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I am a Part of the Writing Continuum

I wish I was a better artist.

I wish I woke up in the morning to find that my pillow was coated in colorful, fantastic dream-spill that had leaked out of my ear in the night, and that I could strip off the pillowcase and ring the nectar out onto my desk and transcribe what I saw into what would eventually become a brilliant book.

I really do. Writing is hard.

Writing borders on art, but in many ways literature--at least scribblings that can be sold at a reasonable return--is as much technical and business venture as it is the creation of something new and interesting. If you want to sell a book in the standard model (and, in many ways, in any model), it has to fit readers' expectations for what a book should be; or, at least, be palatable to enough people to make it worth your time to do it. And, as with most media, the business part tends to squeeze the artsiness out of the work to appeal to a wider audience.

Robert Swartwood linked to a great article a while back where the NYT followed James Patterson around for a day to see what the life of a hated-and-vaunted bestseller-machine looks like from the inside. It's pretty much what you would expect: he writes a lot (longhand, and has someone transcribe), he plans new books, he farms out work to co-authors, and he works on his breast stroke in a swimming pool full of fifty dollar bills and Scores Girls (note: that last part is probably a lie on my part).

He says one of the things he learned--and one of the reasons he is successful--is that people don't want colorful writing or deep meaning in airport books; they want formulaic plots and familiar characters and books of a uniform size and density. It made him rich, and single-handedly saved his publishing house from the brink.

Another example: I just read an article in Esquire talking about a company working on the technology to do near-real-time focus groups on dailies (the raw edits of a day's worth of shooting in a movie that the director reviews at day's end) wherein the dailies would be shown to a group of people whose neural reactions would be monitored and correlated to the on-screen action, and a report would be given to the director telling him what turns us on and what doesn't. The net result: if you think Hollywood puts out formulaic assbombs now, wait until they can keep your brain's "on" button pressed for 2 hours straight with explosions and boobies and car chases, with nary a plot in sight.

Which loops back around to the question: is it more important for literature to be commercially viable or personally fulfilling for the writer? (Assuming that it can't always be both). Who is "right": the kid writing emo poetry on the sleeve of his jacket and the guy posting Avatar fanfic to his blog, or is it James Patterson and his ilk? Should it be business or art? If it's all business, will the art die? If it's all art, will it kill the industry?

I go back and forth on this almost daily--especially on my current novel attempt, which is probably a mixed bag of fancy wordplay and purple-ness mixed in with some chase scenes and some hand-holding under the sunset. I worry constantly that I'm writing it for me, and not to be sold.

But, ultimately, I don't think I care. I think that I can create what I want--and what I want is to make a living as a writer, telling stories that I enjoy--and I can call it art if I want to. If it sells, great. If it doesn't, hey, I tried. And I'll keep trying, probably until I am physically or mentally unable to. As I get older, I feel more strongly about art being there for it's own sake--and I don't feel the need to qualify art based on success, or even necessarily the intentions of the artist.

Sure would be nice to only have one job, though.

Anyway, here are some thoughts on art from Amanda Palmer. Even if  you have issues with ukulele music, the lyrics are pretty much how I feel about art at this point in my life. In her song, GaGa is James Patterson, but it's the same result: art is still art. As I type this, it seems like I may have posted this before, but the message remains: call it a masterpiece, call it a urinal...

An Essay on Shifting Power Centers (pack a lunch!)

(In which our blogger pretends to be an economist and writes a long-ass essay providing big-picture, historic context on what the changing economy means to writers, musicians, and other artists.)

Part I: The Decentralization of Power

The Power of Coordination

Centralized power is corollary to the human condition. You don't need to spend more than a few seconds thinking about the large- and small-scale evidence in the world: there are no nations without governments, no lasting groups without leadership, little action without common direction.

We are tribal; during one of the most recent ice ages, the human race was decimated, and, arguably, rugged individualism and self-efficacy only got one so far when food was scarce and survival--breeding, hunting, gathering--took more energy than a body could produce on their own. It took a village, literally, to raise a child. Scattered, uncoordinated peoples died, and those with common goals and direction passed on their genes to us.

Hence our natural propensity to join, to socialize, to form cities where we can be close to each other and erect buildings in those cities to bring us closer still, and leaders within those structures to keep us moving in a common direction. Nobody questions why the workplace needs a boss, or why the church needs a patriarch. It just feels right.

Fast forward a few dozen thousand years, and we have moved several notches higher on Maslow's Hierarchy; and, no longer primarily concerned with the daily drudge of staying alive, we are now free to focus on more complex social dances like art and scientific inquiry and self-actualization.

And power.

The natural progression always moves toward power. When we have abundance, we share with those who would share with us; when there are subsidies, we barter; when there is scarcity, we horde. Again, it's what comes naturally to us.

The Tipping Point

The propensity in the post-survival model seems to be to start as individual contributors bartering what they have--farmers/food, craftsmen/goods, laborers/labor, soldiers/fighting/defending--but always seems to move toward top-heavy supplier models.

For example: a ten hectare plot, split evenly between ten farmers. Each grows a unique food, and they trade amongst each other. They have more balanced diets, healthier children, longer lives than if they would if did not trade. One farmer is bought out by (or taken over by) a neighbor, who then has two hectare and, presumably, more bartering power to buy out the other eight or possibly hire people to move them out and take the land for him. After many years of dealmaking, he owns the entire plot, and he keeps on the original nine farmers as serfs who work the land for the landlord, who now sits on his ass in a large house situated on an eleventh plot down the way; the serfs are given a pittance of food for their labor--just enough to survive, not enough to barter. They are doing the same work, but for less benefit, while the excess benefit now rolls uphill to pay for the landlord's new, opulent lifestyle.

(This is not a tear on capitalism, mind you; on the contrary, the only way to keep the farmers from consolidating and creating power hierarchies would be to have someone with a bigger stick--the state, the church--to intervene. The problem there is that there is always ulterior motive by any party involved--power, by and large--and anyone with the power to control the landlord will want their toke at the end of the day as well. We're better off with the landlord.)

The landlord's tower of control gets higher and higher as he amasses more land and more serfs; he becomes a Lord or a King, and levies taxes on the already-poor serfs working his land. Eventually, the serfs are fed up, and they rise together to reset the board in their collective favor--storming the Bastille, declaring sovereignty from a monarch, staging a paramilitary coup, etc.

History is riddled with examples. The towers fall, but only temporarily. The pieces are collected by those below who will, inevitably, begin making towers of their own. It's a repeating cycle, and it's been in motion probably since the first agrarians made plow blades from ox ribs and increased their productivity, thus moving from sustenance to a business model. Technology, as a rule, seems to drive the downward-and-outward power shift.

Which brings us to the age of computers and worldwide connectivity. If you make your living (or want to make your living) creating goods in the age of new media--music, art, technology, literature--it's important that you understand that we are in that last stage: the towers are crumbling, and it's up to us to pick up the pieces and build our own fortifications. This is part of the ongoing cycle of production, the part we can call the renaissance of decentralization; and our window of opportunity is finite.

Part II: The Power of Decentralization

Beating Our Ploughshares into Cisco Routers

The cycle continues because new technology is, by-and-large, uncontrolled. The King's smithy may have figured out how to forge swords from steel, but that doesn't stop the peasants from figuring it out and arming themselves to the teeth. The internet may have been developed by DARPA, but once students and hobbyists got their hands on it, the playing field got horizontal faster than Tiger Woods at the Playboy Mansion West.

