Looking Back, Ahead, Around…
December 31, 2008
Yes, yes…it’s one of those entries. A typical, end of the year, nostalgically self-absorbed menu of rehash and hodgepodge that seeks to define one’s future by exploring one’s immediate past under the pretense that we have any control over either. And I might as well tell you the end: I’ll find it in me, after much hedging and hand-wringing, to conclude that the trailing twelve months have been learning experiences and that, if I take each painful second to task, 2009 will be, at most, 51% positive. And then I’ll sign off with something wistful, lacing my words with the appropriate mixture of determinism and melancholy so that my caricature here remains slightly tragic, yet ever-so courageous.
Oh, fuck that. To be honest, it’s been a decent year of love, work and wonder and any disappointments seemed to fuel new adventures and fresh outlooks on what’s important and what’s not, what’s going well and what might need a tweak here or there. I tend to enjoy the turning of the new year in all of its predictably garish glory that sets awash over the human genome like so much spilled glitter on a bared, rosy tit. It’s a fist in the air, a solo out; none of it should count for the rest of it but some of it should count for something. Or something.
In any event, I’ll be spending it with a loved one and a few other loved ones and maybe having some exotically flavored dip. I could be persuaded to indulge in a cocktail or two, and if I’m feeling nasty, a bit of Wii bowling. If all goes as planned, I’ll miss the ball dropping due to watching the 8-ball drop into the side pocket, and when informed of the clock’s final tick and rewind, I’ll shake a few hands and plant a doozy on my Weezy. Then I’ll go back to doing what I was doing and considering more dip. And beer. And maybe a shot of mighty fine whisky.
Okay, so maybe a small list is in order: I wrote two books, read a few more, learned a lot, spent time with friends I hadn’t seen in a while, saw some gorgeous English countryside, watched a few horror classics and a couple of newer, non-classics, discovered Alien Worlds and other audio book magic, changed my sideburns, bought some awesome dresses that look fantastic on my woman, cured my cat of diabetes (sort of!), and got hardwood floors. On the negative side, I watched my favorite sports team play like poo with feet and my other favorite sports team win the world series. Wait, this is supposed to be all negative. Okay, let me try again…the economy blows, but Obama won the election. Sorry, one more time…we lost some real talent in the entertainment industry and a lot of good men and women died in a pointless war, but my family is healthy and I’ve got loads of great friends.
Shit, maybe I just can’t do full-bore negative. Let’s call it a character flaw and move on.
In the end, and more germane to this blog, I wrote a lot and did it listening to lots of good music and drinking a fair amount of good beer. I imagine I’ll do much of the same in the coming year, and it is my new goal to achieve the old goal that I failed to achieve in 2008: secure literary representation. Whether I accomplish that or not, I will have written hundreds of thousands of more words, each one in its place, doing work, baring my soul by some equation, and giving me countless hours of satisfaction and joy. In between, I will live my life much as I have done up to this point. The future is hopeful, good people. Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground and with a little luck we’ll see one another on the other side with smiles, and stories and song. And whisky.
Before I sign off, please click the eye above and give some love to a woman who puts together a blog that is tireless in its offerings of the beautiful, haunting, frightening and purely unusual. Please? Cheers.
Have a wonderful new year, everyone. See you.
The Things I’ve Seen
December 22, 2008
Consider this another one of those “brain dump” entries that throws out a few tidbits in the hopes of getting a few in return. I like to share my viewing and reading experiences with y’all, and would love to hear what you’ve found particularly remarkable in the various entertainment mediums.
Television has been stingy in its offerings lately, and I put that down to holiday schedules. I tend to watch only sports around these times, with the occasional reality show finale. Last night concluded the highly ridiculous “Rock of Love: Charm School” series for this season (and perhaps forever as they tend to mutate into spin–offs rather than pick up where they left off). For those of you who may have missed it, ex-porn star/stripper turned reality show D-list celebrity Brandie M. beat some chick named Destiney. Apparently it came down to her renouncing her old burping and farting ways and swearing to like herself a lot more now that she won the 100k. Sharon Osborne was reduced to tears trying to choose between them, but managed in the end. My cat sneezed. It was magical.
Earlier this week I picked up a passed over classic called The Unseen from a tip I received in the latest issue of Rue Morgue. I was enthralled by the early 80′s attempt to creep me out. Sidney Lassick (formerly known as the mugging and immature Charlie Cheswick in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) overplays another role as an abusive museum curator who invites three female TV reporters into his home to bathe freely over the product-of-incest son he keeps hidden in the basement; himself played with fierce enthusiasism by character actor, Stephen Furst. You may recognize that name as he was the “zero…point…zero” fraternity brother “Flounder” in Animal House. In most publications where one reads of Lassick or Furst, their roles in this forgotten freak-show are rudely omitted. The Unseen was prophetically named, and that really is a shame. I honestly have a hard time remembering two better horror performances of that decade.
