Produce Yet Green

Our purple tomatoes to be are finally showing a bit of color. They've been green enough for frying for what seems weeks now, and it's difficult not to be impatient.

As a temporary fix we bought some of the heirloom Cherokee variety at a farmer's market on Saturday from a guy and girl who looked pretty counter culture. Pleasure doing business local. It's a Green thing.

That prompted me to wonder if my square box garden and my back-to-the-land effort make me seem more hippie-esque or just more like my dad.

He didn't know about things like "local" and "Green" with a capital G. He just liked tomatoes, and he liked making me work in his garden.

I hated it. It was one more source he had for giving me things to do.

Now it feels a little more back to the land, which I guess is why any pseudo-suit with a bohemian streak tills the land, or the compost in his square box at least.

Maybe the Old Man was on to something. He just had a Dick Cheney way of expressing it.

The Night the Lights Went Out

Being a chronicle of my first evening without power in a while.

We've never had major power problems at our house. Usually the lights go out a few minutes and then come back on without us calling to report an outage. Does make the smoke alarms beep and the cats scurry, but that's pretty minor.

In Louisiana, when you called to report a service outage, you got a busy signal. I always figured that indicated either A.) Other people were calling too or B.) "We know, we know, stop calling!" Either way, you could rest assured the problem was getting fixed.

In my idylic fantasy world, I envision a power company that looks like a James Bond villain's control center. There are lots of big screens and grids and when power goes out at my house there's a little blip that lights up on their screen, prompting a technician to notify someone who flips a switch and makes my lights come back on and my alarms beep and the cats scurry.

I don't think it really works that way.

In the dark
After a couple of hours, in which we determined all of the people immediately around us were also in the dark and the guy a couple of houses down was watching The Closer, Christine said: "Do you think we should call?"

"I dunno," I said. "The lights usually come back on, and besides either the neighbors have called or they've figured it out at the power company."

We decided to call anyway. I was starting to remember the movie "The Trigger Effect." Wasn't it a power outtage that pretty much made society break down in that flick?

"Have you checked your breaker box?" asked the customer service rep. No James Bond villain lair, just a woman in a headset in a cubicle farm, possibly in New Delhi.

"No," Christine said. "We kind of thought since the street lights and all of our neighbor's houses are dark that there might be a bigger problem."

"We'll take it under advisement," the operator said. "We cannot give you an estimate at this time as to when your lights will come back on." Gotta have some wiggle room.

"They're never off this long," Christine said. "Something bad must have happened?"

"Yeah, I saw that is this movie called The Trigger Effect," I said.

So I'm reading a Robert B. Parker novel by flashlight a while later, and I get a strange sense of deja vu: Bad experiences the first time I had power connected to our house. It was delayed and I had to spend a weekend on auxiliary power.

The guy who assigns crews skipped over us, and the rep I talked to explained: "He's already assigned his crews. He won't reassign them. He'll just put you on tomorrow's rotation."

"Tomorrow's Saturday," I said.

"Monday's."

"And he won't correct the problem today just because, what? He has no imagination? Think outside the box."

"Well you see, he's already assigned his crews..."

I figured if we were relying on that kind of bureaucrat they might be waiting until morning for action. After all he may already have had things fixed at the house of the guy who was watching The Closer. So I called New Delhi again.

"We have logged your report," the rep said.

"Yeah, but are you actually, you know, doing something about it?" I asked. "You didn't forget to fix our area when you fixed the others in our neighbor hood and then send the crew off on some unwavering path to other problems?"

"Your estimated time of having your lights back on is 1 a.m."

Ah, progress.

Flash forward another couple of hours. I'm in the back room at the Bada Bing. I don't know why. The phone rings and wakes me before Paulie Walnuts breaks my knee caps.

It's the service truck driver looking for the house. Guess my neighbors didn't call or at least didnt' call twice, or he wouldn't have called me.

I talked him through the neighborhood and he arrived at my doorstep.

"We're going to have a look at that box in your neighbor's yard."

"There's a box in my neighbor's yard?"

"Yep."

"What are they doing?"Christine asked as I watched them through the utility room window.

"Poking a box in the neighbor's yard with a stick."

"Hmmm."

"No wait now they're digging."

"The problem's a little more isolated than in The Trigger Effect," Christine said.

"Good thing, society would have broken down by now."

Forty-five minutes later, an hour ahead of the estimate, the service man, who was a nice guy and clearly was working all night, had my lights back on and the lights of all those around me. I guess you could say they had me to thank since we called first.

"I guess it could have been worse. Wonder what caused that?" Christine asked.

"I don't know, but we can check the paper in the morning," I said. "My editor when I was a reporter always used to say: `When people's lights go out, they want to read about it in the paper.'"

Geeze, I guess on that point he was right.

Strange Vuze

Not long ago an Advertising Age columnist spent a week watching television anywhere he could find it, except on his set, and did OK. Cliff in his 8-Things Me-Me confesses to the world he gets by without television except on PC.

The online entertainment options are certainly getting better. It's still a matter of sitting in my home office for me, but I find myself doing that more and more. I mentioned making use of Netflix's "Watch Now" option, definitely added value for that subscription.

This week I discovered Vuze, which has been floating around in code-name form for a while. It's a wedding of You Tube and High Definition video, harnessing the power of that cousin with a slightly dark reputation, Bit Torrent.

Unburnt offerings
Their offerings currently include programinning from Showtime, A&E and the BBC. From what I can tell, the first episode of a featured series is free then it's 99 cents for additional episodes.

I sampled a show I've always wated to see - the British series Strange with Richard Coyle from Coupling, which incidentally is also an offering.

Interesting if not overwhelming show. Coyle is John Strange, a priest defrocked because he's given to a literal interpretation of demons in an age when the church is leaning toward symbolic. The late Ian Richardson of House of Cards and Murder Rooms is Canon Black, a manipulative older priest opposing Strange's effort. Demon hunting frightens parishoners.

Scientific Help
Samantha Janus is a nurse who brings a touch of science to the equation when she's drawn into Stranges battle with evil.

It's an interesting premise, a bit pokey in execution for my American tastes but overall fun viewing, especially in the sharp Windows media file Vuze provided.

I had to get a quick download to get started, but otherwise things went smoothly and relatively quickly. Took about an hour for the 1.3 GB show file on a fast connection. I'm sure it's proprietary in one way or another but I haven't explored that.

All in all not a bad experience and there seems to be enough free content for hours, although each additional episode of Strange will run into money.

Maybe I need a way to connect the PC to the TV in the den with options continuing to improve.

(No rights to image implied.)

Looking into the Afterworld

The word up is that Afterworld is looking like a hot property to advertisers seeking to penetrate the mobile market. (It's in Advertising Age but this blog requires no registration.)


If the adman protagonist of the piece--reminiscet of Cell and The Stand--should pop a top on your favorite softdrink somewhere in the 130-or-so minute-or-so episodes from the creator of the TV show "Dark Skies," well that would be fab.

That sounds like a good bet because it's been downloaded many times so far on You Tube and subscriptions are coming. Will the iPod and iPhone be among them? Would I put it on the SidPod? Not sure.

I'm not certain if I'm willing to pay, but the story so far on You Tube is stylish, cynical and fresh in spite of King echoes.

The hero is from Seattle, but he's in New York when Captain Trips--sorry--when disaster strikes and he has to traverse a post-apocalyptic America to get home.

