It's pretty rare that I get sick so, when I do, I'm not used to it and the whole thing lays me out. When I do stuff like breathe and swallow, I make a sound a lot like that weird grunting the Kid made in Road Warrior. I'm at about 50% kung fu at the moment.
My typical weapons against a cold are orange juice, vitamins and sleep. Which means I've gotten very little writing done the past three days -- I roll into the lair, write a paragraph and hit the sack.
I'm hoping to kick this thing square in the ass so I can hit the words hard during the coming long weekend. If not, it's gonna be just a lotta sneezin' and z's.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
The Last Episode of The Sopranos
I know, I know... OMG this is like so totally 2007! But I finally got a chance to watch the last ep of The Sopranos.
I don't understand what all the fucking crying was about, I thought it was awesome.
I don't understand what all the fucking crying was about, I thought it was awesome.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bearwatch Bulletin August 23, 2008
According to this article, bears are no longer content with murder -- they're now stealing hubcaps.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Spider-Man 3
The other day, I picked up the Spider-Man 3 game for the princely sum of seven dollars plus tax.
I got it because a) c'mon man, seven bucks for a 360 game, and b) I really dug the Spider-Man 2 game, and this seemed like more of the same. It is.
I'd gotten the Spider-Man 2 game for the PS2 back in the day because I fucking love the movie. I've seen it a couple of dozen times now, and it never gets old. That scene in the operating room is one of the most purely Raimi things I've seen on film since he took the step up to the A-list. LOVE IT.
And this from a guy (me) who's never bought a Spider-Man comic. Back in my hardcore comic days, I was way more about Doom Patrol and X-Men and Milk&Cheese.
But playing 3 reminded me of an odd fact - I've only seen the first and third movies once each, in the theater. I liked both but thought they were flawed, 3 moreso than 1.
It struck me as a jumble of cool ideas that are intermittently fun, but never quite come together to create a great movie. I place the blame squarely on the three villains. We've seen time and again in superhero movies that, when the cast bloats, the movie suffers. I loved the fact that the first two Spider-Man movies kept the focus on a single villain. By taking the screen time you'd ordinarily have to split between a couple of characters and putting it all on a single villain, you get a layered, interesting antagonist. When you have three villains, all you get are three actors in costumes skidding over a hasty backstory on their way to an action sequence. The Dark Knight obviously managed two villains, but I think that worked because it's a long movie -- and thus more screen time -- and Harvey Dent spends the majority of the movie in non-villain mode.
I hope we get a Spider-Man 4, and I hope the villain is the Lizard, and that's it... not the Lizard, Kraven, the Scorpion, Rhino, Carnage, etc.
I got it because a) c'mon man, seven bucks for a 360 game, and b) I really dug the Spider-Man 2 game, and this seemed like more of the same. It is.
I'd gotten the Spider-Man 2 game for the PS2 back in the day because I fucking love the movie. I've seen it a couple of dozen times now, and it never gets old. That scene in the operating room is one of the most purely Raimi things I've seen on film since he took the step up to the A-list. LOVE IT.
And this from a guy (me) who's never bought a Spider-Man comic. Back in my hardcore comic days, I was way more about Doom Patrol and X-Men and Milk&Cheese.
But playing 3 reminded me of an odd fact - I've only seen the first and third movies once each, in the theater. I liked both but thought they were flawed, 3 moreso than 1.
It struck me as a jumble of cool ideas that are intermittently fun, but never quite come together to create a great movie. I place the blame squarely on the three villains. We've seen time and again in superhero movies that, when the cast bloats, the movie suffers. I loved the fact that the first two Spider-Man movies kept the focus on a single villain. By taking the screen time you'd ordinarily have to split between a couple of characters and putting it all on a single villain, you get a layered, interesting antagonist. When you have three villains, all you get are three actors in costumes skidding over a hasty backstory on their way to an action sequence. The Dark Knight obviously managed two villains, but I think that worked because it's a long movie -- and thus more screen time -- and Harvey Dent spends the majority of the movie in non-villain mode.
I hope we get a Spider-Man 4, and I hope the villain is the Lizard, and that's it... not the Lizard, Kraven, the Scorpion, Rhino, Carnage, etc.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Blackout
Man, I really like Dropkick Murphys.
