Episode 3 of Fear on Demand Horror Fiction Podcast is Live

The third episode of the Fear on Demand podcast is now live at fearondemand.com and via iTunes and other podcatchers. 

This month's installment features a new intro by Glen Hallstrom aka Smokestack Jones, and new music from Black Pharaoh. Glen is also the voice of this month's short story, though he will sound quite different than he did reading Charles's story in Episode One.

The story is a really cool piece by M.F. Korn and David Mathew. It's called "The Red Spectre" and it involves a mysterious, classic film and its mysterious impact.

M.F. is from Louisiana and David is from Great Britain so it's an interesting collaboration. The authors will have a new book out soon called "Creature Feature." Learn more at M.F.'s website.

Visit fearondemand.com to subscribe or jump to the RSS feed here.

Lessons from My Reporting Days - Times Are Tough But Now We Have Cell Phones

(Thanks for Erik for jarring loose a little piece of my memory with his post about Shirley Chisholm.)

I got to meet a lot of famous people when I was a kid reporter thanks to the lecture series at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA. That's the town where they filmed Steel Magnolias, and it was about an hour-and-a-half from Alexandria, where the newspaper where I worked was based.

Sometimes I forget how fortunate I was as a kid reporter. Job paid bubkus, but I got exposed to great people, David McCullough, Robert Ballard and Wendy Wasserstein to name a few.

I also got to interview Shirley Chisholm. It was kind of exciting when I drew the assignment because we'd studied her in school as the first black woman elected to Congress. This was a long time ago, not long after she'd wrapped up her her Congressional service. In her lecture she spoke of that election and of her efforts to get a meaningful committee assignment when she took office.

In the mini-press conference afterwards, I asked if she had thoughts about something or other the Reagan administration was doing at the time, an almost naive query since I was wet behind the ears. She gave me a knowing smile, an "Have-I-got-any-thoughts-about-that!" smile, and discussed the policies of the day for a while.

Filing a story on the road was a little bit of an adventure in those days. Only the government had the internet. We had some Radio Shack computers with acoustic couplers that I may have mentioned here at time or two. In a hurry, it was easier to write long hand and file from a pay phone.

After the press conference, the photographer and I pulled into a McDonald's on the portion of Louisiana's Highway 1 that briefly becomes the main drag in Natchitoches or did in those days. We didn't have Interstate Highway 49 then either.

Through whatever voodoo of publishing we could manage back then, somehow it was possible to write the story, file it by phone to get it edited and the layout started and then drive like a Meatloaf album back to the paper to process the film. We didn't have digital cameras either.

While Lee, the photographer, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, I scribbled on a yellow legal pad, referring to my reporter's note pad, relying on my memory and generally struggling to put together about 11 column inches in slightly more than 11 minutes. How easy we have it writing now. Word, keyboards. Child's play.

While I worked, some guys pulled up in a pickup truck. I kept scribbling. Lee, finding what they were up to more interesting that watching me produce brilliant event coverage, started staring out the window.

"Oh wow, they've got a rattlesnake out there," he said.

I didn't look up, couldn't, but he gave me a play-by-play of these kids who had a rattlesnake the size of the Buick in the bed of an old Ford pickup. The snake was dead, but that didn't stop everyone from gawking at it.

Eventually I finished my story and went to the pay telephone. Cell phones? I mentioned this was the '80s, right? Cell phones were science fiction.

The phone was outside the McDonald's.

So I called up the paper, and they put someone on the phone to type what I read. In some circles they call that catching. We never had a term for it other than getting stuck on the bleepin' phone with some jackass in the field.

I started reading, on a pay phone, outside a McDonald's on what was then one of the major North-South highways in the state, while a parking lot of teen agers took turns scaring each other with a dead rattlesnake.

"Former Congressman Shirley Chisholm discussed...."

Zurrrrrrrrhhhhhmmmmmuummmmmmmm.

"Watch out they can still bite after they're dead."

"She expressed deep dismay with..."

Whurrrrmmmummmm.

"It moved. Did you see it move?"

Whonk, whonk.

Screech

"In other remarks, the Congresswoman..."

"Get it away, get it away!"

Man I hate to see newspapers die.

Gestation

I've found, for me at least, stories have a gestation period. It's as if dormant seeds get implanted somewhere in my brain, waiting for the right drop of magic water to blossom.

I'm sure that's true in some way for everyone in creative pursuits whether working with pen or pallet. I suppose above all it's a psychological process, not mystical or magical. Though I certainly wish I could perform some sort of creative alchemy to bring seeds to blossom more quickly and with more frequency.

For me, it's often the creative stimulation of other writers and creatives that usually provides the final impetus to take seed to story. In what are now the old days for me, I used to produce a story after each major convention, World Horror, World Fantasy etc. Some have seen light and others not, but they were always satisfying. "Skull Rainbow" became a collaboration with Wayne and ultimately earned us a Year's Best Horror honorable mention. 