But, for the most part, innovation does not come from the top down. It comes from us, and it belongs to us.

That's the power; that's the magic. From a technology standpoint, we are a million monkeys whacking away at typewriters, and every now and again, one of us will inevitably come up with something brilliant, simply because we've been given the opportunity to do so. The tools to do great things are out there for us to use, as long as we continue to have the ability to use them freely.

Again, narrowing our focus to creators of art--literature, music, graphics, etc--we know our markets. We can look around and see who lives in the tallest towers, who controls the environment and dams the flow of information and resources in their own favor. We talk smack about them every time they do something that bolsters the power structure, even if they are the ones we rely on for our bread and wine rations.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen

Amazon and Walmart sell Stephen King's new book for one third of the market value, and authors rage. Amazon presses for price fixes for e-books, and publishers revolt. Publishers insist on higher prices for print and electronic books, and consumers slam their wallets shut.

Online news outlets begin to charge for content, and the world collectively balks.

Apple sells music with digital locks, and music buyers move their business to alternative suppliers. Independent musicians find that they can't sell their music on iTunes without an aggregator (like a large label), and that their sales figures aren't actually counted by Nielsen/Soundscan and they, therefore, aren't legitimate artists in the eyes of the industry. After the LiveNation/Ticketmaster merger, the number of venues to see reasonably priced music drops significantly.

Artists like Amanda Palmer and Trent Reznor opt out of the music label system completely, because they have come to realize that although they are giving up the rights to their own work to provide revenue the labels that "support them", they aren't really making much money for their life's work after the piper has been paid.

Once-friendly outlets for user-controlled media like YouTube begin to lock down/out content that does not meet their standards for profitability.

Music and book publishers put more of their resources toward a much smaller stable of dependable, albeit generic and crowd-pleasing, talent.

And in all of this turmoil and finger-pointing, there isn't a single bad guy to be found. These are free market dynamics, nothing more, nothing less. And, just as importantly, these are early indications of top-heavy towers swaying in the wind.

Will they fall? Will there be people below to pick up the pieces, and put the recovered resources to use for their own good?

I don't know for sure. Nobody does. It probably will happen, in one fashion or another. If you consider that many of the public moves we see from these tower masters are defensive, finding ways to divert more resources away from customers (fair use rights for "purchased" media, higher prices) and suppliers (smaller payouts for work, fewer opportunities), it really does seem inevitable, and it seems near. It does not seem sustainable that you can treat everyone in your supply chain poorly and continue to survive.

Sooner or later, the peasants will rise up and topple the throne, loot the treasury, and find their own way to make a living. The result will be an inversion of the power structure, a disaggregation of resources away from middle-men and back to content producers. The crown deposed, the farmers reclaim their plot of land and sow their seeds. And the cycle begins anew.

The Survivors

This essay wasn't intended as a history lesson, nor a primer on market economics. Zeus knows, I 'm not an expert in either. I'm just a schlemiel trying to break into the glamorous and exciting world of literature.


And, to the best of my limited ability to read market trends, I'm trying to provide context for what is likely to happen next (and, arguably, what is already happening).

Resources are finite, as we saw in the farmer example above. It takes resources to create products, and it takes resources to sell products, and it takes resources to acquire products. If some--or a lot--of the resources are being used to sustain the machine that gets your product from the workshop to the street, the opportunity is upon you to reclaim some of those resources and put them to work for you in a way that they are not being used now. The game-changer, the lever that will allow you to move the Earth, is cheap computers and fast, affordable internet access.

You can make it work for you as long as you are willing to reframe your idea of what it means to produce successfully.

Are you willing to sell a thousand song downloads at $.80 profit apiece instead of ten thousand at $.08, knowing that you won't have someone helping you beat the street, placing ads, coordinating, selling, managing your website, and bookkeeping for you, and that it is highly unlikely that you'll ever be as big as GaGa or Muse?

Can you deal with making the same net income from a print-on-demand book that you had to pay someone to edit, has no ISBN and features cover art from DeviantArt.com as you would from a book that your publisher edited, your agent managed the contract for, and some PR team in Manhattan is actively shilling for you? Maybe a book that doesn't come in physical form at all?

If you can handle that reality, then this may work for you. But if you really like having people in ivory towers doing the work for you while you sit around hoping that your big break is just around the corner, knowing that you can't settle for moderate income with fewer sales and more work--well, you probably have good reason to be stressed about the new economy. Sorry.

Everyone else, keep looking up. These are exciting times the likes of which we may never see again. If you can't stomach the way it's being done now, this is your chance to find another way.

Burn the land and boil the sea...

I'm mad at Fox.

Not Fox Movies (nèe 20th Century Fox) for releasing Marley and Me and making me pretend that I wasn't crying on an airplane full of people flying over the Pacific Ocean last year. Not even for letting George Lucas make Phantom Menace. Rupert Murdoch backing Avatar made those offenses forgivable.

Not FoxNews for flapping their arms around like rabid ospreys, shouting above the surrounding din of mass media sound bites and reality TV and talking heads "Hey, look over here! We have Crispy Cremes at our booth! Hey!!" Everyone on TV does it, it's hard to fault them exclusively for playing along. Mostly. Heaven forfend that they should be the classy ones at the dinner table.

Not even their cable network FX, who had the gall to produce what I understand is some pretty quality stuff like Rescue Me and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but not appearing anywhere on the stupid satellite service that I inexplicably pay $60 a month for.
 
No, I'm mad at the broadcast network arm, simply known as Fox, as in "sly as a". Well, those sly bastards did me a disservice, and it wouldn't come to my attention for another five years (give or take).

I'm not a big TV watcher. We will typically pick up Mythbusters, Man vs Wild, and 30 Rock, but that's about it. My wife likes Craig Furgeson and I'll watch it if I happen to be on the couch, too lazy to move. But, for the most part, we are Netflix junkies.

So, it came to pass a month or so ago that I was browsing Netflix, and came across a 2004 TV series called Firefly. The blurb sounded interesting: 500 years in the future, transport ship, dangerous fringes of space...sounds good. I threw it in the queue, and put the 2006 movie Serenity in my Watch It Now queue, assuming that, based the release dates, I should wait on the movie until I'd seen the series. My expectations were middling, at best (the last sci fi TV show I was really into was the original Battlestar Galactica, although I tried my best to love Star Trek TNG and Enterprise, but the relationship never got past hand-holding and a few flirtatious pecks on the cheek).

I was very impressed with both Firefly and Serenity. Although the whole space cowboy-thing seemed a bit over the top at first, it is completely forgivable as an artistic hook. Joss Whedon, the creator, did a fantastic job of creating a world that is instantly immersive--even believably so--and rich, and deep, and addictive.

The characters are likable and memorable, even so much as some of them are unlikable and maybe even detestable. The captain is about as charismatic a leader as you could write (and I think that has as much to do with the actor Nathan Fillion as it does Whedon's spellcasting), his pilot Wash is a scene-stealer, and the rest of the cast tie the crew together nicely. It's exciting and dark and very entertaining.

Also: catchiest theme song ever.

If you are a Firefly fan but have only seen it broadcast, it may be well worth it to pick up the DVD/BluRay. It has two episodes that, I understand, did not air on Fox: the pilot, "Serenity", split into two segments. Having not watched the show on-air, I think it would be confusing to watch the series not having seen the pilot first.