I didn’t stop my trip into horror cinema’s past at 1981, but continued another ten years over the ocean until I reached the first installment of Spanish director Armand De Ossorio’s classic undead quadrilogy Tombs of the Blind Dead. There are several things I loved about this film, not the least of which was learning that at one point when it was released in American drive-in theaters, it was retitled Revenge of the Planet Ape in order to take advantage of the successful monkey franchise of that time. Not a single frame was changed prior to doing this, either (one of which I’ve used as my entry photo above). How fucking awesome is that? Very, is the answer; very fucking awesome. To get a better understanding of the story, sometimes it’s best just to turn it over to a video. While you watch it, marvel at how the ghosts could have easily been any permutation of humanoid and truly understand the genius behind such a shameless marketing ploy. But the 70′s were all about shamelessness, weren’t they? How else would you get that relentlessly bleak tone, that announcer’s voice, those mustaches? If you don’t know the answer, I’ll give it to you: shamelessness and horror are a touchstone of modern storytelling. We’d be lost without it.
To be completely honest, the sets were extraordinary and the ghost effects surprisingly accomplished. What I really miss about horror films of this ilk that was so prevalent back then was the freedom the director had to lay waste to everyone and everything, and then follow it up with a “sequel”. There is no reprieve in TotBD. You’re fucked from the first reel. I’ve put an order in for the rest of the series, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and tight pants with you in the future.
Other than those two horror staples, I did manage to catch another horror flick on the Sci-fi Channel called Wind Chill. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve seen on there, and I was actually rather impressed by the dialog––which was a good thing since the entire film plays out with two people trapped in a car in a blizzard. They’re bad luck continues when they begin to see strange things in the surrounded woods.
The best thing about the movie was the performance of the female lead. The actor’s name is Emily Blunt, and she’s starring with Bencio Del Toro in the upcoming The Wolf Man remake, directed by Joe Johnston. He’s behind a lot of the early Star Wars effects and most recently helmed Hildago and Jurassic Park III. It’s a somewhat strange resume for something like this, but the publicity photo I’ve seen is simply beautiful. There was a trailer floating about, but NBC Universal…ahh, found a bootleg.
Yeah, I know it’s probably not cool to post it, but “shameless”, remember? 
Hey, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy holiday season. I may post in the interim, but if I don’t, do try and be the kind of person that would lend a helping hand and an understanding ear. If you can’t, just scare the hell out of them. Sometimes it’s just as important to remind the world of how good they have it. Heh.
Now, off to shine up those queries for a mid-January mailing.
A Very Special Day
December 15, 2008
Hello, all. As you may have gleaned from the title of this post, today is a very special day for me. You see, some time ago I picked this day, December 15th, 2008, as my deadline for securing literary representation.
Most of my time leading up to this day was spent writing and filling my portfolio with “product”. In the beginning, I was bold and ambitious, drafting huge titles such as B.L.O.O.M., a five night miniseries about humankind being scanned into android containers in order to escape a self-destructing planet earth and continue the race in the unfriendly climates of outer space. I was sure it was better than anything being offered on the Sci-Fi channel at the time, and whether I was wrong or right remains a mystery. If one were to deduce from my success and the success of those scribes responsible for classic fare such as “Yeti” and “Mansquito”, I would have been proven quite wrong. As it was, I could only contact a small bunch of agents as many that might have found it interesting required I be represented already; a quandary I’ve yet to get my head around. Anyway, it was too much for anyone to accept for a new writer, or such was my conclusion. Maybe it was just bad. Who knows? But it remains in a drawer where it is likely to stay until human beings really do need to escape the planet–which, if I may borrow a little cynicism to cheer me up, could be soon from the looks of things.
After B.L.O.O.M., I began to pen wildly: big budget horror trilogy here, complex, semi-animated dark coming-of-age tale there. Getting smart–or so I thought–I eventually wrote a screenplay for something that I thought fit the budget of most of those producers one finds on Inktip.com (where I listed all of my titles for $50/ea). It was a small movie, but scary in a subtle, unsettling sort of way. It was, I thought, tightly scripted, yet loose enough to include a director’s touch. It pushed the moral envelope, as I’m wont to do, but I suffered great pains to reset the compass at the end in order to include a larger slice of American movie-going public. As Hollywood cranked out remake after remake, I dared them with my story of false redemption by the sea. I even made a video about it for a contest that I didn’t win. But no matter, some projects you believe in no matter how many signs seek to convince you otherwise.