The creative magic proved true again when World Fantasy was in Austin a couple of years ago. An idea based on a news item I heard on TV while Christine and I were on our honeymoon in 1991 became a short tale. 

While I was in school last week, we had an assignment to read a couple of authors including Borges and produce a piece of fiction that pushed to the outer edge. 

I started one piece but threw it away because another idea crowded it out. That was a piece based on a news story I read while in San Francisco in 2006 or so. It was one of those true stories that had haunted me in much the way Harlan Ellison was always haunted by the tragedy of Kitty Genovese, who died of a stabbing while a host of people looked on without acting. Ellison penned "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" about the Genovese incident.

My little piece, "The Desk," drew some positive responses when I read it in class even though I stumbled over some complex passages. After a little more polishing I'll get it in the mail, snail or electronic as required.

It was a completely satisfying process, more satisfying than the struggle with a novel can be. 

How does it happen? It's certainly different for each writer because everyone has varying degrees of output. 

If I could somehow bottle it all or refine the process, well, I'd need help marketing the elixir for starters, but it would save a little time in the gestation. 

The takeaway: Keep your eyes open, I guess. You never know what will plant the seeds that the magic will find.

The Sailor is Home from the Sea

Made it home yesterday a.m. after a long 24 hours of traveling and a longer week of workshops and discussions at Goddard in Port Townsend, WA. 

It's hard to describe exactly how it all works, but somewhere in the mix of reading and talking about great books of all sorts and breathing the same air as a host of very, very--I cannot emphasize this enough--very creative people, the energy almost feels mystical. I don't think it is quite mystical, but it's magical, at least.

Highlights

• A two-part workshop called "Wildness of Mind" led me to a short story I might not have written otherwise, a new sort of piece for me. Will have to see what I can do with it with a little polish.
• Exercises in my advising group crystalized the creation of scenes for me.
• One of my fellow students turned me and others on to poet Tao Lin whose work is found here.
• I read a portion of my master's thesis and the flash pieces that appeared here on the blog around Halloween and got good responses on all of them.
• Heard my friend who's a better writer than I'll ever be read two incredible pieces.
• Heard the graduates talk about their experiences and the struggle of creation. Wept.
• Heard faculty, graduates and other students read in numerous settings. Great times.
• Ate a great seafood sit-down meal at Sea-Tac waiting for my flight to leave.

These are wild times. It's good to get away from the world for a while, to escape and think about the things that matter, really matter, matter in the grand scheme of the world and not the moment. 

As much anxiety as the world has to offer, the reminder that there's more, that there's substance and hope is all good.

It's hard, but it's good. 

Gone A Long Journey

I remember reading a columnist or writer of some sort once. He wrote of  taking a train home from prep school at Thanksgiving. That was alien to my experience, and sounded a little melancholy and lonely. That's perhaps why it stuck with me while the rest of the article is lost. I've usually gone to school close to home.

Now, I go a long way, and my literal and symbolic journeys begin again tomorrow. The literal journey is by plane, by boat, by bus, taking me practically off the continent to Port Townsend, WA. 

I'm not really looking forward to the traveling, but I'll take reading material. I have at least an idea of my reading list for the next semester, though it will be molded in discussion with an advisor. 

I've found inspiration for a few titles in a fabulous podcast I discovered recently, Out of the Past, named for the Robert Mitchum classic.

I have not read The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips, for example. Film and book are subject of one OOTP episode, and I'm hopeful of getting it green-lighted since Goddard is pretty flexible about letting you pursue titles that reflect sensibilities that might benefit your work.

My master's thesis novel  is a Southern Gothic mystery with a hint of magical realism, an effort to create something with perhaps a bit more weight than my early thrillers, so crime and noir have relevance as do works of Faulkner and The Woman In White, as I've mentioned in earlier posts.

There's a reading journey as well, I guess, enfolded inside the travel and extending beyond.

I'm nervous but excited. Both the trip and the journey will be challenging, but it's time to focus again after a little break, time to contemplate character development from new perspectives and points on plot with my professors.

It's a long trip but a good one. 

Miles to go before I sleep and all that but good miles. I'll keep in touch and keep you posted.

Terror on Netflix Watch Instantly - Severance

I probably should have been more aware of Severance (2006), a British horror thriller with a healthy dose of humor. Somewhere I picked up a vague notion that it was a slasher film with a little something extra, but I was more than pleasantly surprised when I watched a few minutes on Netflix watch instantly.

A Cut Above

It's more than a bit of all right, just when I was starting to think, there's not much new to be done with the slasher film. Belay that notion. Severance is Hostel meets The Office, both brutal and relentlessly wicked.