Some bands peak early, and leave their best work behind them. But the more I listen to it, the more I'm thinking The Meanest of Times is their best yet.
But, for whatever reason, I'd never owned Blackout. I finally picked it up a few weeks ago at Amoeba. I gave it a listen and... I just wasn't crazy about it. The production sounded a little too slick, the songs didn't grab me. I thought it was to DKM what Digimortal is to Fear Factory.
I was in the (for me) odd position of setting aside a DKM disc.
I'm kinda glad I did. I went away for a week, came back, jumped right back into writing FRANK. A lot of the tunes I usually kick when I write were feeling a bit worn out. Just to have something new, I decided to give Blackout a spin.
And I really liked it. I've listened to it several times since, and I dig it more each time.
I'm not really sure where the lukewarm initial response came from. Maybe I wasn't in the mood, or perhaps I'd been listening to Times so much I wasn't ready for something from an earlier stage in their evolution.
Whatever, I don't care. Blackout's a good CD.
Some bands peak early, and leave their best work behind them. But the more I listen to it, the more I'm thinking The Meanest of Times is their best yet.
But, for whatever reason, I'd never owned Blackout. I finally picked it up a few weeks ago at Amoeba. I gave it a listen and... I just wasn't crazy about it. The production sounded a little too slick, the songs didn't grab me. I thought it was to DKM what Digimortal is to Fear Factory.
I was in the (for me) odd position of setting aside a DKM disc.
I'm kinda glad I did. I went away for a week, came back, jumped right back into writing FRANK. A lot of the tunes I usually kick when I write were feeling a bit worn out. Just to have something new, I decided to give Blackout a spin.
And I really liked it. I've listened to it several times since, and I dig it more each time.
I'm not really sure where the lukewarm initial response came from. Maybe I wasn't in the mood, or perhaps I'd been listening to Times so much I wasn't ready for something from an earlier stage in their evolution.
Whatever, I don't care. Blackout's a good CD.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
FRANK Stuff
I hit 205 ppg last night in FRANK.
I was originally aiming for an even 300-ppg first draft. Then I read Twilight while I was AZ. It's a big, fat book - these things are lit by the pound, man - but it's fast and breezy. I finished it in about a day.
FRANK isn't exactly Umberto Eco. It's supposed to be a quick, fun read. I try to punctuate each plot point with an action scene, never a dull moment. At the same time, I feel like there's more story to tell than 300 pages can hold.
So... I'm still determined to crack this thing out by the end of the year. And I think, at my present rate, I can get in a 325-400-ppg first draft in, anyway.
There are some aspects of this novel that are straight from the base of my brain, bubbling up from the primordial ooze much in the same way THE CASTLE formed out of nothingness. I'm writing fast and pushing myself hard on purpose - the less time I have to carefully think things over, the closer this story is to my soul, because I'm forcing myself to use half-remembered dream imagery.
Not to get all wiggy or anything. I'm referring to stuff like Adam's super-hearse that shoots piles of skulls out the back to confound pursuing cops.
I also increased the main protagonist's age to 15. There are several reasons for this, creative and commercial. I'm digging the change a lot -- a younger kid creates a gravitational pull, hauling the tone of the story towards that whimsical bullshit I was trying to avoid in the first place. Whereas I'm far closer to my 15-year-old self; I can get that voice in my head without getting drunk, first.
It's coming along. Good times.
I was originally aiming for an even 300-ppg first draft. Then I read Twilight while I was AZ. It's a big, fat book - these things are lit by the pound, man - but it's fast and breezy. I finished it in about a day.
FRANK isn't exactly Umberto Eco. It's supposed to be a quick, fun read. I try to punctuate each plot point with an action scene, never a dull moment. At the same time, I feel like there's more story to tell than 300 pages can hold.
So... I'm still determined to crack this thing out by the end of the year. And I think, at my present rate, I can get in a 325-400-ppg first draft in, anyway.
There are some aspects of this novel that are straight from the base of my brain, bubbling up from the primordial ooze much in the same way THE CASTLE formed out of nothingness. I'm writing fast and pushing myself hard on purpose - the less time I have to carefully think things over, the closer this story is to my soul, because I'm forcing myself to use half-remembered dream imagery.
