and essays written by Dave Molter. In his About the Author section, Molter indicates that he’s a freelance writer of humor columns for the Observer-Reporter newspaper and a contributing writer for Dead Center Magazine. He has twice won the Keystone Press Award for Columns and was a nominee for the Golden Quill Award. Molter’s columns explore the crazy world of consumerism, ranging from the agelessness and unrealistic statistics of the Barbie and Ken dolls and the male outrage felt when the GI Joe action figure was shrunken and described as a doll, to the insanity of a toilet that costs over $6,000 and features forced-air drying. He pokes fun at Gerber’s Apocalypse Survival Kit, which comes complete with a lifetime warranty, and Jihawg Ammunition’s pork-infused bullets which are designed to really sock it to Islamic terrorists.
In his 1989 column, entitled Eenie, Meenie, Chili Beanie, Molter, thinking he’d been offered an opportunity to be “a celebrity judge at the Super Bowl of Chile,” finds he’s actually signed on to judge 50 of the world’s hottest chilis, complete with secret ingredients, and enough heat to have sent previous judges to the emergency room. And in "M Is for the Memories She Gave Me," he describes a mother who was always there to calm him after an altercation with his dad, a mom who helped him run away from home and whose picture shows her sticking her tongue out at the photographer. As Molter mentions in his introduction, I, like many others who open this book and begin reading, had little idea what I was setting myself up for. I got the meaning of the fifteen inches rather quickly, and while I do confess to having a rather limited sense of humor at best, I remembered how much I had enjoyed the columns of Art Buchwald and Erma Bombeck, and so I persevered. Gimme 15 Inches is a delight. As I read through Dave Molter’s engaging and outright funny columns, I recognized a kindred spirit and found it increasingly difficult to tear myself away from his stories. I kept on thinking, well, just one more.
This honest and infinitely human collection is a joy to read as the author weighs in on the silly things in modern culture and tech, and shares life growing up in the fifties and sixties of the last century. I especially enjoyed the two essays with which he concludes this collection: Childhood’s End and In My Life: How the Beatles Saved Me, and Everyone. And yes, while I was somewhat younger at the time, I can still remember that defining moment hearing that first Beatles song and how it did indeed change everything. Gimme 15 Inches is a must-read, something you don’t want to miss -- it’s most highly recommended.
Start Reading Gimme 15 Inches by Dave Molter…
Dave Molter grew up in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. There he lived a rather normal childhood by the standards of the times — the Fifties and Sixties — and planned to become an English teacher. But at 15 he discovered the Beatles, and everything changed. After teaching himself to play bass guitar, he joined a series of rock bands, slipped the surly bonds of the Beaver Valley and took up residence in the suburbs of the nearest large city that begins with a “P.” There he lurked, disguised as, variously, a musician, writer, editor, retail manager and communications wage slave. Dave continues to play in several Pittsburgh area rock bands, most notably Johnny Angel & the Halos.
Dave is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association Keystone Press Award for columns and Pittsburgh’s Golden Quill Awards. Dave freelances today by writing a biweekly humor column for the Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter newspaper and as a contributing writer for Dead Center Magazine, a quarterly arts publication based in State College, Pennsylvania.
He still wants to be a Beatle.
Gimme 15 Inches: Rants, Raves and Deadline-Driven Observations assembles the best of Dave’s columns and essays in one place for the first time.
More Information
From the publisher: “If you’ve ever wondered who wrote the first Christmas newsletter or why compact fluorescent lightbulbs might be a Communist plot, Gimme 15 Inches is for you. Naked samurai swordsmen? Buzz Aldrin? Rugged revolutionaries who demand two kinds of sandwich spread and sliced cheese to make the fight more palatable? A school board president who deems Herb Alpert the devil’s disciple? They’re all there. Why not join them?”
Foreword
My apologies to anyone who, based on its title, bought this book expecting a memoir of my years in the porn industry. Silly! If that were so, it would be a hardcover.
“Gimme 15 Inches” is a variation of what newspaper editors say to reporters who arrive back at the office after an assignment, at deadline, ready to write. Editors create page layouts in advance, leaving a certain number of “column inches” blank. This they charmingly call the “news hole.” Reporters fill that hole.
Hmmm. That does sound pornographic!