Would I stay with it for 130 episodes? Will it develop a cult following like the "footage" in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition which anticipated You Tubesque guerilla video?

Time will tell. In the meantime the music video above offers a taste of what's to come.

Addendum
Crown from Bud.TV was nice enough to drop by and remind me in comments that Afterworld is available on the Bud site as well. They have available episodes in a convenient menu scroll. There's a brief registration. It's that Bud, so it is an adult beverage.

There is nothing like a meme (My Me-Me)

OK, Tammi at Drawing on Words , who has some cool new Wordpress diggs, tagged me for this game:

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.

2. Each player starts
with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged need to
write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are my eight:

1. I am working to purge myself of all superstition.

2. I keep a statuette of a figure called a Mum-Ra from the Archie McPhee catalog beside my computer for luck.

3. I met my wife on the job, meaning one of us had to leave the organization due to company policy once we were wed. Our boss at the time got mad when she tendered her resignation.

4. I was born when my parents were older, and the impact of that fact on my life is not insignificant.

5. I can sometimes be opinionated and passionate. (Could you tell?)

6. I wrote a college paper on detective fiction and got a pretty good grade.

7. I have way too much stuff on my DVR.

8. I follow the political world more closely than I once did. I know what the Enterprise Institute is, for example. Still, one of my best sources for analysis is "The Daily Show."

Tagging:

Wayne
Charles
Stewart
Clifford
Etain
Steve
Sphinx
Spicy

Was it something I said to the headhunter?

Sometimes I wonder if the laments about the lack of talent in the advertising and marketing worlds are accurate.

Not long ago, I discovered one of several e-mails from a recruiter hidden away in my web-based e-mail inbox. They had been there a while because they weren't flowing into my "new mail" display. Oops.

BIG, REALLY BIG
If you look at their website, they're a BIG talent recruiter. Possibly true, so I e-mailed back on the most recent query with a polite response.

I wasn't rabid about the position, but I thought I'd at least express interest to make contact, make nice, get the ol' foot in the door with the headhunters just in case they're sitting on my dream job, don't know you?

Best laid plans.

"Hi, how do you do, can you tell me more about the position...," sez I.

Then they start mildly insulting me:

...

this position has some requirements that you have
not yet had experience in.... Please stay tuned for a
more jr. position that will allow you to
continue to build on the career path you have
already embarked on.

...

Now--the creative syntax aside--to their credit they'd picked up on a copywriting-oriented resume, one that didn't focus as much on the web side of my day job slash. And I know the intent was not to insult, but I sent back an e-mail to the effect that I've been in the workforce a few years now, and I'm not really interested in a "junior" position.

They caved and sent back a job description that pretty much could be my resume. BA degree, writing, at least 5 years job experience...

Competent in the usual suspects HTML, Javascript, Flash, web forums, blogs ;-) etc. etc.

You know and I know the company was throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there. Bottom line - one web monkey to run the show.

I couldn't say yes to Vignette, but I'm familiar with site management software in general. I'm confident I could figure it out.

I couldn't say yes to Cold Fusion either, but again, with a gun to my head and a manual... If the monkey can write and run web software, the monkey can be trained to operate other machinery and create web forms accordingly. Sometimes the reverse is not always true.

Put 'er in there
The catch: the company was basically involved in an enterprise slightly more boring than, well, everything. Hence the need for a recruiter, methinks.

I e-mailed back.

"Thank you, but the position watching paint dry (a paraphrase) does not appear challenging. I do have the skillset mentioned in the description, however. Perhaps you were looking at a copywriting-focused resume. Please blah, blah blah ."

That's the last I've heard from them, and prior to that several e-mails had circulated into my box, so I'm thinking assertive was one thing not in the qualification mix.

Looking for talent? Maybe talent's not absent. Maybe talent just made your headhunter mad.

Airplane Reads

The captive environment of an airplane and airport has always been a great place to get some reading done.

I hate to fly. I shudder when the airlines get on the speakers to say - "We have more people booked on the plane than we have seats. Oops, should have seen that coming, would anyone like a can of tomato juice as an inducement to take a later flight?" Someone said worry is imagination misused, well I have a very good imagination. I'm always waiting for that overbooked shoe to drop.

But in an environment of otherwise total boredom I get more immersed in a book than perhaps anywhere else. At my house there are cats, you see. They don't time their disagreements or hunger impulses to chapter breaks. Also Christine is prone to watch HGTV.

I've read many books on planes over the years and I recall many of them. I read Elmore Leonard's Split Images on a puddle jumper to New Orleans once.

Other great airplane reads include Mark Frost's The List of Seven pitting Conan Doyle and his Sherlocks Holmes inspiration against esoteric societies.

Also, John Farris' The Axman Cometh which he wanted you to read in one sitting, and Robert Petitt once insisted I read Chet Williamson's short story "Her Skin's Just Soft and Purty, He Said" from Razored Saddles on a flight to Seattle.

I'm glad I don't have to fly more, but if I did I'd probably get more reading done.

Life 2.0

My friend came by my office the other day, and I realized how long it had been since I'd seen him in person. He didn't look like his instant message icon anymore.

Staying in touch with scattered and absent friends online is great and I love it, but this pal is a free-lancer who I've worked with for years on the job.

He works from his home that's about a mile from my office as the crow flies.

Yet we communicate mostly by IM and e-mail, utilizing various resources to move large files we're working on back and forth.

We just happened to have several to deal with this week. "Burn a CD," my friend happened to say. "And I'll pick it up."

Web 2.0 is great, introduces us to new friends and reunites us with old friends scattered by time and distance, yet I find myself wondering if some of Clifford Stoll's old ZDNet editorials about the importance of walking on grass once in a while aren't even more relevant.

We shouldn't fail to notice the world beyond the office window whether it be the grass or the people walking on it.

An IM's great but a handshake is even better if it's possible.

The ear thing and Sopranos spoilers

So I'm sitting in an airport terminal this morning with my fingers in my ears, stamping my feet and humming "I don't hear you!"

Christine was beside me doing the same thing.

An old guy next to us was looking at us strangely. (By old guy I mean at least 10 years older than me.)

Why was this going on?

Because we spent most of the night on a red eye or in airline terminals, we didn't get to watch The Sopranos finale live and CNN WOULD NOT SHUT UP with spoilers. It wasn't like changing a channel was an option.

First, American Morning or whatever they call their morning show, was on, blasting through the terminal, where we really needed to listen for a flight to be called.

We got through that with the finger in the ear trick, then apparently the staff or the airport gods switched the channel over to CNN Headline News for the Robin and Company discussion. I can't really blame Robin she was off. It was a sub on her show that was spewing spoilers

Again we had to do the ears.

It is seriously time for the news channels to reconsider how television shows are covered.

CNN and FOX News are broadcast all over public places, in hotel lobbies, terminals, department stores. They're not passive. It's one thing when it's Paris live, all the time.

However, when you're talking about a show scheduled for numerous rebroadcasts, spoiler alert does not cut it if there's not an easy way for people to look away.

Fortunately I did manage to avoid hearing anything other than "Fans were disappointed..." and "When Phil Leotardo..."

With your index fingers, you can turn spoilers into teasers. Finally we made it home and relaxed to watch the show, and, you know, make it safe to live with open eyes and ears.

And for those who thought the finale was a bust:

(Spoiler warning)
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
It wasn't. The show wrapped up with more red herrings than a shelf full of Christie novels, riffing on the very thing for which the show's always been attacked.