It concerns itself with the sales office of an arms company headed for a remote lodge in central Europe for a team-building experience. I don't know why it's a remote lodge and not a motel with meeting rooms, but there wouldn't be much of a story, I suppose.

A slice of the familiar

The heroine is Laura Harris of The Faculty and 24. Speaking of sales offices, I'm sure someone in Severance's decided an American lead would help sell it to Americans.

Also familiar to Americans is James Bond bad guy Toby Stephens, who also provided the voice of Bond in the recent BBC radio adaptation of Dr. No.

A little dialog establishes that there are possibly people at large who hate the office mates'

Severence offers great suspense, interspersed with the occasionally zany moment. To say much more would require that I precede the statements with spoiler warning so I'll count on you getting to experience it for yourself or suppose that you're way ahead of me and you've already discovered Severance.

If not, and if Netflix's recommendation algorithm and site search are failing you, well, this one's a good choice if you have a taste for thrillers.

Terror for the iPod - Two Tales of Frankenstein

Occasionally things turn up that are almost like discovering one more chapter(s) in the Universal Horror series. 

Some are better than others of course, but I'm always happy to gain access to those missing pieces that utilize talents from the Universal heyday, especially when it's what Forry Ackerman might term the Frankenstein Lonster, Lon Cheney Jr.

Tales of Frankenstein

I never knew of the Tales of Frankenstein pilot from Hammer Films in 1958 until QuasarDragon mentioned recently that is was available on the archive.org site, where cool things seem to materialize regularly.  It's directed by Curt Siodmak who penned Universal horror classics such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman as well as the classic science fiction novel Donovan's Brain.

The lead-in suggests the resultant series would have been a horror anthology since the opening narration notes "any story that chills the soul and freezes the blood is truly a tale of Frankenstein."

The opener features Dr. Frankenstein (Anton Diffring), somewhat like the Peter Cushing incarnation from Hammer theatrical releases, though it's in a silvery Universal black-and-white instead of the trademark Hammer color--inevitably modified by the adjective lurid.

He's called on to help a young but dying man in the pilot, but instead he uses the man's body to reanimate a VERY Universal looking monster. 

It doesn't rise to the level of the best of the Universal films, but it's an interesting piece to watch either online or on an iPod.

Tales of Tomorrow #16 - Frankenstein

This perhaps more infamous live television adaptation of Frankenstein is a bit more engaging and not to be missed by the Universal fan. It stars Lon Chaney Jr.--best known as The Wolf Man but also a memorable mummy and Dracula in Universal flicks--as the creature in a contemporary re-telling that features One Step Beyond host John Newland as Victor Frankenstein. 

I believe this version's been around on DVD, but I've never picked up a copy. 

It's the adaptation that features the allegedly inebriated Chaney being less destructive on his rampages than planned because he believed he was still in a rehearsal and not performing in a live broadcast. That's actually not as distracting as you'd expect. You kind of have to be looking for it. Sorry. Spoiler warning? 

The creature makeup is interesting in its own way and the gloomy castle sets make for a moody backdrop for the fairly fast-moving story of monster making and destruction. 

I was exciting to find these available, preserved for a new visit and a new experience. If you've any love for the roots of contemporary horror, have a look.

Nobody reads anymore, so...Podcasting!

Addendum (1/19/09). We're now in iTunes. (Link will open the iTunes application.)


That's kind of a "made ya look" headline. I don't really believe that nobody reads anymore. It will take a while--even though we're in a midst of some cultural shifts--for things to change that drastically.

Certainly new things are happening all the time, though. New or newish delivery methods are becoming ubiquitous faster than the generations before us accepted radio or TV.

Podcasting's been around a while now, and I've enjoyed the true play-on-demand opportunities it has provided me. I can listen to NPR at the gym now, audiobooks on the treadmill, tech news in the a.m. and talk shows devoted to topics I'm interested in such as Doctor Who and Battlestar.

I've wanted to try something for a while. For some reason it hit me around Jan. 1 that rather than trying to tackle a discussion show, I could put together a podcast of short horror and suspense fiction. I have a few pieces of my own work that were recorded a while back for an audiobook collection, and I have access to those as potential installments.

There is also a tradition, I percieve, in the podcast community, of podcasters lending their voices to other 'casts, so I decided to dive into what I'm calling the beta version of Fear on Demand to see if I could pull it off at least for a respectable number of episodes and a respectable publishing schedule even when I'm back in school. The goal is for it not to be devoted just to my work but to present a true collection of works of many.

I think, think mind you, I can manage something monthly. I know I can for a few months anyway. After that we'll see.

I'm calling it the beta because it's hosted in the simplest way I can imagine right now, and I'm working on the little details like RSS feeds, getting it into iTunes and available for podcatchers and that sort of thing. As I write this it's pending iTunes approval.