And then I got a call.
It was an honest to goodness Hollywood agent. I’ll never forget it, as it was a dreary Sunday night and I was already heading for bed. It was damn near the greatest phone call I’d ever received at that time slot: she fawned over my style and craft; she loved the characters, right down to their clever little names; she got all my inside jokes and was picking Hollywood A-listers in her head for the roles. She even shared my interest in characters with skin color anomalies! And then, after two hours, my phone’s battery began to alert me that it was about to cut off. She said no worry, we would talk later. In a few days, I think she said.
Errr…no. It was never, actually. A few reassuring emails and another screenplay sent post-haste to her door later, the romance was over. I’m not sure if it was the second screenplay I sent her (complex, semi-animated, dark coming-of-age thing) or something entirely unrelated to me and my writing. People, as it turns out, are human. And humans have shit come up all the time. But instead of getting bitter, I took the little jolts of confidence that the original phone call sent through me and decided to write something new; something that seemed a surefire sale, but without compromising the subject matter and style inherent in my other “product”. This one would be something I could almost budget over the phone, and I even had a high concept teaser to go with it. “Lost in Transfusion” I called it, in an attempt to excite another to call with dreams of pushing an indie horror film that boasted an elegant, Sofia Coppola vibe but with a large toe in the vampire zeitgeist pool. It was set at a three-day horror convention in a hotel and everything (timelock!). Young girl with tragic past meets old author dude with a horrific solution. So excited was I–and undaunted by my rejection–that I started immediately penning a character sketch of the main character, Eliza.
Two months later I had a novella. Yeah, I wasn’t feeling burned about Hollywood at all. Noooo.
But you know what, I loved it when it was finished. Still do. And it got me to do my next book, which I’m buttoning-up just now. And it seems I’m starting back at the beginning when I was writing about subjects that you will not easily find on the Border’s front tables. In fact, just yesterday I took a stroll around the popular bookstore franchise and was a little hard-pressed to work out where this new story would fit. Horror was close, but not quite right. And up front next to the new offering from the guy who wrote The Kite Runner was a stretch too far, for sure. Where do the genre-benders go? Do we have a special club where we smoke cigarettes and say clever things until the wee hours? Is their a movement about, because I’d really like to know. At the moment I’m calling it “high-camp, dark fiction”. I could just as easily call it an “over-the-top thriller with horror elements”. A part of me would love to just slip a few next to a Martha Stewart cookbook, and see how it goes over. Anyway, the queries for this one are in production, and at least I get a chance to say there’s a message under all that romp. We’ll see, won’t we?
Anyway, today’s professional specialness is running a little low. I don’t think I’ll get that call, but I’m likely to get a few others. And what is always as sure as “shit on your shoe”, I’ll be writing and querying and pushing the boundaries as I see them until it’s time to go home. Because possibly worse than never becoming a serious author in my lifetime is becoming one writing stuff that betrays those early efforts where I was bold and undaunted by the industry, the economy, remake hysteria and being just another guy in the middle of nowhere who thinks he has something to say. I think I always want to be that guy.
It still wouldn’t hurt to get another Sunday phone call that doesn’t go where you think it might, though. But like so many journeys a writer takes, if he takes them for the right reasons, where you end up may prove well worth visiting.
Rest in peace, Ms. Page.
It’s All in Your Head
December 9, 2008
Lately I’ve been indulging in all forms of radio dramas, and I have to confess, I’m addicted. As far as I’m concerned, Book Radio is the best thing to come out of the Sirius/XM radio merge. In fact, I barely listen to music or regular old talk radio in my travels anymore. How could I when I’ve got an endless supply of well produced audio literature to enjoy? For instance, this is what I listened to yesterday:
Harry Nile (6:30 am – 7:00 am) – he’s an old skool gumshoe who always gets his man but never the dame. Tightly produced, with the added benefit of a few unintentional chuckles.
SONIC TALK: Slice of Sci-Fi (7:00 am – 7:30 am) – what it says on the tin. A couple of broadcasters talk about science fiction movies, books and TV. Sonic Talk on other days will interview authors about their books and they really dig-in with discussion of perspective, plot, character, you name it. It’s like taking a masters class on the way into work.
Work.
Orson Scott Card’s Universe – Shadow of the Hegemon (10:00am – 10:30 am) – there are occasions where I’ll be on the road at this time, and while I’ve seen this guy’s stuff on the shelves, I’ve never tried it out. I may be changing my mind. The writing is excellent and so are the productions. The most ingeniously sci-fi thing about the show is how quickly it makes time fly.