That's brilliant.

But whatever did happen to that guy who was a Russian Green Beret?

Killing Fred

The picture was everywhere and initially I though it might have been produced "Lord of the Rings" style with trick perspective.

Not so, the 1000+ pound hog that was hunted to it's death was real. It's the reality horror writers might easily spin into a tale of terror.

The story behind the initial headlines is horrific in a different way.

Wayne Pacelle posted a link yesterday to a less publicized news account. The "monster" was raised as a pet and had a name, Fred.

The hunt to his death was a canned hunt.

I'm cursed with a writer's empathy - I can imagine what it must have felt like to a coddled, domestic animal, raised with meals provided and other care to suddenly become prey. Even if you want to argue that the creature did not possess the reason of a human there had to be a feeling of confusion.

Did Fred have the sentience to feel betrayal? Certainly he felt fear and pain even though there are those who argue animals don't have an understanding that they are going to die or of what death is.

As humans with empathy and reason we need to ask these questions. If we don't, we're less human.

The King Must Die - Or Why I'm Worried About Tony Soprano

Since the episode early in The Sopranos when Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano talked about failed attempts at college before his segue into organized crime, or waste disposal as the case may be, I've felt he was a Shakespearean character.

Now that the series endgame is going full throttle, if that's true, I don't think things look good for T.

On message boards, and in living rooms, viewers are rooting for Tony to take down rival boss Phil Leotardo.

Dramatically a showdown would certainly satisfy. Phil's just mean, after all. But I'm afraid like Macbeth and Lear, Tony's going to have go down one way or another either by the sword or under the wheels of justice. There is that lingering gun violation after all.

His psychiatrist's determination that he's a sociopath would also seem to further charge the tragic flaw notion, and the fact that he's drained the show's heavily symbolic swimming pool does not make for a sunny outlook either.

I just don't think Tony can live happily ever after, but the show's writers are always full of twists and surprises.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens next.

Netflix Watch Now and Dreams in the Witch House

The Netflix "Watch Now" option appeared almost magically for me last night. Christine was watching a PBS show on the art of quilting in the den, you see.

I believe the option was available for me for the first time, although Hacking Netflix--an excellent source for all things Netflix-- noted the feature's gradual rollout began in January.

Apparently there are about 1,000 selections available so far.

I decided to try a 54-minute entry from the Masters of Horror series, Stuart Gordon's take on H.P. Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witchouse." I'd been meaning to get around to more installments from that series for a while. (I've seen the Joe Lansdale episode and the John Landis effort and a few others.)

The Netflix viewer provided the best online streaming I've encountered--better than NBC's and ABC's. I got few blips, few slowdowns, and it offered a sharp picture that worked at full screen. It was near DVD quality from what I could tell on my monitor and with the current quality of my vision.

Looks like it might be a great way to whittle down my queue.

The episode is an interesting one, updated and modified a bit from the original short story and infused with Gordon gruesomeness. It didn't rival the banned-from-Showtime Takashi Miike entry, but I'd give it a not-for-the-squeamish ranking nonethless.

Among the interesting touches: The student renter of the witch-haunted room uses a laptop to explore the strange architecture of his rooming house.

Maybe I'll watch a few more "Masters" installments. Looks like most of the first season is available. There's a time to rental-plan ratio so one-hour shows are a positive proposition in a couple of ways.

The down side - well that's one more thing to distract me from writing.

(No rights to image implied.)

What's on the iPod - The Tennessee Stud and Memories

Sometimes on shuffle my iPod dredges up songs and memories I'd forgotten.

This morning, "The Tennessee Stud" from one of Johnny Cash's American albums clicked into play.

It reminded me of my old man, as many things do these days.

He'd hum the "Tennessee Stud" when he bounced me on his knee, and he had a dozen variations of the bounce.

He'd identify the types of horses, and raise and lower his knee differently for each.

I don't remember all, though I remember the Tennesse Walker was a vibrant variety and I think I'd almost tumble off the bronc.

And yeah, I found a lyric that applied to old man - He had the nerve and he had the blood.

Never was a horse like the Tennessee Stud and no one had an old man like my old man.

Horror Movie Review: Dark Corners

A long time ago I wrote a piece at epinions on my favorite perplexing films, flicks that demand a little more than gasps from the viewer.

I don't know that I would add Dark Corners written/directed by Ray Gower to my favorites, but it's certainly a demanding little chiller that I now think I understand thanks to the message board on Internet Movie Database.

I was interested in it first because I read a synopsis when production was announced a while back. The gist of that description was that Thora Birch would play a young woman who wakes up one morning to discover she is a different person, a person pursued by strange beings in London.

That film has yet to be made. Dark Corners is a Japanese-influenced psychological thriller, surreal and imaginative and chilling in a subtle way.

Ms. Birch plays Susan Hamilton (blonde) and Karen Clarke (brunette).

Susan's world is one of light, a glowing suburban existence in which she and husband David (Christien Anholt) are struggling with infertility.

Susan's light is plagued by darkness, a grunge world she enters when she dreams and becomes Karen, who lives in a grim little apartment and works as a mortician's assistant.

The paralell worlds are lighted and photographed as incredible polarities, making for very interesting visuals.

A serial killer is stalking both universes and both Susan and Karen are exposed to the brutality.

Toby Stephens (who battled 007 so wowingly in Die Another Day) is Susan's psychicatrist who seeks to purge the dreams of Karen.

The key to it all, if the I believe accurate assessments on imdb.com are to be trusted, is in Susan's statement that hell is having all of one's dark corners exposed.

I can't promise that this is the best horror film you'll ever view, but after you watch and think about it a little you realize it rises above the standard-issue chiller.

Check it out and see if you agree.

Order from Amazon

Six Degrees of Scott Baio

My co-worker mentioned two things outside my door the other day. A.) She doesn't watch many scary movies and B.) She likes Scott Baio.

She was wondering whatever happened to him.

"If you watched scary movies," I said, "you'd have seen him in Cursed."

"Is it a big role?"

"Kind of an aside," I said. "He played himself."

Long after that discussion I remembered I have a six degress of separation from Scott Baio story.

I've told the story here before about the round about way one of my comic books got reviewed (but not optioned) by 20th Century Fox, but I've never written down the tale of how Scott Baio's brother's producing partner came to call me for a copy of my first novel, Azarius.

I went to high school with Faith Ford, and her also talented sister, Suzonne, for that matter, and our families knew each other and thus their folks knew me.

After Faith went away to New York and later Hollywood, once her character was murdered on Another World, somewhere along the way she met an actor named Johnny Venocur.

When Faith came back to Louisiana for her wedding in the late '80s, Johnny called her house to wish her well and wound up talking to her mom and telling her he had partnered with Steven Baio and they were interested in making horror movies.

Faith's mom told him he should look me up because Azarius was fairly recently out at that point. He actually gave me a call. (I seem to remember it was at my desk at the newspaper so he probably called my dad's number and received a referral from him. My dad was about as free with my work number as he was my unlisted home number.)

So anyway, I talked to Johnny who was a nice guy, and I sent him a copy of my book and despite the length of this post that was pretty much the long and the short of it. I suppose Azarius called for too many special effects.

As Kurt Vonnegut might say - "So it goes."

Years later, when it finally occurred to me to check the Internet Movie Database--to my credit they had to invent it first--I found Johnny and Steven did produce Evil Laugh and Hard Rock Nightmare right around the time we talked.