Anyway, back to my hate-filled thesis: Firefly apparently wasn't making money, and Fox killed it after one season--fifteen episodes, if you count the pilot. I know, Fox isn't a charity, they need to play to the revenue base, blah blah blah. I know that. It just really blows to learn that something that awesome existed for a short time, but was killed off in its prime. Whedon was fortunate enough to get funding for the movie Serenity, which brought the final plot lines that were intended for later seasons of the TV show together (primarily the Reavar storyline which never got a fair shake in season 1), gave viewers closure, and closed in an open-ended but heartbreaking conclusion that put a nice period on the tale.

I'm glad I found it, but it's almost kind of sad. Firefly is one of those discoveries that you make that you wish you could re-discover over and over, like when I first picked up Nirvana's Nevermind on a whim, or realized that a Jägermeister and Redbull was a great way to start the day (kidding, kidding...Redbull makes me crash in the afternoon).

So if you haven't seen it, go see it. If you have seen it, well, see it again. One of these days I'll pine so hard for it that I'm sure I'll buy the Bluray set. I may even check out some of Whedon's other work; but, in keeping with my slow-ass TV timeline, I'll probably need to wait another four or five years until they've been canceled and forgotten by all but his biggest fans.

Some Credit Card Miscellany

Earlier today, I got a phone call from the local po-po; a Detective told me that a few months ago, my credit card was skimmed by a waiter at a well-known steakhouse chain. Yeah, bummer. Luckily, he didn't use it yet (that we know of), but apparently he was working with another guy to clone the cards and run them for cash advances, prepaid cards, etc.

I know a little bit about credit cards. I've been in the payments processing industry for close to twelve years, and have had at least some exposure to pretty much every facet of the industry--card issuing,  downstream processing, fraud and security, chargebacks, etc. It's a constantly-shifting, complex, layered world, and understanding the rules is extremely difficult. I don't talk about that much here because, well, it has nothing to do with my writing hobby and, frankly, my company can be a bit uptight about employees discussing shop publicly. That said, a lot of what I know--and can share--is publicly available, and can be helpful to people like you (yes, you), who have not spent a decade learning the inner workings of credit card processing but do like to whip out the plastic now and again.

(Note: I work on the processing side; I'm not an expert in issuing, which means that I can't tell you how to best reduce your rate, how to defer your payments, explain why your issuer just raised your rate, which cards are best, or anything to do with credit scores...I work exclusively with companies for processing.)

Without further ado, a top-of-mind, non-exhaustive laundry list of things that may be helpful for a card user or someone who accepts cards.

• If you are nervous about using your card online, get over it--it's just as safe as in person transactions. But, just like any business transaction, know who you're dealing with. If you are typing your credit card number into a website with a dubious domain name or odd website, be wary. If you don't know who you're dealing with, go somewhere that you do know--amazon.com, bestbuy.com, etc. Your card is far more likely to get stolen by an employee than from a hacker.
• For in-person transactions, try to keep your eye on your card as long as you can; and, although it's not always feasible, consider only going places where the card is swiped at the counter or at the table--somewhere where you can always see the plastic. Cards have two important sets of data: the account info (number, expiration, CVV code) and the data on the magnetic stripe. The latter is far more dangerous--with a card number, someone can run a few transactions online or over the phone, but it's going to take time for the merchandise to arrive, and the thief has to provide a physical address for goods. Magstripe data, however, enables the thief to create new cards that can be used in-person for purchases, cash advances, pre-paid cards, etc. To get that data, however, the card has to be swiped, typically in a small, handheld device called a skimmer. Know where your plastic is, and your risk is much lower.
• Another aspect of skimming is ATM fraud. If the slot on the ATM machine that you're about to slip your card into looks exceptionally bulky or unusual, beware. There are a host of fake card acceptors and ATM faceplates that will not only skim your magstripe, but have a small camera to record you pressing the PIN number. Another clue: these transactions will often fail (card not read, try again later, etc).
• In most cases, merchants are not allowed to add surcharges to credit card transactions (PIN-based debit is a different story). This is less a fraud issue as it is merchants taking advantage of consumers not having read the 1,000+ pages of Visa/Mastercard operating regulations. If they want to add $.50 to your card bill for buying a beanie baby at that mall kiosk, dispute it. If they insist, you can walk away, or you can accept the charge and fight it later with Visa/Mastercard or your local attorney general. Also, although I'm having trouble finding the regulation number, it has historically been prohibited to set minimum purchase amounts for cards.
• Fighting a disputed charge can be a chore. Although it doesn't always work out that way, chargeback rules are stacked more on the consumer side than the merchant side. But, just like with insurance adjusters, if they have to back out charges and refund your money, the issuer and acquirer stand to lose money--so do your homework. Call your issuer right away, get names, document everything. Follow up. Send letters. Get manager names. Read the above-linked dispute regulations. Build a strong case.

I could go on for days...there is a lot of info out there. Again, this is all publicly available information, and only a few of the aspects of cards and fraud. Fraud is rare, but it does happen, and some of these points may help.

And, I would be more than happy to take questions in the comments. Hit me.

If You Use This Idea, I Want Points

At the tail end of an endless flight home last week, it occurred to me how we can re-invigorate the publishing industry:

Reality TV. Just...stay with me for a minute.

I hate reality TV as much as anyone--more so than most people, maybe--but it draws eyeballs. My wife sent me a video of a celebrity chef the other day who is (hold on to your goddamn hat) on tour, selling out auditoriums, hawking his bestselling books and t-shirts, and, well, cooking food. In the video, he stormed and stomped across the stage like a rock star, flames shooting up from the risers, his "backup band" (prep cooks) chopping scallions and mushrooms behind him while the crowd roared insanely.

And I thought: c'mon! This guy is a chef! He cooks food! If he can do it, why not celebrity writers? Why can't Grisham or Rowling take the stage to Metallica's "Wherever I May Roam", throw up the devil horns, growl a few choice lines from their latest tome, wink at groupies in the crowd. Awesome. People would flock. People would go home and read.

I now present a few minutes of the pilot episode of my new show called, simply, The Writer. Here's the setup: ten aspiring writers are locked in a Manhattan flat, all competing for a three-book deal with Simon & Schuster. There are literary "coaches" hanging about who offer encouragement, advice, and tough love.

♣♣♣

INT. MANHATTAN LOFT - DAYTIME

JULIE SMITH (competitor)  frets over a laptop.

JULIE

My God, I just can't get myself out of this plot hole! Why did I decide in the fifteenth chapter to make my Franciscan Monk a pimp-turned-spy? Why? Why do I hate myself?

HARLAN ELLISON (coach) slinks up behind and rubs her shoulders. He is standing on a step stool and working her over with the intensity of a teenager on prom night.

HARLAN

There, there. You just put that mean old story away for now and let Uncle Harlan make it better. Say, did I ever show you my Hugo? I have it in the back room. Why don't we just-

TONI MORRISON (coach) enters, flicks HARLAN on the ear.

TONI

You old pervert, leave that girl alone.

HARLAN

What? What? I was just trying to help her out.

TONI

Mm hm. Help her out of her dress.

STEVE BAKER (competitor) enters, looking confused.

STEVE

Hey, what's going on in here? Harlan, are you messing with my girlfriend again? I already told you, man...stay away, you little creep!

HARLAN scampers to the top step of the step stool, takes swings at STEVE. STEVE and HARLAN engage in a slapfight.

HARLAN

Bring it on, motherfucker! I'll take you apart and use the pieces to make an asshole carousel! Did you mother have any kids that survived childbirth? Come back here! Pussy!