I'm running into some of the usual headaches that I'm sure all novice podcasters have experienced at start up--puh sounds, normalizing, decent Flash players for the blog version. etc. I'm sure I'll have other headaches along the way, but it's an interesting process, and learning is always exciting.

So anyway, Episode 1 is ready for a listen at Fearondemand.com, or you can subscribe to the basic feed manually with iTunes or your favorite podcatcher or get the Feedburner feed plugged in to just about anything you like. The show will play in a Google Reader, for example.

Episode 1

Episode 1 features a tale from Charles Gramlich called "Thief of Eyes." It originally appeared in a collection edited by Del Stone, Jr. called The Parasitorium, and it's read by Glen Hallstrom, aka Smokestack Jones, who hasrecorded many Lovecraft stories at Librivox.org. Glen's blog is Too Much Johnson, and he's available for voice work. Charles tells me the story grew out of an anthology that never breathed life that Thomas Fortenberry and I tried to put together a few years ago. That was sort of a shared-world horror anthology, and that reminded me that concept might also be ripe for a podcast. Who knows? Baby steps. I'm learning the ropes here.

Submissions

For the moment, Fear on Demand is by invitation. I'm not quite ready to open the door to a flood of unsolicited submissions by listing on market news sites, though eventually I'd love to discover someone just starting out.

In the meantime, I'm guardedly moving along quietly. Certainly anyone in our little blog circle here is welcome to e-mail me. One thing I can kind of envision is maybe a Halloween celebration episode collecting some of the flash fiction people did in October.

Payment at the moment is the promotional or promo opportunity it provides only.

Authors retain all rights to the story except the podcast audio rights, and I'm including a Creative Commons, no-derivative works license tag on each episode and on the Fear on Demand blog. People can listen, pass an episode along but they can't, you know, make it into a movie, without striking a deal with the author.

If I can get the Paypal donate button working, apparently that's one of those common headaches, I'll be accepting donations to help with the domain mapping and hosting costs, and perhaps at some point it might become a paying market. Time will tell.

If there are any bands out there who want to play, I'm also open for some intro music or a tune to include.

Readers

And anyone with a mic who's interested in reading is welcome to check in.

In the meantime, drop by and have a listen of Charles' excellent story just past my stammering, Southern-accented intro, and listen after dark at your own risk.

WARNING: Fear on Demand contains explicit content such as mature themes, language and subject matter. If you feel you would be better entertained by more gentle stories, hey Google's ready when you are.

What's on the iPod? - Montego Bay

As I drove through another rainy morning cloaked with a grey, wet blanket, Bobby Bloom's Montego Bay popped up as my iPod shuffled songs. I've never been there, and I'm not sure exactly what a BOAC is, but the tune transported me to other places and made me remember people I've passed on the journey.

I've found, sometimes you encounter people randomly but more than once. It may not be anything but serendipity if you're a reporter in a small city, or maybe there's a little more magic to it.

3x
I ran into a man named Glen about three times. He was a small business owner out to live life to the fullest from what I could tell. He spent his vacations travelling, seeing sites, SCUBA diving and more.

The first time I met him, he was just back from Jamaica. It had started as a vacation trip and turned into an adventure.

A hurricane hit the island shortly after he arrived, and he and other vacationers spent about a week trying to survive and get back out of paradise. It was a time with little water and much uncertainty.

When civilization gradually took hold again, he was able to get a flight out. He recalled looking around at fellow travellers, recognizing people from the flight in and wondering what became of those who were missing.

That experience didn't seem to slow him down or dissuade him. I heard tale of other trips he took afterward, hopping here and there.

I encountered him next at the opening of a chest pain center at a local hospital. I don't know how old he was. I was young and everyone looked old, but he was probably around the age I am now. He was there as a spokesman, representing the need for a chest pain center.

He explained how he'd felt a tingling in his left arm as he took a shower one morning. Initially he denied it could be anything serious, but eventually he sought help.

It was a heart attack and they caught it in time to avert major damage. He felt he'd been given a second chance and wanted to encourage others to act quickly and hang onto life.

The last time I ran into him, I was afraid I had a flat tire. I pulled off the freeway and into his auto service center. One of his employees came out to help me check my tire. Glen popped over for a second and, seeing the employee was handling things, went on to wait on other customers. I didn't have a flat, just a low tire. With it re-inflated, I pulled back into traffic and never looked back.

Appointments
A couple of years later, I heard he had died while diving somewhere out West. I was a little sad, though I didn't know him well, not friend, just acquaintance.

The second chance had played out, I guess, or maybe the Reaper had him on a list and didn't give up on that appointment in Samarra.

I guess the important message is that he milked the days, fought for the second chance and tried to make the most of time, had some fun.

When "Montego Bay" came through the speakers this morning, I recalled Glen sitting on his sofa, posing in a straw fedora for photographs, and it was a good thought for a new year. Carpe diem and all that.