Not to get all wiggy or anything. I'm referring to stuff like Adam's super-hearse that shoots piles of skulls out the back to confound pursuing cops.
I also increased the main protagonist's age to 15. There are several reasons for this, creative and commercial. I'm digging the change a lot -- a younger kid creates a gravitational pull, hauling the tone of the story towards that whimsical bullshit I was trying to avoid in the first place. Whereas I'm far closer to my 15-year-old self; I can get that voice in my head without getting drunk, first.
It's coming along. Good times.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
More Conan
Check out this article in the Reporter.
None of this makes me particularly frightened or happy either way.
But I can't wait to see who they get to direct.
None of this makes me particularly frightened or happy either way.
But I can't wait to see who they get to direct.
Darkon
Last night I watched a documentary called Darkon. It's about a community of fantasy LARPers.
We've been blessed with a ton of really wonderful documentaries the past few years -- Some Kind of Monster, Grizzly Man, The King of Kong, An Inconvenient Truth, Supersize Me -- and I'd put this one up in that category.
Mostly because I saw a part of myself in some of these people. If I had taken a few different turns in life, I know I'd be out there beating people with padded swords instead of working in Hollywood. Whether you're role-playing in Darkon, playing World of Warcraft, rolling dice, reading a novel or writing a screenplay, I think you're exercising the same set of muscles, and scratching the same kinda itch.
For example: there's a scene where the very young son of one of the players spends five minutes beating the crap out of an imaginary army of undead. That was me. And, given that I've spent the last five years working on getting a movie made that's called The Un-Dead, you could say the kid still is me.
(Especially given the fact that I watched this movie after writing ten pages in a novel about a boy who hangs around with Frankenstein's Monster).
I say this because the movie not only follows the lives of the people who play this game, but also the in-game dramatic arc. It comes down to a massive combat between an evil empire and an alliance. The camera follows the leader of the alliance against evil.
In one version of this reality, the alliance leader is a stay-at-home dad playing a character named Brannon. In the other version, the leader is a professional actor playing a character named Aragorn. Both real men are playing similar characters, doing and saying similar things in a similar scenario. The only thing that's different is who they are in real life.
One of the themes of the doc is that these people have kinda hum-drum lives, and playing characters in a game offers a release and escape -- they feel they can't change who they really are, but they can easily change who their fantasy selves are.
But if you look at the Brannon/Aragorn example, we see the exact opposite. Meaning: the fantasy is the constant, whereas the reality is what changes. Thus you could say that reality is more mallable than the fantasy, and thus should be the true thing about themselves people should focus on changing.
I discovered this idea in Hagakure when I first read it, and this movie expands on the concept.
There's a moment when Brannon is plotting out his fantasy battle plan, while in the background an Army general on television is discussing the U.S.'s battle plan in Iraq. I thought: is the movie saying, look at this one guy role-play a fantasy fight for freedom while other people fight and die for real? Or is it saying: no matter who you are, it's within our natures to find wars to fight? The doc doesn't comment either way -- it gives the image and moves on.
But later, we meet a couple of Darkon players who actually have fought in Iraq. One guy is describing a dangerous situation he faced, and he remembers thinking -- to paraphrase -- damn, I have to be careful, this isn't Darkon, anymore.
A third player describes his team as small and scrappy and given to guerilla warfare. By way of comparison in their fight against the evil empire, he says they're like Al-Qaeda versus the massive United States. Again: are we giving shame-shame fingers to this guy for putting his fantasy war in context with a real war? (His girlfriend rolls her eyes when he says this). Or, again, are we saying the the same compulsions exist in us all, and these guys have just found a safe outlet? Despite the eye-rolling girlfriend, the doc doesn't comment either way.
Still later, we watch the different teams negotiate, double-deal and backstab. I was instantly reminded of Survivor, or any number of other "reality" shows that involve team strategies necessary to win. Again: who's more "real?" Who's more "cool?"
At the very end of the movie, Brannon gives us a monologue that's one of the most cogent sets of thoughts I've ever heard regarding the value of imagination in everyday life. His viewpoint could equally apply to fantasy role-playing and Hollywood.