JULIE

Jesus. I can't take this anymore. I need fifteen hundred more words today, and that bitch Shawonda keeps sneaking adjectives into my manuscript while I'm sleeping. Where in the hell did I put my percocets?

TONI

Um...did you check Hunter Thompson's corpse? Dead for a decade, and he still managed to sneak into my room twice this week and get into my stash of Valerian root and Chablis.

HUNTER THOMPSON'S CORPSE (coach) sits motionless in the corner. A cigarette burns from the end of the cigarette holder clenched between his blue lips.

HARLAN

You're not worth my time, you two-bit steampunk punk. Where the hell is that guy from PublishAmerica? I feel the need to disembowel someone before dinner. Ooo, and we're having mostaccioli alfredo tonight!

HARLAN rubs hands together, leaves the room.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Tim Burton at MOMA

...a-a-a-and....we're back.

Holidays are done, work is back in full swing, and the world is back on tilt. Mostly.

♠♠♠

I spent most of this week in Manhattan at a conference that ran Monday-Tuesday, and my week was marathon stretches of standing and sitting 8-12 hours at a time. In all of the hundreds of thousands of air miles I've logged in business travel in the past 12 years with this company, this, for whatever reason, was my first trip to NYC. It was almost all work and no play (and even most of the play was work), but, outside of work, it was worthwhile personally just to wander around Manhattan for a few days.

As soon as we crossed the bridge to the island, my internal radar completely shut down in the cement and glass labyrinth (as did the GPS on my phone). I got plenty of exercise walking in friggin' circles trying to find things that were only a few blocks away. Bizarre.

The old architecture in Manhattan is wonderful, but the closeness and intensity and controlled chaos of everything there--not to mention the absolutely random way people walk around yelling threats and insults at each other for fun--made me aware of just how far culturally the west coast is from the east coast. I'm a pacific guy, and I suspect that no matter where I go, I always will be. NYC is too stressful for me long-term.

Also, I hate traveling that far, as it kills so much time. I did, however, finish reading Nicholson Baker's The Fermata (which is a bizarre, EXTREMELY sexually-charged, but clever book), and wrote down about six pages of notes on a new book I want to start later this year.

♠♠♠

On the last day, I booked a later flight out, hoping I would have time to go see the Tim Burton exhibit at MOMA. I was able to spend about 50 minutes there (after wandering around for fifteen minutes to get five blocks from my hotel....my internal nav is comically bad--like, Three Stooges movie bad. If I ever give you directions, do the opposite), which was just enough time to see pretty much everything but the movies and video shorts.I wish I had my own pictures to show you (MOMA didn't allow cameras, and my phone doesn't have one for sneaky-pix), but I've included some from the web.

It started out with some of his early sketches in school, some for contests and homework (complete with teachers notes). It was, as you can imagine, typical work from a schoolkid. Interesting, but not oh-my-god-this-kid-is-a-genius work. It did begin to show his early interest in creepy images, malformed creatures and, interestingly, a strong emulation of Mad Magazine's Don Martin.

As it progressed, his work became more refined--monsters became more layered and fully-formed, and some of his signature design features started to appear (stitches, stripes, sharp angles, sullen eyes), and his angst started to flow more into the pictures. Honestly, that was about as far as I expected to see his drawings and paintings go--I had seen some of his work on his website many years ago and it was more interesting from a story and character standpoint than as what I would have considered "good artwork". See Stain Boy, Oyster Boy.

I was very surprised and very happy to see some of his more refined work--some, I think, made before and during his early movies, some after, some very recent. There is some really amazing stuff there. His teenage feelings of seclusion in suburbia take full, grotesque shape in images of spider-legged monsters wearing human torsos with party hats; big, fat Momma-Monsters sporting dozens of limbs with mutated children dangling off of the ends like little traps; houses and rooms bent and twisted and cracked like scenes from a nightmare. Scattered throughout the exhibit were large statues--some by Burton himself, some designed by others based on his sketches--which were the physical realization of some of his drawings. Those were really wicked--an six-foot tall robot stretched out floor-to-ceiling, a gigantic, twisted, Beeltejuice-style carousel playing bizarre, slowed down Danny Elfman-inspired music. Really cool stuff. The entrance itself was the maw of a snaggle-toothed, branch-hair monster.

Scattered between the artwork were LCD screens looping many of his short movies, like Frankenweenie, Vincent, Stainboy, and a bunch of others that I'd never heard of--some looked like footage from college or playing around with prop and stop/go effects in the backyard with a Super 8. They screened pretty much his entire full-length motion picture catalog throughout the week in the museum theater.

At the end of the ride was the coup de grace for fans of Burton's movies: his conceptual sketches of characters like Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd and Jack Skellington and Large Marge, notes made while writing the screenplays, and a lot of props. Some that stood out were the inflatable arms from Beetlejuice (that rolled out from Keaton's body and had giant hammers on the end), actual motion capture models used in filming of Nightmare Before Christmas (including Jack, Oogie, and Sally), pretty much the entire cast of Corpse Bride, a full suit from Edward Scissorhands, the argyle sweater from Ed Wood, Catwoman's suit, the Headless Horseman's cape, and a lot more.

What I found most amazing about the exhibit was how clearly it showed that the weird stuff you see in his movies like Beetlejuice and Nightmare Before Christmas are really accurate, minimally translated iterations of what comes out of his head. The crooked doorways and gloomy ambiance of the offices in the Neitherworld from Beetlejuice are almost exactly taken from his early sketches, as are the hanging trees in Planet of the Apes and the rolling ducks from Batman.

Really amazing stuff. I was just randomly lucky to be able to see it--but, if you have the chance, don't miss it. I think it runs through April. Go early, though. I got right in at 10:30 when they opened, but when I left an hour later there was a long line to get in.

That sounds like a lot of words.

There's still a week left in the year, but I want to knock this out while it's in my head.

This is how I spent my writing year (words-on-page, not including revisions):

• 150k words on what would (or may, someday) be novels (including my WIP, which should be finished by the end of the month)
  
• 5k words on short stories & poems
  
• 3k non-fiction (journalism-ism)
  
• 20k blogging (assuming 250 words per post, includes family blog)
  
• 18k tweeting (assuming 5 characters per word, 130 characters per tweet...man, that adds up fast. That's like six chapters.)

Just focusing on novels, shorts, poetry, and non-fiction articles, that puts me at about 432 words logged per calendar day on average--that's much higher than I would have estimated. Still, I need to do more.

My work towards a novel accounts for 95% of my creative writing. That was damn close to where I had estimated it to be.

I submitted work eleven times--six pieces of work in all--and had two accepted. That's 18% submit-to-sale, or 33% work-to-sale. My average wait time on those stories was 78 days.

My writing income for the year was $40. $15 of that went back to Duotrope.

My reading wasn't so hot--I think I read maybe fifteen novels, which sucks. That's all about time management. I'll do better.

Coming soon: 2010 writing goals.

WIPPER Day

Happy belated WIP Wednesday (we'll call it Thought I posted this Yesterday Thursday).

Great night of writing...I locked myself in the bedroom and pounded out 2,000 words (plus about 100 words on a short story over lunch), which, after not writing a damn thing worth their collective electrons for over a week, felt nice. If I can do that a few more times before I go on vacation, plus spend some vacation days away from home at the library with headphones and blinders on, I may just finish this book by month end.

