Book excerpt: "Watching The Skies & Other Beastly Tales" is Jim Marquez's 14th self-published book in 8 years! A departure of sorts for Jim as he leaves the grimy confines of Downtown Los Angeles and takes us on a surreal journey across the alien landscape of a forbidden Nevada desert (through the eyes of a 'young Jack Morales'), tumbles alongside the inebriated canals of Amsterdam, looks for love in all the wrong places in Scotland, and has to run for his life in London! This collection of 'Beastly' tales of life on the rocks then returns to the warped sensibility of L.A. for a wicked homage to Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust" (illustrated by artist Emmeric Konrad), and finally comes to a crushing halt in Jim's hometown of East L.A. In between, for how could he resist (?), Jim examines the base nature of man back on the wee-hours-streets of a changed & vanishing Downtown arts scene: Booze. Sex. Racism. Violence. Madness. Family fun for all!