And then they run some productions that are repeated on my way home. Depending on when I leave, I’ve been listening to:
The Big Read presents The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (4:30pm – 5:00pm) – this chick could write, flat out. Again, it’s something I’d probably never pick up, which is exactly why it’s thrilling now and why my writing will likely benefit as a result.
Alien Worlds by Arthur C. Clarke (5:00pm – 5:30pm) – this production is without a doubt my favorite. Jon Graydon and Buddy Griff (can you get more 50′s than that?) are space captains who, along with Dr. Maura Cassidy encounter all manner of “aliens”, which is a concept I find kind of funny considering that everyone in space is pretty much on equal footing, aren’t they? Well, this crew doesn’t think so. As far as I can tell, they consider space their personal domain (post-WWII politics are a gas), and anyone they encounter is an alien out to destroy them. Check out this summary from a recent, and mostly hilarious episode called “The Sun Stealers”:
Captains Jon Graydon and Buddy Griff, Dr. Maura Cassidy and the intrepid crew of Starlab meet Zarr Khonar, leader of the monster aliens from the Marcab Confederacy. Will Earth freeze over and become a solid mass of ice as the Marcab mine our sun’s energy? Find out as we cross the threshold of the unknown and enter…
…ALIEN WORLDS. The announcer is classic “suit and tie with slicked back hair” and sometimes, half the fun is doing your own running commentary a la Mystery Science Theater. But not always. I’ve just listened to part three of “The ISA Conspiracy”, and it was actually pretty scary. Sure, they have to slather the voices with all sorts of outdated audio tricks (I’m pretty sure Khonar was done by talking into a fan), but you can’t beat the sound effects and sharp direction. Last up, is…
Classic Naxos Audiobooks presents The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (5:30pm – 6:00) – Wilkie can flat out write, as well. It’s rolling, complex stuff that makes you want to slap the reader sometimes and yell, “out with it, fool!”, but once you get into the groove, you’re lost in the spooky tale of a man who is trying to save the woman he loves but keeps running into a mysterious woman he’s seen dressed head-to-toe in white. At one point in the story he’s heard describing another woman sat at a table who was the laziest person he’d ever seen, and figured God must have created her at the same time he created the cabbage. It had me laughing out loud.
Anyway, that’s what I listen to and from work, and when I’m out running errands, or heading to get something to eat at the weekend, or whenever I’m in the car. There are also live theater reads that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, including an LA Theater Works production of Arthur Miller’s The Ride Down Mt. Morgan that was pure class. I’ve also run into a bunch horror sites online such as Darker Projects and a few others, so I’ll give them a few more listens and report my findings when I think I’ve got a handle on which ones are quality, and which ones are not yet up to snuff. If anyone knows of anything out there that I might like, I’m definitely down to hear about it.
As I’ve said in the past, I’m planning on reading some of my own work that you’ll be able to download from this site, and while I work up something new, I may decide to read something from previous titles. I’ve got a trove of screenplays that might suit the format down to the ground, although I’d have to play all the parts and my production values may have to be kind of arty minimalist. It’s not always necessary to imitate, and there are ways around sound effects, but we’ll see how that goes. I can read prose and poetry, as well, which require very little outside of a narrator.
Until then, check out some of those links. I think you’ll dig it. And if you’re a young lady, look out: Buddy likes the ladies.
Frightday!
December 5, 2008
Or Friday, whatevah. Don’t get all up in my business.
Just kidding, it’s sort of why you’re here, so why not let you all in on what my Fridays are like:
I start work at 8am. Well, I get in around 7:30 cause I’m like that. I like the quiet, and I try to use it well. For the rest of the day I alternate between keeping my day job afloat, and stealing a few hours to continue work on sWitch, my latest novel. For those of you who don’t know, it’s about a square––almost retro 50′s style––family who are about to implode due to various cultural and dysfunctional pressures, originating both from within and without. When the mother (we’ll call her Barbara, cause it’s her name) inherits a dilapidated old home in the mountains, they drag their batty carcasses to it and things begin to change for them. Generally, they all get various wild hairs up their precious behinds, and Barbara introduces them to her latest project: Satanism! Hilarity ensues, as I’m sure you can believe.
Anyway, soon after they get some visitors who may or may not be escaped convicts and a crazy chick with some serious dermatological issues and straightaway they get to torturing our already tortured family. And boy, did they pick the wrong time to do it. The tables turn pretty quickly, and before you can say “bat shit insane” it becomes a little difficult to discern who the evil ones are.