Who knows what a year will bring? Maybe the good news is that it's made up of a lot of nows that can be squeezed.

I confess two things. I'm Sid and I'm a cynic.

I confess also, I've been a little down the last few days. I will endeavor to do better, to snatch the joy of each moment, even if it's as simple as humming along with an old song with a catchy beat. I'll cope with the travails as they come, and I'll look ever forward.

I will also seek to heed my own advice.

Them's my new year's resolutions.

And to G., maybe we'll cross paths again somewhere down the line. I'll look for you in the crowd in that distant port when the BOAC lands.

Come sing me La
Come sing me Montego Bay
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Mostly Recharging

I've been getting a little bit of writing done on a couple of projects, but mostly I've been recharging the last few days, and wondering how I got a write-in-Hindi button on my blogger interface.

I thought I would get more read over the holidays and time off I've had, but I haven't managed to turn as many pages as I'd hoped.

I managed to veg a bit instead and discover a few guilty pleasures:

Legend of the Seeker

I'm guilty of never having read the Terry Goodkind books on which this new syndicated series is based. I'm told they're better than the show, but for the moment the show's what I have time for. It's on Hulu.com, partially in HD, and it's beautifully shot with likable actors, some swift action and a twinkle in the eye and just a slight smirk. For TV, it's Herc and Xena territory, but it's engaging me more than some feature films. I detect a trend of betrayal and redemption, but it's still captivating viewing in the sword and sorcery vein, and there's not much in that vein on the air now.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

It's on just about every critic's year-end best list, so this is no revelation, but I liked it. Didn't get to see it when it was hot during the writer's strike. Happily it's also on Hulu in HD also and on DVD now as well. It's from Buffy-producer Joss Whedon, features Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie fame, plus Slither and Firefly's Nathan Fillion, who's soon to be seen in Castle, a mystery series that sounds like it might be fun.

Anyway Doogie is Dr. Horrible, aspiring super villain. I wondered how they were going to give him a suitable nemesis on a budget. Enter Fillion as The Hammer, a Captain Triumph-style good guy who's a bit of a jerk. He has the affections of the girl Dr. Horrible has a crush on, making things worse but paving the way for great songs. Really great show tunes. No kidding. Check it out.

The Big Bang Theory
So why is a show about über-nerds on opposite Heroes, a show they'd probably watch? I missed an entire season of this fab sit-com. It's got some standard misunderstanding gags, but it's brilliantly executed and ropes in Star Trek, online gaming, comic books and more as its youthful geniuses struggle with life outside their physics experiments. I resolve to solve all quandaries and disagreements in 2009 using rock, paper scissors, Spock, lizard!

Steampod

How'd I miss this great podcast for so long? It's a steampunk-themed 'cast with a stellar Christmas episode transposing late-sixties cryonics to the Victorian era, and you can backtrack to a multi-part novella and a great opening episode as well. Put it on your iPod, for sure!

QuasarDragon's Blog

Looking for free e-books, podcast recommendations and more? QuasarDragon's is a great place to stop by. It's a fantasy, SF cool-hunting blog pointing to various online e-zines, free fictionsites and more. It also occurs to me that it's a great guide to writing markets. Well worth a look. It's how I found Steampod.

Well, that's how I've been spending my free time of late. I think it has been energizing a bit as I prepare for the plunge into 2009, which promises to be challenging and busy. I had a tee-shirt in the appropriate year that read "Orwell That Ends Well, I Made it Through 1984." I'm thinking we all deserve an I Survived 2008 tee, and maybe a matching version for this year.

Let's look for fun where we can, and may everyone within the sound of my posts have a good one!

Check in at the Joy Motel

I've added Joy Motel to my blog roll. It's an interesting little spot for online fiction, a tale unfolding in short bursts. Just check in and experience it for yourself.

You can also follow the tale in sort of a "real time" experience on Twitter, as the Tweets come forth periodically in the alloted 140 characters. Is it a game, an experiment? I could tell you more, but that would spoil the fun.

Just go to the front desk and ask for Bobby or Horatio to carry the luggage. They'll make sure you're comfortable.

I Didn't Know These Were Back - Monster Scenes Models Kits

The new issue of Rue Morgue Magazine includes an article by James Burreli reporting the return of Monster Scenes model kits. The originals were from Aurora and were snap-together kits, some of the first monster model kits I ever had, as they were for many kids.

For me and others they were gateways that led to the more famous Aurora monster models as well as cars and submarines and more.

The re-creations are from Moebius Models--who already offer a number of the Aurora kits--having apparently taken up where Polar Lights models left off a couple of years ago.

Monster Scenes are just being re-introduced, however. The series includess a host of kits: Dr. Deadly, a Giant Insect, the Frankenstein monster, The Victim--who was ultimately renamed the first time around I think--and even more characters, props and backdrop kits.