In the course of the day, I made bad things happen to good people, turned the tides of fortune toward the morally ambivalent, and sent something horrible toward the citizens of a small town in the Rocky Mountains. It's good to rule your own imaginary worlds, but not always good to be a member of one of them.

♠♠♠

This puts me on schedule to do some short stories in January, and start edits thereafter.

Which raises a question I have of all of you:

Crit groups. I've never done one. I've done some one-off crits for friends, but I've never had my work gone over. Everything I've heard says it adds value, especially at my level.

So:

Do you do them? If so, do you do them in person, or distant?

Stephen King (pause for angelic harmonies) says not to let anyone into your first draft, but let your trusted critics tear your second draft to shreds. Thoughts? Does anyone find value in crits on D1?

Small Market Roundup 2009

Early in the year, a lot of us committed to doing more to support small market press--you know, the guys who pay to publish the stories we write, and who publish the stories we love.

I could have done better. In my defense, I spent most of 2009 waiting to get handed a pink slip from DayJob™ and was counting every dime (that has been delayed a little bit longer, if you're curious). But I did take advantage of a lot of the specials out there, and did my utmost to pimp small market magazines, anthos, and novels.

But, without further ado, the list of small market materials for the year (to the best of my cluttered memory):

• Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy: this started good, but my dog tore it to shreds before I finished.
• Cemetery Dance #59: Great Keene story at the beginning of this one.
• Douglas Clegg "Afterlife": I think this was a Cemetery Dance pub, too. I paid an obscene amount for this book to support CD sometime early in the year (might have been late 2008, come to think about it), and felt dumb afterward because the dialogue irritated me and I had to stop reading. I'll try again in 2010.
  
• GUD Magazine #2, #3, #4: at least one of these I got for free, I think
• Robert Swartwood "The Silver Ring": I don't think Robert got an ISBN for this, but I did pay a buck directly to the author, so I get karma for that one.
• Catherine Gardner "The Sour Aftertaste of Olive Lemon"
  
• Barry Napier "Debris": this is next on my reading list
• Aaron Polson (ed) "Tainted": on order from Amazon, should be in my hands before the holidays

There were a lot more that I wanted, but once we really tightened our belts, it just wasn't happening...so, my apologies if you read my blog and wrote something that I didn't buy this year. I'll try to do better next year.


I have a ton of PDF magazines that I got free...I don't get points for not paying for them, but maybe if I give them some love here, it'll give them a half of a half of a fraction of a Google ranking:

• Niteblade Dec 2008
• James Moore: Home for the Holidays
• Macabre Cadaver #3
• Arkham Tales #2, #5
  
• Crazy Horse #74
• Ruthless Peoples Magazine March 2009

Definitely a scary year for small and large market press, and it goes without saying that the more we (read: I) can do in 2010, the better the odds that these guys will survive to end up on our 2010 year end roundup lists, too.

John Cleese is Pinin' for the Fjords

I wasn't planning on posting this morning (only got 700 words in last night and need to make up for it), but I wanted to hit this while it's rattling around in the dusty, moldy-cheese-laden hamster maze that I carry around on my neck. So, I'll make it quick (yeah, right).

My thesis:

Surviving as a Producer of Popular Consumer Products in the New Economy; or: How Not to Use the Internet to Make Fans and Friends.

Some folks have it figured out; some are clueless; most of us are trying to get there, I think.

Amanda Palmer has it figured out. She tweets regularly. Not just tweets in a PR-heavy buy-my-shit kind of way, but really makes an effort to connect to fans. She has over 272k followers on Twitter, but actually talks to people who tweet her questions, comments, fan art, etc. She has responded to my lowly questions at least twice. She holds impromptu get-togethers before many of her shows and appearances, planned and announced sometimes an hour prior, always via Twitter--it's a little reward system for her followers. She tweets and blogs about her life, her problems, her victories. Zits on her ass (unfortunately, that's a true story). She helps her fans feel engaged, and part of her team, not just consumers of her products. She uses what often borders on over-communication to help her fans feel like they are truly integral in her successes and failures--the same behaviors you would find in highly successful managers at companies like Google.


Neil Gaiman has it figured out. Neil, who just happens to be making the two-back beast with Ms. Palmer, is a good Twit and blogger as well, but tends to be a little more private than Amanda--but that probably has as much to do with his British sensibilities as it does the sheer size of his following and respect for his own family. But, nonetheless, he keeps fans engaged at a good level, and it helps him stay at the head of his pack. Of note with Gaiman is that he was a relatively early adopter of this model--he started blogging his adventures while writing American Gods, sometime in 2000 I think.

Some other front-runners: Brian Keene, Adam Savage, Weird Al Yankovich, Cory Doctorow, Marian Call. They all seem to have their sea legs on the internet, for many of the same reasons as Palmer and Gaiman. You have to engage your fans, bring them into your circle (just decide which band of your circle to let them into), make it known that you recognize that your success requires a new kind of--to use the legal term--consideration. Quid quo pro. Tit-for-tat. This isn't the sheltered world of only seeing your heroes in magazines and TV. The wall is now paper-thin. Connect regularly and effectively, or get left behind.

John Cleese doesn't have it figured out. He tweets very rarely. In fact, there is strong evidence that John Cleese doesn't tweet, or at least pretends that it's not him behind the keyboard. He gets one point for trying, but the only time you hear from John's Tweetbox is either a random blip that makes no sense, or, more often, it's a direct and intrusive shill for a t-shirt. It doesn't work because he isn't taking the time to re-connect with his legions of fans, nor to open himself up to kids too young to remember Python, Fawlty, Wanda, or any of the other brilliant things he's done over the years. Cleese is the reason for this post, in fact--I just got a tweet from him asking me to click over and see what he's been up to. Well, he has been up to hiring a webguy to build a form on his website to capture my personal info so he can send me spam from third-party advertisers, as well as more t-shirt shills from his camp. Again, that's OK, but make it worth my while to continue to be a fan and give up my info--my time and patience aren't endless, and they certainly aren't free. Don't rely on your decades-old work to coerce me to open my wallet to buy a t-shirt.

Poppy Z Brite gets it, but she doesn't care. She has a good-sized following, she tweets regularly, connects with her followers, answers questions--but she isn't writing anymore and doesn't talk about writing much, and most of her tweets are either grouchy, angry, angry-grouchy, moody, or about football. But, such is genius, sometimes. I guess.

Danny Devito...Jesus, I don't even know what to say about this guy. I can't decide if he's a brilliant Twit, or just freaky-wrong. His tweets are random and often nonsensical (every time I read one of his wackier posts, I think about his drunken morning TV interview earlier this year, and the fact that almost every twipic he posts has a bottle or glass full or booze in it). Almost every post has a reference to his feet. It borders very closely on creepy. 90% of Devitos's tweets are like being drunk-dialed over the internet. But, goddamit, I can't bring myself to unfollow him, because he regularly tweets, he reveals details about his personal life (more in picture form than sentences that make sense--him and his wife in Paris, him behind the scenes at some play he's producing, him at the Venetian gondolas this morning). It works, I think, because it's intimate, it's voyeuristic, and it's like watching a slow-motion train wreck. I guess that counts as a win.

So, here's the challenge to all of you writers and new-media folks: after the books are written and the songs are recorded, what lessons will you take from these folks to help take your hobby and make it a career that actually pays the light bill?

Because your odds of getting that big book/record deal are getting slimmer every year.