If things had turned out a little differently there might have been a B movie with my name on it in the rental bends.

And I might have even met Scott Baio, don't you know?

Zombie Ads

Microsoft has combined two things I like--zombies and cool advertising---in a new spot appearing in tech magazines.

Touting Microsoft Forefront® enterprise security software , the ad features a guy clearly from the IT department facing down a hoard of undead attackers. (I'm no bigger fan of Microsoft than the next guy, but I do appreciate creativity.)

The message notes it's easy to stop zombies, lumbering, brainless oafs that they are, and even easier to prevent malware on a network with Forefront.

It's a great approach for the message's audience.

No doubt inspired by The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z and the "Living Dead" franchise, the ad points to a supporting website, easyeasier.com.

It's a microsite requiring a fast connection, and one flaw I see is that there's not a clever time-killing icon to occupy you during the download.

Otherwise the website provides lots of fun as it dramatizes and expounds upon the zombie-fighting pointers from the ad such as "4. Find a weapon, any weapon." The funny bits culminate with a sales pitch about Forefront and options for additional info on the software.

I've only seen the zombie print ad but the site features other enemies, so I suspect more ads with a James Bond-style spy, a gray alien and a Ninja will be coming in future issues of Network World.

That I shall look forward to.

Addendum
An omission: I should have noted earlier that the new Forefront campaign was created by Mccann Worldgroup.


(No rights to image implied.)

Lost: Interruptions

One of the most interesting things about watching the fabulous "Lost" finale-- "Through the Looking Glass" --last night was that the local weatherman seemed to have learned a valuable lesson.

I wish I had the citation, but a while back now, Christine read an article in The New York Times Magazine, I believe, noting that local TV stations have invested heavily in their weather radar systems and love opportunities to trot them out.

That of course leads to overwrought reporting. "Get in your back yard and dig, dig for your lives!" the weatherman's given to shout on cloudy days. "A storm cellar is your only hope when the orange and green Rorshack pattern reaches our area! Go now!"

So anyway, couple of weeks ago an episode of "Lost" called "The Brig" was the offering of the evening. Unfortunately it got cloudy around the time the show was set to begin.

The weatherman came on the air right around the end of the re-run of the previous week's episode and started talking about where it might begin to rain next.

He put up video of what the station's parking lot had looked like minutes earlier. I'm not sure why. Basically you could see a few branches waving in the breeze.

Lost hope
As the top of the hour neared, Christine asked me to stop suggesting so loudly that the weatherman was overweight and that his parents might not have been legally wed.

As minutes ticked by it became apparent he had no plans to shut up in time for us to find out how things were going with Locke.

I finally gave up and bought the episode the next day from iTunes. I'm easy going except when I'm not.

So anyway, flash forward ;-) and last night, minutes until the finale was to start, thunderstorms started rolling through our area.

Miracles
Miraculously, there was a crawl across the bottom of the screen, and a tiny little weather map, but no interruption.

The show began and played on without a hitch. Then at a commercial break! the weatherman came on and said: "Don't worry you won't miss any of `Lost' but I thought you'd like to know there's a Queen Mother of a thunderheadabout to hit Smithburg."

They gave up commercial air time. Apparently some people didn't reserve their remarks for their living rooms.

And the station listened. Democracy in action.

They finally figured out interrupting a vastly popular serial drama--known for its surprises and plot twists--with trivialities is not a way to win the hearts and minds of the viewership.

And that was danged near as cool as Hurley driving the VW microbus to the rescue!

More from G.P. Taylor and other dark fantasy from the Isles

I was pleasantly surprised to get an e-mail from G.P. Taylor in response to yesterday's blog post, thanking me for the mention and updating me on some other books with a few URLs to visit.

There's a recently released (in the U.S.) sequel to Shadowmancer called The Curse of Salamander Street.

He also has a new series featuring Mariah Mundi with the first title being The Ghost of the Prince Regent.

That info along with news yesterday from Variety that Skulduggery from Irish author Derek Landry is being tapped for a film franchise by Warner Bros. suggests there's a lot of great dark fantasy coming from the British Isles, perhaps aimed at young readers but fun for all fans of the fantastic.

Faithful Horror

My boss gave me a gift card as a bonus for the on-site producing of a new wave of television commercials, hard work that's exhilerating at the same time and apparently something I have a bit of affinity for even though it's not the creative side of the effort. I got a gift from the ad agency we work with also as a thank you, so this has not been too bad an experience.

The interesting twist is that my gift card is from a religious book store chain, you know, one of the ones where all the DVDs star Gary Busey.

I predict I will still have some interesting titles to browse in the fiction section.

I own one book by G.P. Taylor, Shadowmancer, a dark fantasy set in the 17th century. I actually bought it in Dublin and now I believe there are several more books by Taylor, an Anglican priest who's also penned a sequel to Shadowmancer and Wormwood an 18th-century tale of a Cabalist.

Then there's bestselling author Ted Dekker who is sort of the Dean Koontz of Christian fiction. I liked his Thr3e. Another, Obsessed, dragged a little in the middle, to me, as the protagonist struggled repeatedly to gain access to secret information in a villain's basement, but it picked up in the end. I'm always intrigued by Dekker's thematic examinations though I understand they are being toned down in order to further crossover into mainstream.

I also understand there's a book called House by Dekker and Christian horror author Frank Peretti who's always an interesting and intelligent writer. I enjoyed his book, The Oath, about a Judeo-Christian demon aroused by the formation of a utopian society.

All in all there should be enough to let me spend my gift money.

Horror movie marketing

An interesting article on low-budget horror film marketing is featured on the Advertising Age website today.

It focuses on the controversy that swirled around billboards for Captivity but also examines Saw, Eli Roth movies and the box-office failure of The Reaping.

What's Not on the iPod

Christine has been humming "Comfortably Numb" since "Kennedy and Heidi" ran Tony and Cris-tuh-fur off the road Sunday night on "The Sopranos." Yep, along with "Lost" and "24" we're watching the final season of "The Sopranos" live rather than delayed by DVR.

That means we've had to keep quiet for friends who are viewing The S's on further delay such as DVD. Perhaps knowing a secret has contributed to my, my, my brown-eyed girl's obsession with the CN version from "The Departed" soundtrack--of which Christopher had a bootleg copy of course--rendered by Roger Waters with Van Morrison/The Band rather than Pink Floyd.

Its a soothing tune, a bit like church as Brian Williams notes, but humming has had to suffice so far because like the title song from "Veronica Mars" and a few other annoying examples, the Morrison and The Band rendition at least the 7 plus minute version on "The Departed" is not a 99 cent download.

You can only get it if you pop for the whole album, "The Departed: Music From the Motion Picture" not to be confused with "The Departed Original Score."

While it's savvy marketing, that's a bit annoying, especially since it's a rare case of a large, shared social soundtrack produced by a pop cultural event. Most of the time we as a people are more fragmented these days.

We'll spring for the album by the end of the week, I predict, but that's the kind of thing Christine has to cogitate on a while first, tightwad that she. I just would have liked to have had it sooner.

Sorry this post has more cross references than an annotated Joyce novel, but that's what's on my mind.

Stories are the most important thing in the world

At the official site for the His Dark Materials trilogy (of which The Golden Compass is being adapted for film), the "about the author" on the creator Philip Pullman features a wonderful epigram at the outset of his biography:

"Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all."

That's certainly bold but it sums up what I've believed for a long time, and the coda validates the boldness.