Though in a persona different from Warren comics, Vampirella was included in the original series of kits as well as the comic strip advertisement. I'm sure licensing is a different ball game for her today because there doesn't seem to be a reissue of that kit.

The advertising and promotion of those first kits was apparently controversial, but oddly, my parents, who were usually pretty conservative, didn't take much notice. I had a Vampirella, a Frankenstein and maybe one or two others. The day I got them, I heard my mother talking to one of her friends on the phone.

"Tell her about my new models," I urged. I'm not sure why I thought her friend would care.

"Sidney got some new model kits," my mother said in to the phone with mock enthusiasm. "Frankenstein and Vamper-roo..." she said.

"'Ella," I corrected.

"A gorilla," my mother said.

Again, miraculously not very controversial. She would object to Vampirella's outfits a couple of years later in the black-and-white comics magazines, but she must never have looked very closely at the boxes of Monster Scenes.

I reassembled the kits a lot and did a kid-style job of painting them. Eventually they broke or wore out, joining the list of toys that would be valuable if I'd never touched them and saved the original packaging.

A Vampirella leg, much like Darrin McGavin's lamp in A Christmas Story, stayed around in a box of model kit pieces a long time, but today my originals are long gone.

I don't have time for rebuilding kits these days though I worked on a Mr. Hyde again a few years ago, doing a better job than the first time.

I'm sure the Monster Scenes for serious model builders will be handled with a defter touch this time around, and we'll see the results in some web galleries. What's the old song, everything old...

Happy Holidays

This photo is called "Santa Lives." I believe it's from the Library of Congress, though I found it some time ago for a PowerPoint project at Christmas-Clipart.net. 

I've always loved it because it captures the spirit of Christmas so well. It's about hope, anticipation, optimism, all things we need this year if not more than ever, certainly as much as ever.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. In the words from one of my new favorite Christmas songs, "Better Days," by the Goo Goo Dolls, "this is the night the world begins again."

What's On the iPod? - Hell for the Holidays

Last Christmas, I listened to adman-turned-author Chris Grabenstein's Slayride, a holiday-set thriller featuring  FBI agent Christopher Miller. I've been saving Hell for the Holidays for this holiday season. 

In this book, African-American agent Miller, whose daughter was abducted by a crazed and vengeful Russian chauffeur in Slayride, becomes embroiled in a plot involving a white supremacist group that begins on Halloween with the kidnapping of his neighbor's child.

Happily the child is rescued quickly and his abductor killed by a quick-thinking off-duty police officer, but that's just the beginning for Miller who quickly suspects there's more to the situation than is immediately apparent.

The tale is read by actor Christian Rummel and it's shaping up to be an engaging holiday-season read/listen.

After this I'm going to find some time for Grabenstein's other series featuring ex-military, small town cop John Ceepak. Titles in that series include Whack-A-Mole, Madhouse and Tilt-A-Whirl. 

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry is gone too

I had sort of this fanboy dream back when I was first putting pen to paper that if I ever successfully pulled off anything with fiction writing, eventually I might get to be a guest at a science fiction convention in one venue or another.

Then in suitable Martin-Short-as-Ed-Grimley fashion, I thought: "I might get to meet some of the stars of the original Star Trek, don't ya know?"

I liked Star Trek re-runs when I was growing up. I watched in the first round of syndication in 1968, when it was really becoming a fan hit. The show happily stimulated my creative imagination and was one piece in the mosaic of influences that made me want to create my own stories.  

Happily my grand design worked out, and I was able to meet some of the TOS actors over the years.  Majel Barrett Roddenberry was the first. Some ambitious fans put together a convention in Alexandria, LA, and found their way to my doorstep because they'd heard I had some books out, and I got to be one of the guests.

I met Mrs. Roddenberry when she arrived in town for the event. I don't recall the confluence of events that led to the major coolness. A lot of media stars --i.e. people who were really famous --were on hand for the convention, but somehow or other they were busy. I wound up judging the convention's costume contest beside Ms. Roddenberry.

And saying to myself; "How freakin' cool is this? I'm judging a costume contest with Nurse Chapel and Lwaxana Troi in one."

I thought of the moment, of course, when I opened the Internet Movie Database to check a factoid this week and was hit with the headline that she'd passed away, just as Trek is poised for a pop-culture re-entry in a new form.

The notion that deaths of pop-culture figures come in threes seems to have been confirmed again, with Forry Ackerman, Bettie Page and now Nurse Chapel. It's always seems to happen that way, and it's always sad.

The Christmas Zombie?

Christine snapped my holiday profile picture while we were putting up the tree. I thought it was kind of an interesting shot of me and might help the blog look a little more festive. I also made it my Twitter profile pic while decorating my twitter page with ornaments and lights.

Maybe it's the small sizing that profile pictures require, but Wayne observed that it makes me look a little like a zombie--of the Night of the Living Dead variety. 