But I'll let you watch Darkon and find out for yourself what he has to say...
We've been blessed with a ton of really wonderful documentaries the past few years -- Some Kind of Monster, Grizzly Man, The King of Kong, An Inconvenient Truth, Supersize Me -- and I'd put this one up in that category.
Mostly because I saw a part of myself in some of these people. If I had taken a few different turns in life, I know I'd be out there beating people with padded swords instead of working in Hollywood. Whether you're role-playing in Darkon, playing World of Warcraft, rolling dice, reading a novel or writing a screenplay, I think you're exercising the same set of muscles, and scratching the same kinda itch.
For example: there's a scene where the very young son of one of the players spends five minutes beating the crap out of an imaginary army of undead. That was me. And, given that I've spent the last five years working on getting a movie made that's called The Un-Dead, you could say the kid still is me.
(Especially given the fact that I watched this movie after writing ten pages in a novel about a boy who hangs around with Frankenstein's Monster).
I say this because the movie not only follows the lives of the people who play this game, but also the in-game dramatic arc. It comes down to a massive combat between an evil empire and an alliance. The camera follows the leader of the alliance against evil.
In one version of this reality, the alliance leader is a stay-at-home dad playing a character named Brannon. In the other version, the leader is a professional actor playing a character named Aragorn. Both real men are playing similar characters, doing and saying similar things in a similar scenario. The only thing that's different is who they are in real life.
One of the themes of the doc is that these people have kinda hum-drum lives, and playing characters in a game offers a release and escape -- they feel they can't change who they really are, but they can easily change who their fantasy selves are.
But if you look at the Brannon/Aragorn example, we see the exact opposite. Meaning: the fantasy is the constant, whereas the reality is what changes. Thus you could say that reality is more mallable than the fantasy, and thus should be the true thing about themselves people should focus on changing.
I discovered this idea in Hagakure when I first read it, and this movie expands on the concept.
There's a moment when Brannon is plotting out his fantasy battle plan, while in the background an Army general on television is discussing the U.S.'s battle plan in Iraq. I thought: is the movie saying, look at this one guy role-play a fantasy fight for freedom while other people fight and die for real? Or is it saying: no matter who you are, it's within our natures to find wars to fight? The doc doesn't comment either way -- it gives the image and moves on.
But later, we meet a couple of Darkon players who actually have fought in Iraq. One guy is describing a dangerous situation he faced, and he remembers thinking -- to paraphrase -- damn, I have to be careful, this isn't Darkon, anymore.
A third player describes his team as small and scrappy and given to guerilla warfare. By way of comparison in their fight against the evil empire, he says they're like Al-Qaeda versus the massive United States. Again: are we giving shame-shame fingers to this guy for putting his fantasy war in context with a real war? (His girlfriend rolls her eyes when he says this). Or, again, are we saying the the same compulsions exist in us all, and these guys have just found a safe outlet? Despite the eye-rolling girlfriend, the doc doesn't comment either way.
Still later, we watch the different teams negotiate, double-deal and backstab. I was instantly reminded of Survivor, or any number of other "reality" shows that involve team strategies necessary to win. Again: who's more "real?" Who's more "cool?"
At the very end of the movie, Brannon gives us a monologue that's one of the most cogent sets of thoughts I've ever heard regarding the value of imagination in everyday life. His viewpoint could equally apply to fantasy role-playing and Hollywood.
But I'll let you watch Darkon and find out for yourself what he has to say...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Fun in Narnia
While in AZ, my family and I went to the Phoenix Science Center because they had a traveling Narnia display in house for a limited time only.
The best part was the beginning. You go into an empty room with a set of big wardobe doors. (As in The Lion, The Witch and...) They swing open, and you have to push your way through a crowd of fuzzy coats to get into "Narnia," where a machine in the ceiling sprinkles "snow" (which seemed to be finely-shredded toilet paper) on your head. That was fun.
After that, you're pretty much dropping ten bucks extra to walk around and watch EPKs from Prince Caspian on a bunch of video screens. (With the DVD release just on the horizon, though I'm sure that's just a massive coincidence...) Interviews with the director and cast -- isn't that kinda stuff DVD extra filler? You betchum.