Stories certainly do make us human just as they reflect our humanity. What would we be without Arthur or Gilgamesh? More importantly would we be where we are?

Though the passage to biblical scholars is fraught with more complex meaning, authors are fond of invoking John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word..."

And it's true, the word is what carries forward, preserves and analyzes culture.

Pullman's is a wonderful thought and well worth sharing.

Go tell the Spartans.

Swords - and the day that we met

Me and short story author Robert "Wild Man" Petitt, who's MIA these days but I believe still kickin', walked into a bar.

Actually it was a hotel bar in New Orleans, and we were hanging around the old New Orleans Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival, an annual party we used to all go to.

As we shared a couple of beers the first edition of "Hot Blood" came up. Robert and I were talking over one rather wild story included in that anthology.

Guy a couple of stools down heard us and allowed he'd read that story too and thought it was a wild trip. That guy was Charles Gramlich and we've been friends ever since.

You probably read about his newest book on his blog, but I thought I'd add a banner and a mention here for surfers who might not have our blogs in common. (Or as an extra nudge to those who do.)

I have not read it yet, but I can testify that he his a fine writer, a true lover of swords and sorcery, and I can tell you his tale "Dark Wind," which he donated to animal welfare recently features action-packed prose that is stylish and fabulous.

I'm sure the trilogy which "Swords" begins is penned with the same devotion to excellence and the same love of myth and magic.

If Bayou Bob Petitt was here he'd say Check it Out.

Lost: Looking at the Foreshadowing

OK, spoiler alert if you haven't watched the Lost episode "The Man Behind the Curtain." Seriously, Charles you really need to rent the DVDs.
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
The foreshadowing would suggest Locke's not going to die:

1. In recent episodes, even though we've suspected it for a while, characters have highlighted the fact that people heal quickly on the island, most notably Patchy when he was treating Naomi.
2. The Others were a bit in awe of Locke's healing capacity, which seems strong even for the island.
3. There was a close up of his father biting him, and his hand healing quickly from that wound.
4. Yeah, I know Libby died but she was gut shot and could barely talk. Ditto Ana Lucia. Locke and Ben were having a whole conversation. (Right before the bad news I was thinking turning his back on Ben couldn't have been a good idea.)
5. Sounded like a lung, Naomi got over a lung.

I could be wrong, but somebody in the writer's room went to a lot of trouble to hammer those points.

P.S. I think Ben missed some people in the Swan hatch when the killer gas was released.

Time will tell, but I wanted to get this on record in case I'm right. If I'm wrong? This post will be deleted, baby!

Favorite Stories: Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier

(On this eve of The Daphne du Maurier International Centenary Conference, it seems an appropriate time to discuss another of my favorite horror short stories.)

I was introduced to the works of Daphne du Maurier at my aunt's house on a visit. She had a book club edition of The Scapegoat in which a man becomes the dupe of his identical twin.

I knew nothing of Rebecca at that point nor of the author's short stories including "The Birds" which have an even darker tone than her novel-length thrillers which frequently attracted Alfred Hitchcock.

"Don't Look Now" is of course the basis for an intriguing, eerie thriller directed by a different auteur, Nicholas Roeg, most notorious for its extended, steamy love scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie.

That scene stems from a single sentence in the source material, but it's generally a faithful adaptation of du Maurier's short story of a couple vacationing in Venice and vicinity. (In the film it's a working vacation as the husband works on a church restoration project. Incidentally there's word that a remake is coming, but why?)

In the story it's simply a holiday and a somber one as the couple copes with the death of a daughter. One son remains in boarding school, but the loss of their little girl has been devastating to the wife, Laura. The "girl meant everything," notes John, the husband.

The story opens with the couple making jokes about elderly twin sisters at a nearby restaurant table, but Laura's encounter with one of the twins who is blind and claims to be psychic sends their holiday on a strange, eerie course.

It is a story of questions. Is the blind twin really seeing the spirit-world version of the lost daughter as she claims? Or is she a con artist?

John is skeptical, but as they wander old world streets, they catch site of a child who could be a ghostly version of their daughter.

Everything is interrupted by word that their son is in need of appendicitis surgery. They decide Laura will go home immediately, and John will follow with their car.

But as he returns to their hotel, John sees Laura on a passing boat with the twins and begins a frantic search to find hear amid rumors that a "maniac" is prowling the city.

The ending comes with a pair of twists, one odd and bizarre, and evokes an eerie, unsettling chill.

I like the tale because it's like many of those pieces that's more than it seems at a glance. It offers strong mood and perplexes. It's quiet horror to be sure, one of those tales that keeps you contemplating long after you've finished it.

(Pictured is the short story collection I own, which includes both "Don't Look Now" and "The Birds.")

In the Box of Secret Memories

Not long after my father died, my mother's memory deteriorated, and Christine and I were unexpectedly faced with dealing with her things as we moved her into a higher level of assisted living.

It was sifting through the accumulation of a lifetime and what I wrote of it at the time was tearful. It was a difficult time, one we often said we would look back upon wondering how we got through it. And we do.

Christine was trying on a ring earlier that reminded me of one of the lighter moments of the experience. It was a possibly antique ring with a blue stone that was then nestled amid a box of costume jewelry.

When Christine discovered it, we knew it was not something for donation or estate sale because of its beauty, though it probably had no high value.

The discovery prompted Christine to look a little more carefully through the old necklaces and earrings.

Delving a little deeper she found a piece that intrigued her. It had some silver with a strong shine, but she turned it one way and then the other unable to figure out what it might be.

Finally she held it out toward me because I'd commented on memories of times and events at which some of the items had been worn.

"What is this?" she asked.

I looked at it for a second and flipped it over so she could see and understand that it was out of context.

"It's a dental partial," I explained.

And for a few moments of laughter the somber mood was lifted.

Lost: Gendarmerie

(Contains spoilers if you're waitng for the DVD, blink now.)
:
:
:
When I caught just the glimpse of the "Sawyer" file Locke was reading on Lost's "The Brig," I knew I'd be visiting Lost Eastereggs for a better view this a.m..

Gendarmerie's certainly an interesting hint of something more. I didn't know what a gendarmerie was until I visited Wikipedia--a "military body charged with police duties among civilian populations."

Does Dharma/Hanso/Mittelos have not just people keeping tabs but an entire secret army at work in the world off the island?

Is that something I missed with I started to lose interest in the Lost Experience?

I continue to be amazed at the wonderful tidbits sprinkled throughout "Lost."

I know there's been a lot of "Lost" bashing, but I remain optimistic that a fabulous master work is unfolding.

Even an obvious revelation like last night's identity/cross was handled deftly and with twists to make it satisfying.

I'm staying on for the ride.

Horror Fiction Market News - Noctem Aeternus

I have news from Michael Knost of a new fiction magazine he's editing called Noctem Aeternus coming Jan. 1, 2008, and I try to share market news when I can.

According to Michael's news release it's going to be a free quarterly PDF magazine featuring science fiction, fantasy, western and mystery stories with a touch of horror.

There will be an emphasis on story and character and the first issue will include a tale from
Ramsey Campbell, author of The Face that Must Die and other modern classics.

Guidelines and other info are found at Michael's website, www.michaelknost.com.

What I'm Reading Now - A Walk on the Nightside

I've been reading urban fantasy a bit of late. My reading tastes are cyclical, I suppose, caroming from genre to genre and author to author.