I didn't really see that until he mentioned it, but you know, it kinda does. I suppose that opens the door to all kinds of possibilities for stories. 

• They're Coming to Get You, Santa
• The Zombie Under the Tree
• Zombies and Mistletoe
• Feliz Zombie Nod
• I Saw Zombies Eating Santa
• 28 Days Later of Christmas
• When There's No More Room Under the Tree, Zombies Walk the Hearth
• All I Want for Christmas Is Brains, Brains, Must Have Brains
• Shamblin' Around The Christmas Tree.

Yeah, Wayne didn't know what he started. 

Forry Ackerman is Gone

I bought a recent issue of Rue Morgue magazine because a portrait of a frightened Forrest J. Ackerman stared from the cover beside the tease "50 Years of Famous Monsters of Film Land."

As you've probably heard if you ever read anything here, I was a Famous Monsters of Filmland kid. 

The mag was still around in the early '70s as were Aurora model kits of the Universal movie monsters, so I read about them in the pages edited by Forry Ackerman, built model kits of them and, again,  loved Forry's bad puns. 

A little later I had a crush on Vampirella who he created as well, so the Ackermonster added a little something to my early days, a little fun, a few shivers and a sexy vampira who battled a Cthulu-like cult.  

Eventually when I decided I wasn't quite suited to writing detective novels, I wrote horror. Of course.

Currently Wayne and I swap digital Famous Monsters cover art gifts on Facebook--my favorite is the Dr. Phibes--so really there's always a little bit of Forry somewhere. You can't see the work of cover artist Basil Gogos, who did the RM cover too, without thinking of FM and Forry's bad-pun captions. 

I knew when I saw there was an interview with him in RM that he must be getting older, and the articles inside mentioned he was not doing well, which made me a little sad. I remember seeing him at conventions in the '80s and '90s, usually with a copy of the FM retrospective book tucked under one arm.

Then the other day came the word that he had passed on, having sold his famous Ackermansion filled with movie props and posters to cover medical bills. I think Cliff got to visit the Ackermansion once. I always wanted to.

Didn't I note recently time marches on? Profound of me. Still, in some ways, as the narrator notes in A Separate Peace, there are some times that will always be. For him it was an era in which Roosevelt would always be president.

For a part of me, it will always be a quiet Sunday afternoon in central Louisiana. I'll always be working on airplane gluing pieces of Bella Lugosi's Dracula together, while waiting to be read is a copy of Famous Monsters with Yul Brenner on the cover as the Westworld robot or the Creature from the Black Lagoon or Vincent Price in Madhouse. 

R.I.P. Forry. We'll miss ya.

Chinatown: The Stones in Jake's Path

A look at obstacles and motivations in the Chinatown screenplay

This is one of several analysis pieces done as part of my MFA work. I thought it might be of some worth to anyone interested in writing, movies, mysteries and things in that vein.

Chinatown’s hero, Jake Gittes, notes in the Robert Towne screenplay that he is a businessman. It is that primary view of himself that draws him deeper and deeper into the complex plot and dangerous situations, and it affects the way he deals with the obstacles or stones that come his way.

For most of his journey, obstacles occur in the form of deception, bureaucracy and a few violent physical confrontations, yet almost every obstacle is eventually transformed into an impetus that propels the protagonist further toward truth if not victory, for in the end the last obstacle is insurmountable.

The Opening Scene
When the screenplay reader meets him, Jake is in the midst of an adultery case that his spiritual predecessors such as Philip Marlowe or even the more pragmatic Sam Spade might not have touched, and, as it plays out, a hint of Jake’s cynicism is revealed. Only the rich, he tells his blue-collar client who is contemplating a crime of passion, can get away with murder. It is a line not included in the film, yet it reverberates thematically through the entire story.

Since adultery cases are Jake’s specialty, he is chosen to unwittingly manipulate water department engineer Hollis Mulwray into cooperation with a plan to re-route water to the San Fernando Valley for financial gain. Embarking on what he thinks is just another adultery case, Jake begins trailing what he believes to be a straying spouse. In the process of this surveillance, Jake observes the first elements of the plot’s core conspiracy.

Professional embarassment
When Jake discovers his client to be an impostor, he is professionally embarrassed and is introduced to the real wife, Evelyn Mulwray. Initially incensed that he has pursued her husband, she soon becomes Jake’s new client and pushes him further into his examination of the conspiracy once her husband is murdered. The death robs Jake of information Mulwray might have provided, but serves up a reason for him to continue.

The Nose Scene
Inevitable physical confrontation comes soon after. Jake endures a water diversion that’s part of the conspiracy, then is confronted by a pair of thugs operating on behalf of the corrupt water department. They attempt to warn him off with the cutting of his nostril, but the moment is another that fails to push him away. Instead the confrontation confirms the water department’s impropriety and continues to embolden and drive Jake forward as he seeks not just professional exoneration but also a businessman’s payday, bragging he will identify the key players and sue them.

