Carl Hurstwood

Carl is my character on Crescent City MUSH. Eventually you will be able to find information about him here. Right now it's just a bunch of pictures of a rather scruffy-looking Michael Wincott, who looks quite a bit like what I imagine Carl looks like. I should note that while Wincott fits what I picture Carl looking like, Carl definitely does not have Wincott's creepy/cool voice.

Carl is a newspaper reporter for the New Orleans Tribune, and a very good one. He was born and raised on the outskirts of New Orleans, to the west, in a little town called.Chataignier. He served in the Army at Fort Huachuca, but he wasn't much of a soldier. However, his time in the Army turned him on to journalism, and he ran the post newspaper as well as publishing from time to time in the Sierra Vista Herald / Bisbee Daily Review. Eventually he was thrown out of the Army for stirring up trouble with the base commander, and went back home to New Orleans for a journalistic gig. However, he spent five years in El Salvador covering the bloody civil war before he returned to New Orleans.

Carl Pictures

Michael Wincott is the actor I imagine playing Carl, generally speaking. [ Carl explains something with a disk ]This is a little more flamboyantly-dressed than I imagine Carl, most of the time, but it's properly scruffy. And who knows what incriminating evidence is on that disk? He might be getting in the face of The Man.
[ Carl in a white suit ]This is a little younger version of Carl, when he was more "together" and more confident in himself.
[ Carl with a gun ]Carl back in Central America, on some kind of grim, grumpishness-inducing crusade.

Carl Inspiration

The inspiration for Carl came partly from the work of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy, whose mystery novels simultaneously transcend and define the genre. Specifically, though, there are a few people and works that create him in my mind.

Humphrey Bogart in "Deadline, U.S.A." (1952)

[ Humphrey Bogart dictates an editorial ] One of Bogart's later movies, this is definitely not one of the "greats", but it is certainly an engaging way to spend a couple of hours. (Just don't wince too badly at the speeches about how heroic the media is.) Although the film is in some ways only a second-rate noir thriller, there is a great deal of sincerity in it, and it has to be rated among the quintessential noir newspaper movies because of the snappy dialogue, the overhanging sense of corruption, and the sensitivity with which the characters - even some of the "bad guys" are portrayed.
[ Humphrey Bogart and his cronies. ] One of the things I take from "Deadline, U.S.A." for Carl is Bogart's dual personality. One of the staples of noir fiction is that the protagonist puts on a tough mask and wisecracks to keep his opponents off guard, but underneath he is really a generous and caring person with real passion. This is depicted visually in the movies of the time as a softening of the lens, a lowering of the voice, a swelling of the music. That duality I try to portray with Carl.

Stephen Crane

[ Picture of Stephen Crane ] Stephen Crane was a journalist, author and poet. He wrote two magnificent novels that changed the way that American writers would work in the twentieth century and called attention to the problems of the poor in striking ways. His war reporting is widely regarded as the first modern war journalism, because of its close attention to the experience of the ordinary fighting man. He had an immense taste for liquor and women, and died of tuberculosis when he was very young.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

[ The Johnson Treatment ] Under construction. I don't want to get LBJ wrong.

Carl Links

Take me back to Jason's MU* Page.
Take me back to Jason's Writing Page.
Take me back to Jason's homepage.
Jason Corley -- corleyj@cobweb.scarymonsters.net