There was a catapult, because the bad guys in Prince Caspian have catapults. A guy in a black t-shirt would put a styrofoam "rock" in the basket and weakly fire it into a net about five feet away. It reminded me of the basketball hoops games you sometimes see in sports bars, except with a catapult. It gave new meaning to the word "desultory."
At the end, there was a huge screen showing a teaser trailer for Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was just a giant concept art photo of a sea serpent looking at the titular vessel, while the main Narnia theme played. Then there was a gift shop full of Narnia stuff. The end.
The night before, we watched the first movie again, because my mom hadn't seen it yet. I kinda like it. The battle at the end is a lotta fun. Instead of just a billion orcs and a few trolls a la Lord of the Rings, I dig how each side has this bizarre jumble of talking animals and fantasy creatures all smooshed together. It's not often you get to see a minotaur fight a griffon fight a tiger fight a dwarf fight a rhinocerous fight a centaur fight a gargoyle fight a bear fight Tilda Swinton.
The best part was the beginning. You go into an empty room with a set of big wardobe doors. (As in The Lion, The Witch and...) They swing open, and you have to push your way through a crowd of fuzzy coats to get into "Narnia," where a machine in the ceiling sprinkles "snow" (which seemed to be finely-shredded toilet paper) on your head. That was fun.
After that, you're pretty much dropping ten bucks extra to walk around and watch EPKs from Prince Caspian on a bunch of video screens. (With the DVD release just on the horizon, though I'm sure that's just a massive coincidence...) Interviews with the director and cast -- isn't that kinda stuff DVD extra filler? You betchum.
There was a catapult, because the bad guys in Prince Caspian have catapults. A guy in a black t-shirt would put a styrofoam "rock" in the basket and weakly fire it into a net about five feet away. It reminded me of the basketball hoops games you sometimes see in sports bars, except with a catapult. It gave new meaning to the word "desultory."
At the end, there was a huge screen showing a teaser trailer for Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was just a giant concept art photo of a sea serpent looking at the titular vessel, while the main Narnia theme played. Then there was a gift shop full of Narnia stuff. The end.
The night before, we watched the first movie again, because my mom hadn't seen it yet. I kinda like it. The battle at the end is a lotta fun. Instead of just a billion orcs and a few trolls a la Lord of the Rings, I dig how each side has this bizarre jumble of talking animals and fantasy creatures all smooshed together. It's not often you get to see a minotaur fight a griffon fight a tiger fight a dwarf fight a rhinocerous fight a centaur fight a gargoyle fight a bear fight Tilda Swinton.
Monday, August 11, 2008
I'm Back
Got back from AZ late yesterday. I came into the office super-early to get a jump on the mountain I knew was waiting for me. But the computers were down, and I spent two hours w/ the IT guy on the phone untangling it.
Thus, I'm back and ready to rock, but slammed as fuck until probably mid-week.
I didn't get nearly as much writing done while I was away, just the second draft of a treatment and a few pages of FRANK. That's gonna change, I'm into fucking overdrive on this novel.
Right before I left, I cracked out a quick horror spec, THE CASTLE. It's my take on an ALIEN-style monster/creeper military horror sub-genre thing. First draft took me 14 days, not quite beating my nine-day record on WHEN IT RAINS in 2002. But no big, I wasn't trying to set a land speed record... just wanted to get it out of my head and outta the way so I could re-focus on FRANK and the new script, working title DEAD RIGHT THERE.
Thus, I'm back and ready to rock, but slammed as fuck until probably mid-week.
I didn't get nearly as much writing done while I was away, just the second draft of a treatment and a few pages of FRANK. That's gonna change, I'm into fucking overdrive on this novel.
Right before I left, I cracked out a quick horror spec, THE CASTLE. It's my take on an ALIEN-style monster/creeper military horror sub-genre thing. First draft took me 14 days, not quite beating my nine-day record on WHEN IT RAINS in 2002. But no big, I wasn't trying to set a land speed record... just wanted to get it out of my head and outta the way so I could re-focus on FRANK and the new script, working title DEAD RIGHT THERE.
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