The final third of the book involves a new challenge that sees them reaching even further back into their dark ancestry, discovering the secrets of the house, and developing new connections between the family members that are a complete departure from the lives they left down the hill. Talk about lapsed Catholics! Hopefully, it’s scary, twisted, wickedly funny and over-the-top in all the right ways.
Anyway, once I’m done working on that, I go home and crank up an excellent podcast from the folks at Rue Morgue. They’re a bunch of Toronto terrorhounds that publish a great horror magazine by the same name, and for those who like that kind of stuff, put down your copies of Fangoria and go check them out. I like Fango, but these people are both big and clever and I really can’t say enough good things about each one of their enterprises. Anyway, check out their podcast here and enjoy the ghoulishly great music they intersperse throughout the interviews and horror news. Great stuff.
Then I mix up some tunes. Lately it’s been some Psychobilly concoctions, and if you don’t know what that is, try going here first, and then once you’re done listening to a few of those shows, click on over to here. For those who don’t wanna check out those links cause you’re all “too good” for that kind of thing and whatnot, Psychobilly is generally considered to be the “official” soundtrack to all things horror. Now, others have their ideas, but for scary fun that’s both sexy, stylish and downright dance-able, you’d be hard pressed to disagree.
And that’s pretty much my routine. Sometimes I enjoy a Guinness or two (sometimes three, don’t judge!) during the proceedings and jamming a little on my piano or guitar, but I’m pretty much about the work and the cool jerk. After dipping back into the story a few more times until either my eyes fall out or the Guinness has affected my professionalism, I’m usually ready to call it a night. And you ain’t gonna hear me complainin’.
So check out those links if you get a chance, and hopefully next time I’ll have some more info on my very own podcast, plus a few links to some great radio dramas that I’ve been digging. ‘Til then, enjoy the weekend, and don’t be afraid of the dark!
Whatcha Watchin’?
December 1, 2008
Okay, “True Blood” is gone. Time to accept it and move on. I’ve just spent a Sunday night searching for something to watch and ended up loading Cemetery Man into the DVD player. Quality viewing ensued, but it’s difficult to share films with my peeps out there so I need something else to viddy.
I’m thinking of starting “Dexter” over from the beginning cause I never really got into it, and I hear good things about “Supernatural” which lasted a whole thirteen seconds before I switched, so I may give that another shot. The same goes for “Fringe”, which started off strong and then tapered off with certain speed. So far “Estate of Panic” and “The Cha$e” have proven worthy distractions, but I want something with depth, character and fierce antagonists––although, The Cha$e and its live-action video game formula complete with chasing “hunters” entertains me for reasons I’ve still yet to figure out.
I can’t get into “Ghosthunters” cause I think it’s a load of tricky editing bunk, and “Scare Tactics” annoyed severely back in its original inception and I highly doubt that normally very funny Tracy Morgan can resurrect it. “BSG” is still some time away, and I just don’t do anything on the major networks for fear I’ll destroy something out of commercial and mainstream lameness frustration.
So anybody got any tips? I’ve got a few of the film variety, and I think y’all should check them out. Feast, the result of a TV staple of old called “Project Greenlight“, turned out far better than expected. It’s way over the top, gruesome, funny and fresh in a few new places. Henry Rollins wears pink sweatpants at some point. Do you really need to know anything else? I’ve got Feast 2 on the way, and hold out hope that maybe Johnny Lydon will show up in a tutu.
As mentioned, Cemetery Man impresses after not having seen it in a decade and a half. Its humor is sharp and the premise is fun: a lonely man (Rupert Everett) takes care of a cemetery where the dead return to life after 7 days, and he and his thick-skulled grave-digger companion dispatch them with unabashed impunity and even fall in love with icky results. It’s British, too, so they mumble lots of brilliant stuff. You could do worse, believe it.
Okay, the only other thing to report while I’m waiting on some great viewing tips is that I’ve just buttoned up a third revision on my latest novel, and am heading back in to sure up the chapter headings and get my POV paragraphs in sensible order. Oh, and I’ve got to add a few physical descriptions for my characters. I’ve recently received some excellent advice in regards to this convention that I’d taken to bucking. It appears that one reader of my novella would have caught a lot of other stuff I tried to squeeze in if they had a solid hero to latch onto in their mind. So, I’ve reversed my opinion that it’s better to let readers liberally construct their own characters (thanks, Dad!) and decided to add my visions of them. Anyone got their own opinions? If so, do share or be square.
That’s all. Below please enjoy a trailer for an upcoming Thai offering called Deep in the Jungle. It’s about snake women and it’s awesome. Obviously. Cheers and fears!