Nook Review Time

I got my greasy little typing sticks on a Nook last night at the Barnes & Noble by UNLV.

Summary review: daddy want.

Detailed review: when I picked it up from the display stand (to which it was bound with a white cable that, presumably, would reveal itself to be an iPod cable-white Coral snake if I made a run for it), I thought it was a mockup unit, like the cell phones with pictures of functional interfaces adhered to the screen that are actually hollow and once used to smuggle cocaine from, oh, let's say Tijuana.

The reason I thought it was fake was that the image on the screen--a hedcut image of Mark Twain--was obviously not a sticker, but obviously not a digital image. I asked the guy at the information desk if he had a real one, and he reached over coyly and hit the power button. Mark Twain dissolved in a black mist of e-ink, and was replaced by text.

I was impressed already.

Seriously, it looks that real: e-ink is absolutely indistinguishable from paper, albeit paper under a thin layer of glass-like screen material.

If you haven't seen the pictures, here's the layout: a smallish e-ink screen above--about the size of a hardcover book page--and a color LCD below. The LCD is used to navigate: scroll through your books, change settings, buy books, etc. Both screens look brilliant.

Positive:

• E-ink is awesome, and, IMHO, the only acceptable way to read anything longer than a blog post on an electronic device. Remember that little voice in your head that eighteen years ago suggested that going to see Ratt and Winger concerts with no ear protection was probably a bad idea? That's the same voice in your head telling you not to read The Lost Symbol on your iPhone. (What's that? Couldn't hear you.) I said, don't read novels on your iPhone, you old goofball! Geez...
• It's very small. Look around the room for a 5x7 picture in a small frame. It's about that big, maybe a little longer. It does not, however, have an image of you and your fabulous 80s haircut--but it does display pictures in black and white e-ink, so you could do that, if you wanted to...I guess.
• It plays MP3s, which seems like a totally worthless feature to me, but somebody probably wants that. Ever read Skymall catalogs? There are toilet paper dispensers that play MP3s now. No kidding. Christ.
• It supports ePub and PDF, so you can read those magazines you've been collecting in the internet for the past three years, as well as the large collection of third party books published in ePub, which seems to be the standard ebook format. Many, I believe, are free.
• It runs the Android operating system, which means it is probably going to be more hacker-friendly than the Kindle. I'm sure someone has already modified a nook to do something related to porn, funny cats, Warcraft, or porn. My hope for this feature is that third parties will release modules and hacks to open it up to other formats, like Kindle books and Word docs.
• If you're at a B&N store, you can read one book per day free via the wireless connection.

Negative:

• The wireless function can use any WiFi connection, but can only be used to buy more book from B&N, or, if you're in a B&N store, read a book from their library. To read your own non-B&N books, you have to transfer them over manually via USB or a memory card. Which seems like a waste, but you don't really want to be surfing the internet on this thing, because...
• E-ink is great for text or lineart/hedcut images, but anything more than that and it blows. Pictures look grainy, and the refresh rate is extremely slow. The time to flip pages in a book is about 2-3 seconds. I wonder if that would be distracting, or if you'd get used to it after a few pages.
• For how small it is, it's heavier than it seems like it would be. I guess it has all of that electronic junk inside, but it's Bible-heavy--not a little tiny Gideon Bible, but not quite the leather-bound kind hand-written by Franciscan monks that came with a free deerhide bookmark and a hunchback named Eoderic to carry it around for you, either. But a big, solid hardcover Bible.
• The interface in the LCD seems slow and bit clunky, but I can deal with that. After all, you're buying it to read books, not flip through settings screens. If taking ten more seconds to find your bookmark is the worst thing that happens to you all day, things are going much better for you than you probably know.

In all, I think the Nook is a winner. The only thing stopping me from buying it is that my physical, non-electronic TBR pile is immense thanks to Paperbackswap, and it would probably be a good six months before I read anything but PDF magazines on it. Not that that's a bad thing, but I just have to decide if that's worth $260.

The other thing worth mentioning is that there will be a lot of competition coming out in e-readers this year, and that always spurs innovation (no fewer than 4 major newspaper/magazine publishers are proposing their own proprietary readers, including Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and ESPN). Can someone else do it better? Maybe. Probably. Will they do it in a reasonable timeframe, and at a decent price, and not have it locked down to their sandbox with proprietary formats and binding subscription agreements? Probably not.

I'll decide in the next week or so--no rush, since I won't be able to get one shipped until likely late January. I am strongly leaning toward getting one, though, primarily so I can get through the 50MB of PDF magazines I have sitting unread on my computer.

That, and I want to see what it's like listening to Winger's "She's Only Seventeen" while reading New Moon. Creepy, I suspect.

Film Noir

I sat down to write some insightful and/or funny post on some topic that I had not yet decided on when my wife pinged me on Messenger. It was horrible news:

"The Road" was not released to any theaters in Las Vegas.

A small tragedy, indeed--I slipped through all five phases of grief within about ninety seconds, all expressed in tweet form. Heartbreaking. Well, OK, not heartbreaking. But a bummer. I was looking forward to seeing it more than any movie this year since probably Order of the Phoenix.It was supposed to be the movie that balanced against Wolverine on my internal movie karma scale.

And if the hype holds up, this would have probably been the first time I had actually seen a movie nominated for an Oscar before the actual award ceremony.

I checked a few movie sites. I searched a few random zip codes on Fandango--nothing. I checked movietickets.com--they had the word "Limited" right by the release date. Jeremy Kelly tweeted that it wasn't in Atlanta, either.

Bummer.

I blame myself. And you. I blame you, too. I blame us.

Last summer, I took the kids to see Pixar's "Up". In line to buy tickets, they saw the poster for the Will Ferrell live action poo sculpture "Land of the Lost". They wanted to switch movies. We debated. They won. It cost me $25 plus a few ounces of my ever-dwindling soul.

In the Spring, we saw Wolverine. I literally can't remember a single plot point or interesting bit of dialogue. I think there was a talking beaver and an evil ice queen in the beginning; the ending is just as hazy, but I'm pretty sure the little boy--young Logan, I presume--found his golden train ticket in enough time to save Christmas for Cory Feldman and the kid from Malcolm in the Middle.

It seems like I wait to see the good movies until they come out on DVD. Mostly because of the kids, I guess.

And I now you're there with me--well, some of you. It's our fault. We are the market. We pay to watch schlock with Nicholas Cage and John Travolta and anybody from Saturday Night Live and the bald guy from Moonlighting.

The good news, I guess, is that it makes books even more attractive.

A few years back, my wife and I discovered the splendor of Netflix. One of the biggest criticisms of Netflix has always been that they don't carry many popular movies, and are overstacked with TV shows, classics, and independent movies that nobody has heard of. We aren't big TV watchers, but we have gotten brave enough to check out some of the independent flicks on there (via mailed DVDs and, our absolute favorite distribution system in the universe, Watch It Now). Now, the heavy catalog of unpopular fare has become, for us, the greatest part of Netflix.

Here are a few good ones we've found...feel free to add your own:

Adam's Æbler (Adam's Apple). My wife spent several months going through the Danish-language catalog, mostly because of Danish superstar Mads Mikkelsen (of Casino Royale fame). The Danes have a national film board that produces many (all?) of their movies, so you find a lot of the same actors working together. They really put out some good ones, and Mads seems to have been in every one. Anyway, Adam's Apple was my favorite--the story of a pre-release convict trying hard not to be reformed while he watches the people around him contort under their own emotional loads. Very well done, and the subtitles are not as distracting as you may think.