Karen Chance's first novel nudged me onto this current path, though I have a history as far back as Mike Resnick's Stalking the Unicorn. Of late, every couple of books, I pick up something from the contemporary fantasy scene. And I've been recording "Blood Ties" and "The Dresden File" based on some urban fantasy novels, but I guess that's another story.

I like urban fantasy because the flights of imagination are wonderous and intriguing, perhaps moreso because they occur in universes slightly to the left of the real world vs. far flung galaxies.

I discovered Simon R. Green's tales of the Nightside while browsing collections of people with whom I have books in common on Library Thing, and I'm now about halfway through the second novel, set in a shadowy city within London where things are just weird.

Dead singers are on hand in the clubs, demons masquerade as gangsters and larger, more shadowy types are on hand to menace John Taylor, the main character who's essentially a private eye with a psychic gift for finding things. In the first novel, Something from the Nightside, he returns after five years in the real world, rekindling old rivalries and acquaintances.

There's a subplot running through his activities related to the identity of his mother and his potential to bring about a dark future.

It reminds me of "Sandman" as well as a host of current television shows i.e. "Heroes" not to metion the aforementioned cable shows. I think I'll stick with it through the following volumes, then I have to get back to the Weather Warden series.

Sahara and Mariah Arrive At Black Beauty

The Humane Society is providing video of Mariah and and Sahara arriving at Black Beauty Ranch.

More from Black Beauty Ranch

Here are a few more pics from my trip to Black Beauty Ranch on Earth Day.
This guy's right horn points downward. It saved him from a canned hunt venue. Hunters pay to shoot animals in enclosures for trophies they can then hang on their home or office walls. Because he has only one visible horn, he wasn't deemed worthy and will live out his days at Black Beauty.


Above is Babe, the only elephant at Black Beauty Ranch. Omar, a camel has become her closest friend. Elephants are herd animals and thus need companionship. Black Beauty hopes to expand the elephant area and take in another elephant when funds are available.

One of these ponies is blind. The other has become his companion and guide without prompting or training.

Donate to Black Beauty

At Black Beauty Ranch on Earth Day

What better way to celebrate Earth Day (weekend) than a visit to Black Beauty Ranch, the refuge started by author and critic Cleveland Amory?

It proved to be a wonderful time to be on their grounds, 1,300 acres of green pastures, forests and fields all making a home for animals rescued from canned hunt venues, zoos, circuses and now the slaughter house.

I saw Friendly again, one of the original burros rescued from the Grand Canyon in the '70s.

I also got to see two of the newest residents at the ranch, horses Mariah and her daughter Sahara, who came to the grounds last week.

They are being called "Miracle Horses" because they were actually in the last open U.S. horse slaughter house in DeKalb, IL, when a court decision effectively ended horse slaughter in the U.S. at least until someone finds another loophole.

Mariah and Sahara and a few other horses wound up routed to sanctuaries like Black Beauty.

They're currently in Black Beauty's infirmary, a bit thin and rattled from being transported back and forth on trucks, but they will have a permanent home on the grounds.

I believe it was Sahara who came over to the fence as our group passed by, stretching her neck a bit to reach some weeds that were a tad greener than those inside the pen.

Sometimes, the grass really is greener.

Donate to Black Beauty Ranch

I used to have that issue they were discussing on Lost

On the Lost episode "Catch 22" there's a Tarrantinoesque exchange between Hurley and Charlie - what if Superman and The Flash had a race?

Apparently they've raced many times over the years, but my dad bought me the first matchup back in the '60s. I don't have a theory about the allusion like the fabulous Jeff Jensen at Entertainment Weekly. I'm just sayin'.

I can remember sitting on our back steps and reading it. It does indeed feature The Flash vibrating through a wall as discussed by Hurley, though the comic is long gone and I would be pressed to tell you who won that round or what else happened other than passes by exotic world scenes.

It takes me back, though. My old man bought me "Superman" comics sporadically. I replaced a few of those a while back by mail order, but if I'm recalling the Superman-Flash race was expensive as such issues tend to be.

It's a little cheaper to get Gold Key "Tarzan" issues. They adapted Edgar Rice Burroughs novels in multi-issue arcs, and we managed to follow those, purchasing them at a 7-11 near our house.

My dad read them to me along with issues of "Ripley's Believe it or Not," and things like "The Gold Bug." He inadvertently scared the shit out of me with "The Raven" too.

And that's when the spell of imagination was cast over me too.

Good times.

Cat Health Food - Switching to Organic

You know, when you're changing your cats' food you're supposed to mix a little of what they've been eating in with the new stuff so that they have an opportunity to prepare their pallets.

Given all of the problems with pet food of late, I figured I better get my cats something safe so I ordered some organic food from Amazon.

I thought "human-quality," organic food should suit my cats just fine, so I didn't mix it. I used up the food that they had been eating, which I'm thankful wasn't part of the recall then opened a bag of the new stuff.

I expected them to be happy to eat one of the same brands I do.

I left them some super primo delux new stuff with free range chicken at bedtime last night. That seems to work well, usually.

At 3 a.m. Monty, our eldest-- apparently elected spokesman for the other cats--woke Christine demanding to be fed. I hid under my pillow and pretended I didn't hear this going on.

Groggily Christine went to the kitchen, expecting to find an empty bowl. Instead the food I'd put down hadn't been polished off.

Monty sat beside it staring at the bowl, then up at Christine.

Daisy, our female, has accepted the change just slightly better. She's probably just pleased its expensive, and she's given up on getting any more of the fuzzy things on my iPod earbuds.

Oliver, our indoor outdoor cat who sometimes plans his own organic meals outside, has also begun to eat it as has Ash.

Since they keep recalling more brands, I'm thinking organic is the way to go. I'm not mentioning the organic brand here because I don't think it's the fault of the brand my cats are turning up their noses at least short term. It's my cats hitting me with 'tude.

It's become a struggle of wills 'twixt Christine and Mon, however. He's still demanding a return to the flavor he previously enjoyed. She's adamant he learn to like what we've, in our finite wisdom, selected.

Would that I could explain and have him understand it's only because we love him and we're glad we didn't get any tainted food before.

We'll work through it. It just may take a little time.

Addendum
When we bought the new food, we got some canned organic as well - same brand. Our cats only get canned on Saturday night.

We tried it out last night - 4-22-07 and they liked it. The dry - still not so much.

Who's still writing to those Q&A Columns?

It's probably one of the tragedies of our electronic age that the art of letter writing is becoming antiquated, ushered toward extinction by terms like snail mail. Who wants to wait days for a missive to reach its destination when a message can be there in seconds?

That is a shame, but I'm a bit perplexed when I pick up magazines and see people are still writing in to letters columns to get bits of trivia resolved.

"Who was that guy that played the cousin of Charlie Sheen's girlfriend on the April 25 episode of..."

Pardon the pseudo-expletive but how frakin' dim are these people? Have they never heard of imdb.com? I mean you can even build their search into Firefox's address bar. You don't have to write a letter to Matt at TV Guide and wait weeks for a half-assed answer.

This week's "Ask Matt" really prompted this. Someone asks if Rick Schroder didn't play Jack Bauer's daughter's boyfriend in Season 2 of 24.

No, Rick Schroder's role as an asshole on this season of 24 is his first on the show, TV Guide answers: You, gentle reader--I'm paraphrasing--must be thinking of James Badge Dale who played Kim's boyfriend in season 2.