But it’s an apt description. Each column herein takes up about 15 inches of space in the Washington (Pa.) Observer-Reporter newspaper, where they began appearing in 1989 after I was hired as a beat reporter. It was my first real writing job. Beat reporters most often cover police news, local government and schools; they occasionally may write a longer “feature” story. But our news editor also encouraged us to write columns—a.k.a., opinion pieces—once a month. Some of my colleagues shied from the task, but I relished it. My editor liked my style, and soon I was writing a column every week.
I left the O-R in 1992 but returned when the atmosphere at the public relations writing job I’d taken became anal-retentive. I left permanently in 1994, and my column writing ceased until 2010. That’s when the O-R’s then-managing editor asked if I would be interested in returning as a freelancer. I jumped at the chance.
Many will find my columns goofy, implausible or snide. That’s fine. I began writing for my own amusement, and that’s still my approach. I am continually baffled when readers take offense at what I consider to be innocuous things; I am equally surprised when a column I think is a throwaway elicits praise. Quite often I write a piece making fun of both sides of an issue. When someone from each side thanks me, I know I have succeeded in my real goal—sowing confusion in the already weed-choked gardens of readers’ minds.
This book is arranged in sections of like subject matter, but columns needn’t be read in order or in sections. I have provided historical context to clarify references that were topical at the time of the column’s original publication but which may seem quizzical today.
Read on! You know you want it!
Scenes From a Marriage
Author’s note: This column elicited irate calls and letters from readers. I like to believe it was because when they got to the end, they felt cheated because they were expecting something lascivious.
“How long has it been since we… you know!” his wife asked.
“If you have to ask, it has been too long,” he replied.
“I know, I know,” she said.
They both laughed.
But it had been too long.
In fact, all he could recall was that the last time he had done it, it was with her.
Time was they had done it regularly—even before they were married, if the truth be known. Even in the afternoon. They continued apace during their first three years of marriage. They had done it almost every weekend then. They had enjoyed it so much on one occasion that they had held hands and cried in the dark after it was over.
Then he had changed jobs.
He had begun working evenings and weekends. She, working daylight, was often asleep when he arrived home from work. They began to do it less frequently.
* * *
Often during this period they would go to parties or picnics, listen to their friends talk about doing it, and recall how much they had enjoyed the experience—the flicker of lights turned low; the whisper of soft music.
Sometimes, their memories stirred by what they had heard, they would excuse themselves early from the party or picnic, drive away and do it. If the hour was late, they might wait until the next day. But do it they would. Always.
And always they could remember when the last time had been.
Then, after nearly eight years of marriage, things had changed again. Drastically.
She had become pregnant; he had begun working night turn. They seldom saw each other.
And if they did, almost by accident, manage to spend a weekend evening together, they often were too tired to do it.
Before long, reading about it was all they did.
After the baby was born—after a nine-month stretch when, if memory served, they had done it but once—they had made special arrangements to do it.
They had had to: She would be returning to work. They knew the chance would not soon come again—she, working daylight, would definitely be asleep when he arrived home from work.
So they did it—left their infant son with her sister for a few hours, drove off and did it. They both still remembered that time.
But the baby grew and doing it became even more difficult. They thought about scheduling a time for it, but both wanted it to be spontaneous. Besides, they thought, what if it’s bad? Then what do we do? So they postponed it.
Soon neither could recall the last time they had done it.
* * *
Not that they had forgotten how to do it. They often sat watching a rented movie in the family room and talked about doing it again. But they never quite got around to actually doing it.
Finally, she had called him at work.
“How long has it been since we … you know?” she asked.
“If you have to ask, it has been too long,” he replied.
“I know it was during the day… and that we liked it,” he continued, digging deep into his memory. “But geez… I don’t know when it was.”
He laughed. “Maybe we should start writing it down on the calendar.”
“Ha!” she had said sarcastically. So he had decided not to mention it for a while.
Besides, he knew, vacation was coming. They would be together every day and night for a week. No more excuses. They would do it. They would leave their son with her sister again if they had to.
And if that proved impossible, they would let the boy watch.
After all, he was now almost 2½—a babe-in-arms no more. Anyway, he’d never remember what he saw. And even if he did, he’d never understand it.
Yes. They’d do it while they were on vacation.
They’d go out to a movie.
Even if they both had headaches.