As Jake unravels the public works conspiracy, traversing a variety of obstacles using guile or tricks of his trade, he is pushed even deeper into the story’s real and tragic domestic situation and the encounter with the true villain, Julian Cross. (The character is named Noah on screen.)
Just as his false client deceived him, Jake learns Evelyn has concealed the truth about her daughter born of incest, whom she is attempting to guard from her Cross, her father. When he finally learns the truth, Jake is driven to help her.

At odds with the police
He is put at odds with the police and his former friend as he attempts to assist Evelyn and her daughter escape, creating a ticking clock situation as the story moves toward its conclusion, even as Jake identifies Cross as Mulwray’s killer and the man behind the water department conspiracy, the spot a mystery normally might end and where a degree of concluding satisfaction in the story is found. At least answers are available.

Inadvertently and ironically, Jake—when his motivation ceases to be about only business and returns to a lost idealism—sends Evelyn to her doom. He is repeating a similar incident that occurred when he tried helping someone while working as an investigator in Chinatown. Cross, who is wealthy enough to get away with murder, gets the daughter/granddaughter while the police who are owned by Cross push Jake away.

Jake’s operatives remind him they’re in Chinatown, symbolically the place where the authorities look the other way, where he failed before, and like Chinatown the universe is a place where corruption is so interwoven it cannot be conquered. It’s a truth established in the opening pages. Since the final obstacle in his path cannot be changed or conquered, in the end Jake can only walk way.

What Was I Doing Then?

I was glancing at CNN the other night, and they had a clip from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The parenthetical date after the title made my head swim--1989.

Holy Moses. That was that long ago?

Not only does that put the original Vacation's release in ancient times, but that means it's nearly 20 years since I went with my buddy and his dad to see the holiday sequel.

Holiday movies are, of course, part of the season, and wedged in after shopping or holiday activities, when it's time to see a movie to avoid fist fights with the relatives.

Movies in general are often reference points, auld lang sine's in their own right, and holiday movies or holiday releases often make me think of absent friends.

Kiss Me Goodbye, I know from imdb.com, was a 1982 release. From memory, I know it was December. My college buddy Lee and I dropped in to see it at the mall cinema. Lee picked that one. Don't know why he was gung ho to see it, but it was pretty good.

It was my buddy David that I went to see the Christmas Vacation film with. He and I went to see Star Trek IV the Thanksgiving it opened also and Starman around Christmas of '84.

Rain Man was a date movie on New Year's Eve the year it opened, part of a holiday romance that lasted a while but not forever. Saw Scrooged with the same girl around Christmas the same year. Seem to remember Steve Martin's Pennies from Heaven as another holiday date movie earlier in the '80s.

I remember Jackie Brown as an outing with my then boss, Wes. Christine and I, he and his wife plus Pam Grier and Robert Forester, now wowing as an uber-villain in Heroes. Time flies.

Yep, time flies.

To absent friends.

What's on the iPod? - A Colbert Christmas

Addendum

As of a few minutes ago, the album was No. 3 on iTunes' charts, one notch above Kanye West's album. - 9:30 p.m. CST 12/3

Stephen Colbert is calling on everyone to help drive his Christmas album to the top of the iTunes charts today at 5 p.m. Eastern in "Operation Humble Kanye."

 I'd play along, but I already bought it.

I'd planned to simply watch the special, but I found myself wanting to hum along and put the Colbertnation.com Fahrenheit 451-burning Yule log on my desktop to make things feel cozy. 

The collection features some authentic tunes such as Toby Keith's right-leaning- but- easy-to-hum-to "Have I Got A Present for You" and Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding?" but much of it's composed of surprisingly good song parodies. 

They sound so authentic and familiar they could almost be modern standards or at least secondary tracks on any of a host of celebrity seasonal albums, if they, you know, weren't mildly blasphemous or seemingly suggestive as in John Legend's ode to "Nutmeg."

 

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: John Legend

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

It's not for all tastes of course, but it is a bit of a holiday blast. The culminating performance of "Peace, Love and Understanding" works well,  Feist's voice is lovely and Jon Stewart's ode to Hanukkah backed up by brush stick drumming  is, well, maybe not pitch-perfect but perfect nonethless. When Colbert decides to stick to his Catholic roots rather than convert, Stewart urges him to wish "the pontiff a Gut Yontif."

The only more ingenious lyric is Willie Nelson's Drummer Boy-esque ode to ganja that admonishes "let mankind not Bogart love."

Like I said, not for all tastes, but if you can take holiday flavor with a little tongue in cheek, it's parody as inspired as Colbert's take on pompous pundits.

As Willie's extra Wise Man might put it: "Yah, the bud was kind."