Primer. I found this movie in a reference in an xkcd comic. It  was good--not fantastic, but I defy you to find a solid, well-written sci-fi movie with fewer (or no) special effects that is half as believable. It's a time-travel movie that is more thought-provocation than action, but that's good. It's a movie for people who like to think. It's also cool to see all of the credits fit on one or two pages, and only like five names, including the catering, which was probably someone's mom. Be prepared to watch it several times, or take notes. See the xkcd comic for details on that.

Run, Lola, Run. This was an artsy movie. My wife loved it, I thought it was pretty good--a very refreshing alternative to what we usually see. I think we liked it for different reasons--she liked the story, I liked the arsty-fartsy quality, how the characters and scenarios were kind of caricatures of reality. German with subtitles.

Idiocracy. From the creative team behind Office Space, a horrifyingly prophetic look at the future of mankind. A little bit ha-ha funny, but mostly oh-my-god funny.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A Jimmy Stewart classic featuring an amazing performance by Jean Arthur. Frank Capra obviously doesn't qualify as indie, but if you're looking for a good rental, don't neglect the oldies (my wife now almost exclusively watches B&W movies).

I am far from a film snob, I guess I just don't like being played to like I was a high-fiving, spiky-haired, bluetooth-headset rube. I don't mind being made to think a little bit for my entertainment, as, I suspect, doesn't most of the world. But, as always, the only way to change it is to vote with your pocketbook. Or make your own movies.

In any case, I will be protesting this year by not wearing my best clothes to watch the Oscars on TV. In fact, I may not even wear pants. That'll show 'em.

Turkey Shoot

Back to reality from a lo-o-o-ong Thanksgiving break. The time off was nice...I didn't get  a single line of writing done, but the break was much-needed.

Living in Vegas, Thanksgiving with out of town guests is different that what I've experienced in most cities I've lived in. We spent most days all together in our tiny house, but the last two days we split up--girls did shopping and girl-oriented shows, and the guys shot automatic weapons and did boy stuff. Most of the time was spent with the kids--we did a Renaissance-style show at the Excalibur, a movie, and some time in a massive underground video arcade.

And, of course, way too much food and drink and not enough going to the gym.

♣♣♣

I mostly focus on long-form stories, which is why I have so few credits to-date...but, every once in a while, I sneak in a short story between failed attempts at finishing a 70k manuscript that is worth revising.

And...as I mentioned a couple of months ago, I recently wrote a poem (yak, that even looks weird written down). Like I've said, I'm not a poet; most poetry to me is as abstract and hard to understand as Pollock paintings. Sometimes I "get" the cadence or emotional outflow, but a lot of the time it's just stuff.

But, apparently that isn't enough to keep me from writing one.

The Woodsman's Son, published up at New Myths today, started out as a short story that was heavily inspired by the Dresden Dolls song The Gardener. Whereas, I think, the Dolls saw their tale as more of a co-dependent, love/hate story, mine went more in a hero-worship, misplaced trust direction. As I wrote it, it took on a natural staggered cadence that kind of reminded me of Poe's The Raven (not in quality, per se, but in rhythm), so I decided to re-do it as a poem over a couple of months last winter.

Anyway, it's different. It was fun. I'm very curious to see if people who read it interpret it the same way I do. I suspect the reactions will be mixed.

Enjoy. And, congrats to everyone who finished NaNoWriMo! Now go take naps.

The Happy Couple

Packing up the scary goods from Halloween, I decided that the full-size coffin I built was a perfect place to store everything. The first two things I put in were JerkyBoy and his girlfriend, the Bone Collector. I thought they made a cute couple all snuggled up in the casket, and had to share the love.

"It's Your One-Way Ticket to Midnight..."

I loved Heavy Metal Magazine when I was little. Really, really loved it.

It was the early 80s. The radio was filled with the likes of Sammy Hagar, Blue Oyster Cult, and Pat Benetar. I was in an awkward post-Star Wars, post-Dr. Who stage at about age 10 or 11, and I started picking up the copies of magazines that my stepfather--an avid reader whose match in sheer volume of yearly book consumptions I am yet to see--left laying around. National Lampoon, Discover, and Heavy Metal were my favorites. Between those three magazines, my mind was expanded, my horizons set farther, my childhood stuffed into a pipe and smoked like so much hash.

If, in your mind, you just calculated the equation of "10 year old" + "National Lampoon Drug Jokes" + "Heavy Metal Cartoon Boobies" = "Parenting Fail", you need to chill. This was the early 80s. Life was different, people seemed to have a firmer grasp on reality vs fantasy. My parents were progressive and pragmatic enough to realize that me reading jokes about smoking pot and seeing cartoons of alien women with 48FF knockers wasn't going to turn me into a pervert or a junkie. I'm only 36, but I seem to be OK so far.

When I first discovered HM, I was hooked. I think it was Rock Opera that first pulled me in, but over time, they introduced some really great stories and fantastic artwork. Boris Vallejo, whose airbrushed fantasy works are recognized worldwide, appeared in just about every issue, and he illustrated some really fun stories in addition to his artwork layouts (although for the life of me I can't remember any names). HR Giger did some work for them, too, off and on, as did R Crumb.

One of my favorites (at least that I remember, there were so many stories that only lasted a month or two) was RanXerox, the story of a buff, taxi-driving, ghetto-bound cyborg-punk and his 14 year old girlfriend. The artwork was incredible, and the storylines were hard-edged, gritty, and brutal. Like Sin City meets Blade Runner, but throw in a lot more blood, drugs, and sex. A lot more.

Another was Texarcana. From what I remember, it was the unfurling story of a witch, a cattle rustler, and two beings from another dimension--one who looks like a chicken-lizard man, and one that is a cross between Grimace from McDonalds and a mushroom. I was really hooked on Texarcana, and waiting for my stepfather to finish reading the latest copy of HM so I could get my mits on it would drive me crazy.

Once I got hooked into the storylines, I started doing jobs around the house to earn enough money to buy the backissues. At one point I think I had every single issue from 1977 to 1988; I tore off all of the covers and cut out the best artwork, and covered every single wall (and ceiling) in my bedroom. That was about the time my hormones shifted, and my attentions turned from comics to...well, the things that teenagers occupy themselves with. The HM art came down, and I haven't read it since.

HM was on my mind today because I saw some random R Crumb picture, and a quick Google chase led me to find that the entire run of Texarcana is online. Check it out...it's a cool and weird story, and I look forward to reading it again, now, what, twenty-three years later?

I guess part of it is just being a kid with little else to worry about, but I do miss the anticipation of waiting for the next issue, the excitement of opening each magazine for the first time, the countless hours spent reading and re-reading each story, studying the fine lines of the artwork. It's honestly one of the few things about childhood that I miss.

This is my lawn. You know what to do.

Is it a sure sign that I'm getting old when I blog more about crotchety-old-man topics than anything else? I need to get out more. Maybe I need to join a band (again) and, you know, leave the house, interact with adults. Stuff like that. Or I can put on my headphones and write more.

♣♣♣

First off in Old Man JD's craw today: changes in the TSA's rules of security theater.