Actually, this is just a supposition, but I bet the reader was confusing seasons as well as former child stars. See I watch 24 just like I watch Lost--they're the only two I watch "live" unless Christine is in a mood for House--and I happen to know that C. Thomas Howell played Jack's daughter's boyfriend in a guest shot last season.

Don't you think that's something someone's a little more likely to confuse, Ponyboy vs. the kid from Silver Spoons?

I could be wrong, but you'd think TV Guide could have thrown that in.

What's on the iPod? The Rupert Holmes Edition

Sadly the only Rupert Holmes songs I could find on iTunes were "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)"; "The People That You Never Get to Love" (recorded not by Holmes but by Susannah McCorkle); and "Timothy," the Holmes-penned tale of cannibalism in verse originally recorded by The Buoys.

I was looking for selections from perhaps his most famous solo-artist albums "Partners in Crime" from which "Escape" and "Him" became hits--and the later "Adventure." I had others, but those I owned in their 8-track versions and listened to repeatedly in my car in the early '80s.

The tracks on those are almost all story songs and they were a significant piece of the soundtrack of my life and probably a subconscious creative stimulant.

I was reminded of that because I was watching "Where the Truth Lies" on cable, the MPAA-challenged film based on Holmes novel of Martin and Lewis-like performers with an unsolved murder in their past.

It's not a surprise Holmes went on to write for the Broadway stage, television and finally novels given the narrative nature of his tunes.

"Escape" is basically flash fiction and "Him" has something of a narrative arc as well. Ditto the lesser known "The O'Brien Girl." It's the tale of a mysterious transfer student, her presence at her new school never quite explained.

"The People That You Never Get to Love" is slice-of-life, and it played well in the background of my early single life with its lament of missed opportunities. Your perfect love is in a "passing Buick" when you've "been pulled over by a traffic cop," the song observs.

It would have been nostalgic to get some of those onto my pod for replay.

I guess I'll need to buy one of Holmes greatest hits albums on CD, or at the very least get the audiobooks version of his newer mystery "Swing" to have Holmes stories in my car again.

Would we accept the Lost Others as Aliens?

For those avidly following "Lost," as I am, an intersting Easter Egg (or red herring?) popped up last night, as documented on the Lost Easter Eggs Blog.

The symbol on the tree at the suitcase drop in the jungle appears similar to symbols related to Ummo aliens, claims that beings from planet Ummo began visiting Earth in 1950. I'd never heard about them before although it's aparently well known though not Roswell-well known.

So, does that mean Adam and Eve in the cave are dead astronauts who spawned or deposited core members of the Others group?

Is the seemingly superhuman strength of the Others of alien origin? Is the oft-referenced Jacob a "Stranger in a Strange" land who's garnered worshippers?

Did they have, then lose the ability to reproduce on The Island? Or are aliens trying to breed with humans and failing?

Producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff have stressed Adam and Eve who appeared in Season 1 are proof they've had a narrative plan all along.

Is that step one in foreshadowing that might soon take the already strange story even further into the realms of science fiction?

And if so, as viewers are we primed enough to accept it or is such a revelation a potential "jump the shark moment." I'm not sure how I'd feel.

How far can you go in a fictional stretch? Anyone have thoughts?

Stuff I Noticed In Grindhouse

I'm a little bummed that they're going to release extended versions of "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" from "Grindhouse" now that it's being considered a box office failure. What about the people who turned out? That's kind of cheating us, right?

Oh well, I'm glad I went to the double feature. Took me back to drive-in movies of my younger days. We had drive-ins in the South, not grind houses--except for the older downtown theaters that mixed B-movies in with the A stuff from time to time.

Anyway, I noticed a few fun things in Grindhouse - probably reported elsewhere also but maybe you'll read it here first.

• Michael Parks of "Then Came Bronson" is police officer Earl McGraw in both movies. He also played Earl McGraw Texas ranger in "From Dusk 'Til Dawn." He's the guy George Clooney and Quentin Tarrantino battle it out with in that vampire flick's opening scene.
• Kurt Russell's death-proof car is a Chevy Nova. It's a Chevy Nova Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta have to clean out and ditch in "Pulp Fiction."
• What no cameo by Barry Newman? IMDB reports he was appearing in episodes of The OC as recently as 2005. The "Vanishing Point" star should have at least been hanging out at the bar in "Death Proof."

More if I think of 'em.

What's Your Story?

The official launch of a new site called What's Your Story? is schedule for April 12, but the doors are already open for submissions in a variety of categories, and there are already a few posts including a personal biographical sketch from author Joseph Finder and a horror short story.

Other categories for submissions include fiction of apparently all genres and celebrity stories. Looks like the pay is in the form of prizes if I'm reading it all correctly.

Their "About Us" page phrases their mission this way: "Here at your-story.org we want to hear about you! Whether you are a budding author, or would just like to tell the world your story, you can do it here."

Check it and out for yourself and decide if you want to play.

More Dispatches from World Horror Toronto via Chicago

Here's more of what Wayne saw and did at the World Horror Convention Toronto. Nothing like the lightning immediacy of the Internet to provide instant information. I've tried to provide links to the friends Wayne mentions. Visit their sites - buy their stuff! Otherwise read below without commercial interruption:

Dispatches From Toronto, Part 2:

I left off somewhere about the time of the homeless guy yelling at me for talking to the birds, I think.

I finally met up with everyone at the right hotel around 3 PM. In one of those odd moments, the elevator doors opened to none other than Barrett McGivney, who I had not seen in years even though he lives only a few suburbs over in Palos Park. In fact, he did not even know that I had moved to Burbank in 1999. Much later that night, he and I went to a place called Zanzibar, lots of ambiance and pretty women. We spent about $250.00 between us in just over two hours, but I did get to meet a nice native Torontonian as well as a girl from Romania who told me a lovely made-up story about how doctors sew up the belly buttons on all the baby girls. You had to be there, but then you'd also have spent money like we did.

Prior to that was the autograph party. I am always curious as to what people will bring up for me to sign, earlier that day a man had me sign 3 copies of VAMPIRE DETECTIVES. Several people had copies of DOWNWARD SPIRAL to sign, in part, I believe, because another contributor, Gord Rollo, is from Ontario. In a sudden surge, I signed copy after copy of DARK DREAMERS, the collection of black and white photos Beth Gwinn has taken over the years. My pose was from WHC in Atlanta, 1997. The program book was passed around, it was a HARDBACK, and people were asking for our signatures in a nice little section at the back. Many of us were angry because we never did get our "goodie bag," being given various excuses, until Saturday. This could be a contributing factor to Barrett and I going to Zanzibar. (I should have photos of the neon signs in the downtown area by tomorrow evening).

There were several parties that evening, and I saw Yvonne Navarro for the first time in many years. Now married and living in Arizona, I have known her the longest of all my writer friends, beating out my first meeting with Sid by four years. A few blocks away there was a restaurant called Devil's Advocate, which served a decent meal an a reasonable price. Jeremy Lassen of Nightshade Books and Maurice Broaddus, a writer from Indianapolis who I met, oddly enough, through the letters column of a STARMAN comic (yea, sounds weird even now) were tied for who was dressed most flamboyantly. I was content to wear a Frankenstein T-shirt and was pleasantly surprised that Roger had brought along a shirt I gave him last year that I picked up at the Salvation Army, touting that he was Head of Security at O'Hare Airport. Larry pretty much dresses like Larry all the time, wearing dress shirts compared to my T-shirts. Claire wore one of those glittery mind control helmets that Zelda Fitzgerald made famous, this alone made her stand out over Kasey Lansdale in the "who gets noticed first" department.

Saturday was much of the same, only parties overlapped with anesthesiologist convention, and I recall talking with people from Seattle and, again, Toronto, about their jobs. They were intrigued by my recounting the various people who have gassed me up over the decades before my various operations. We drove back home through torrential rainstorms in Michigan, Roger as stoic as Sgt. Rock behind the wheel of his Jeep, and within a day of returning, the temperature here dropped 50 degrees.

And that was my first stay in another country, believe it or don't.

Wayne

Snow Day

We were getting groceries yesterday when the blizzard started, a snow shower that blotted out the sun.

I'd seen clips from Georgia on CNN before leaving but did not expect I'd be travelling through the artic to get home.

It was a pretty sight even though we knew it would not stick, and fortunately I'd covered our tomato and pepper plants Friday night in anticipation of cold though not snowy weather for the weekend.

I rigged up some spikes made of old coat hangers and old sheets that we usually fold into padding for the aging wooden chair the cats trade off sleeping in.

The sun is climbing high enough now that it should be safe shortly to remove the covering and see how the plants weathered.

Yep, being a farmer gives you a whole new respect for the weather man.

All You Have to Do Is Write It

Undenialble truth: When you write, people will seek you out to tell "their story." You didn't hear that here first.

Charles' posts on Assumptions About Writers sent me on a trip back in time, one recollection leading to another.

I've lost count of how many people have tracked me down to get me to write books for them and it's hard to know where to start but to name just a few:

1. The woman with the government documents - A woman arrived near the end of a book signing, a stack of papers and folders clutched to her chest. When pointed to my table she launched into an explanation of state government mismanagement, all detailed in the papers she could provide. "All the research is done. Somebody just needs to put it all together."

"I'm, uh, really a fiction writer," I explained gesturing to the novel with the vampire on the cover I was there to sell. I suggested she go to the government reporter at her local paper.

Not to be disuaded by such a logical suggestion, she reiterated her point repeatedly in a stab at persuasion. It was all there, it just needed a writer to string it together.

I finally had to tell her, "If I wanted to be a reporter, I 'd still be one. I'm not going to write an expose for you."

2. The reporter with the great idea - When he was alive, God bless him, my father could never get straight who it was OK to give my unlisted phone number.

He had the same name as me, so people would find him in the phone book and when they asked him to write a book for them, he'd say "Oh you want my son" and give them my number.

"Wow, it was like clearing security to get to you," said the TV reporter one Sunday afternoon.

"That's the general idea," I said.

"I thought we could write this book together," he said. "I had this great idea: The Firm set at a TV station. I've worked at TV stations for years so I know all of the inside scoop."

Yeah, for that piece of originality my afternoon needed to grind to a halt. I told him I was going to have to pass.

3. My life's so interesting - Maybe not my favorite, but one of the odder requests came as a missive to Michael August, which was my pseudonym for young adult novels. At least it came as a letter and not a phone call. Michael August's father was not as prone to rat him out, I guess.

The correspondent noted people had told her that her life should be a book. After contemplation she had decided, yeah, it was true, there was something for everyone.

She'd read his book and Michael August--author of novels for kids 11-16--was just the man for the project. Michael wrote back that he'd only work with Sidney Williams.

4. The private eye - The private detective, who was very nice, liked my thriller Azarius and thought I'd be perfect to write a novel based on his theories of an unsolved murder. The killer was still alive.

I've seen too many TV movie about things just like that. Writer gets the real killer mad at him. I passed.

Some were sadder than others. I've mentioned before in this blog the old man who used to call about the Green River Killer, and I once had a prisoner who wanted me to chronicle his life mistakes as a warning to others and, he hoped, a path to his enrichment.

What's the moral of the story or the profundity of all this?

Don't give your dad you unlisted number if you're not looking for collaborators.

Dispatches from Toronto Via Chicago

Here's more from Wayne's Trip to World Horror in Toronto, dispatched after his return. I'm printing almost as is with only a few interruptions from me.

This continues from passing through the border.

8:45 PM Thursday evening, we get to the hotel in time to get Claire to the poetry reading.

9:00 PM The rest of us--me, Larry Santoro, and Roger Dale Trexler--decide to go to the 5th floor hospitality suite for free food. I find that I can't get Jack Black--not the actor--straight up no ice and I find myself on a mission. I palm a pen and pads of paper for the Marriot and put them in my jacket pocket. This will be important later.

9:30 PM The three of us walk to the Bond hotel, where we stay just the one night.

9:45 PM The hotel is in a bizarre Blade Runner-like area, with giant moving billboards for Maybelline and things I have never heard of. (Sorry I missed this part. I didn't know Toronto had anything like that. Countries other than the U.S. always seem to have higher tech billboards. Why is that? --Sid)

10:29 PM Larry goes to bed, Roger joins me on my mission and we cross the street to the Imperial Pub, an odd little joint with fake pal tress and an honest to God old-timey Seeburg jukebox. There were many obscure names, I played some, annoyed for some reason when I heard Bing Crosby from the speakers. I met a guy in the bathroom who told me where Roger and I could continue our mission, the Zanzibar.

11:45 PM We are told by a huge man at the Zanzibar that we were too drunk to come in. We did not argue. Back to the hotel and bed.

10:30 AM Friday. Larry and Roger leave for the other hotel. I sleep in for a bit, mostly from the hangover but also because the previous night I worked 14 hours, came home, watched LOST, ate a meal, then slept for an hour before Roger pulled up. Claire told me I slept for about thirty minutes at one point during the ride. Regardless, I WAS indeed hungover.

11:45 AM I leave the hotel with my backpack and bag. I realize I do not know what hotel to go to, mostly because I had a ball peen hammer stuck between my eyes. I walk to the Sheraton and find my friends not registered. I call Larry's cell and leave a message, not thinking that the roaming charge will cost him $22.37 at least. The clerk looks at me as if I am Rain Man, and tells me that perhaps I am thinking of the Hilton.

12:30 PM I then start to trudge there, but stop at Mr. Happy Fries, a type of ice cream truck-thing, only with hot dogs and fries. I gave the guy an extra tip when I was done eating because it was so good. He surprised me by saying it was an honor to serve me because I was a guest in his country. I could not figure out how he knew I was a guest, unless it was because I was wearing my Superman shirt.

12:50 PM A woman on the street finally point me in the direction of the Hilton, and I walk past a church. Happy that I am on my way, I talk to the pigeons around me, still thinking about Mr. Happy Fries comment. I see a homeless guy, his beard stained by nicotine, and I wave hello. He says to me and I quote "Why the fuck are you talking to birds?" I had no real answer and continued forward.

1:15 PM The Hilton has no knowledge, but a clerk Googles the convention and tells me it is at the Marriot. I take the pad from my jacket pocket to write directions, the pad that reads Marriot, and the clerk looks at me as if the ball peen hammer in my head had performed a lobotomy. At least I knew I was on the right track.

1:45 PM I am at the Marriot, the desk clerk calls up to Roger and tells him his associate is here, and he okays me to come to the 15th floor. From the window by the elevator I can see the church and the guy who yelled at me but asked an honest question.

Sid, I shall stop here. Tomorrow I will write about the autograph party, and the melodrama afterwards, then Saturday as well. Feel free to enter it in your journal.

Regards,

Wayne