A few months back, a guy who works for the Campaign for Liberty (formerly the Ron Paul presidential campaign) was trying to get through airport security when he was stopped, sequestered, harassed, threatened and, eventually, let go. The reason? He was carrying a lot of cash (which just happened to be campaign contributions, but that was none of the TSA's business). This type of thing, I'm sure, happens a lot since 9/11--the TSA was made into a pseudo Federal police force with no oversight. The reason it made news this time was that:

1. Being part of the Campaign for Liberty, this guy takes his constitutional rights seriously, and asserted them repeatedly, much to the TSA agents' confusion; and
2. He turned on his iPhone audio recording app once he was taken aside, and posted the entire 30 minute ordeal on the internet. Priceless.

Anyway, the ACLU filed suit on his behalf, and the TSA admitted that they did not have the right to engage in search and seizure outside of their duties to keep dangerous materials off of planes. A small win for liberty, but these days you have to take what you can get.

♣♣♣

The longer I live in Las Vegas, the more it seem like a big wasteland. I think I have a full article to write on that topic, but here is my Vegas Rant of the Day™:

I'm walking my dog, and notice that the street near my house--a typical Las Vegas road with 8 foot high block walls on either side--had a lot of new graffiti. Across the street was a man of about 50 going to town with a spray can, painting squiggles, squares, and random marks. It was white paint--same color as the graffiti, and definitely not the original color of the wall. I crossed the street to confront him.

I came up behind him and asked "What the fuck are you doing?" It's important to note here that I've spent my entire life being a socially awkward numb nut, and I see no signs of that trend abating. For some reason, he didn't take to that very kindly to my greeting. I can't imagine why.

In a thick accent that seemed to be Eastern European, he replied: "What the hell does it look like?" He puffed up, walked over, and looked, for a moment, like he wanted to square off with me. Not that I look intimidating, but he apparently decided that fisticuffs in the middle of the street with a 215 lb jackass and a 70 lb Malamute didn't sound productive, and he went back to work. "I'm covering up graffiti," he continued. "Are you trying to be a smartass?"

I took a step back to re-assess his work. It just looked like a bunch of squiggles. But, I decided, it was possible--probable even--that there was more graffiti underneath and that he was doing exactly what he said he was. It looked like shit, and was obviously intended to spite the taggers more than to mask the graffiti itself, but, I figured, at least he's trying (I've done the same on my street, but I, at least, tried to match the goddamn color of the painted surface). I bit my tongue as hard as I could and continued my walk. I even wrote his license number down, but decided later that reporting him to the graffiti hotline would be nothing more than Old Man JD being vindictive and petty, just because we had a misunderstanding.

I guess what I did there was I delineated graffiti-as-vandalism from graffiti-as-reclamation. And, apparently, I've decided that the latter is OK. I'm still not totally sure about all of that, but I guess that can be filed under "picking your battles".

In my mind, it all just adds to the large-scale ghetto vibe of Las Vegas. The kids tag the neighborhood, the "good guys" (there aren't quotation marks big enough to contain my sarcasm) almost come to blows over it, and I'm unsure if I'm part of the problem, the solution, or just standing around watching it all go to hell.

Like I said, I have a whole bag of rant about Las Vegas...more on that another day.

Wise Man Says: A Finger In the Nose is Not the Nose

I'm just shy of 40k on my WIP, working title of "Amity". I'm procrastinating starting writing for the night, because I have to get up from my chair in about 10 minutes and make dinner. Just enough time to blog.

This story is different than anything I've written, and different than anything I've read. It looks at a subversive community--a real community, mind you--and, as such, uses a lot of the extremely non-PC, offensive language of this group. My fear--other than it will never see the light of day because it sucks--is that it doesn't suck entirely but nobody will publish it because of said offensive language. I've also considered that it will get published, and that the people that this group mocks make a big deal out of it. It's not the worst thing published, by any means--think of, maybe, American History X or Brokeback Mountain, and the language that an antagonist would need to use to develop the persona of a, well, a hateful prick. It's that kind of colloquial banter. I'm wondering about potentially alienating an audience right out of the starting gate. But, that's definitely cart-before-horse. I need to finish the damn thing first.

Does it seem obvious that the writing is not the writer, or do you just draw that connection automatically that, for example, based only on the works and not interviews, etc, that Annie Proulx is sympathetic to gays, or Chuck Palahniuk is an anarchist, or Ayn Rand is hyper-conservative, or Dan Brown is an iconoclast, or Hunter Thompston was, well, whatever the fuck Hunter Thompson was?

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My copy of Barry Napier's Debris just arrived. I have been very neglectful of my reading and still need to knock out my current book, but I'll probably put that one next on the pile.

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"...cast vicariously as both victim and villain... "

    Remember, remember the fifth of November,
    The gunpowder treason and plot,
    I know of no reason
    Why the gunpowder treason
    Should ever be forgot.

Today, of course, is the Night of Bonfires in Britain.

Maybe those in the UK understand it more, but I think that most Americans have culled their knowledge of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot from the comic and later movie "V for Vendetta". It strikes me that for most people, at least outside of the UK and Ireland, the ongoing battle between Protestants and Catholics doesn't get much spin time in the front part of the mind.

The reason Guy Fawkes day is so romanticized, I suspect, is the same as for Bastille Day in France and the commemoration of the Boston Tea Party (and, of course, Independence Day) in the states: the religious connotation is secondary--if even that--to the idea of throwing off ones oppressors, aggregating as a people and sticking it to the overlords. It's the reason people show up to Presidential town hall meetings with Colt .45s strapped to their legs, why hordes of anonymous protesters can coordinate via the internet with no clear leadership structure and show up en masse to call attention to some perceived (or real) injustice, and, in a more groupthink but subtle manner, the reason why every other (or third) election cycle brings in the opposition party--we're sick of "their" shit and want to give the underdogs a chance (we tend to forget that once someone is elected, they automatically and without exception become "them").

So, even though it has nothing to do with my country, per se, and that I couldn't possibly be any more against justifying violence in the name of religion, tonight I will raise a glass of some kind of viscous alcoholic beverage in salute to our friends across the Atlantic, and to those across the globe and within our borders who continually remind us that an unchecked government is a corrupt government.

Here's to the Night of Bonfires.

Halloween 2009 Pic Dump

Not much to say on this that readers of this blog don't already know...yesterday was a crazy Halloween adventure. It took me 2 full days to set up the garage haunt, and I'm sure it will take me most of today to clean it up (if I can stop procrastinating and get out there). We didn't count but I'm sure we had at least 300 visitors, maybe 350. It was fun...everything worked, no props failed. The only real disappointments were the Pepper's Ghost (it is sooo hard to get that illusion right...maybe next year), I ran out of red dye for the fountain (which also leaked, but not until we were ready to close shop) and my costume. As usual, I threw it together at the last minute after working in the garage all day, and it kind of sucked. Also, not to self: when you have a complex, somewhat fragile haunt to manage in the dark, don't wear a prosthetic that covers one of your eyes. That was just dumb. I kept knocking stuff over lurking around behind the scenes to adjust the fogger, manage cords, etc.

So, without further ado, a photo and video dump:

"Lobby" of the garage (daytime)


Hanging Pepper's Ghost (notice the ghost image and my reflection in the glass)



Notice the Bone Collector over my shoulder in mid-lightning flash


This one reminds of of Silence of the Lambs






Kind of a cool minimilast shot of the skull from Pepper's Ghost floating through the air


And two vids: the first one is standard def with normal lighting, so it's kind of hard to see everything


Second is a full walkthrough with my HD camerca, once in daytime, once in infrared (I think you can click on the video to see it in HD).

Garage Haunt Walkthrough from Jeremy D Brooks on Vimeo.