Podcast Demo "Houses"

I was bored and had something to say, and nobody was around. Listen to my tired ramblings by clicking the title to this post (should work should work should work).

If you want to be helpful, lemme know if it sounds all right. I was kinda just flying on whim. Totally unscripted, completely random.

This link will also work if the above doesn't.

http://www.archive.org/details/LitrockPodcastDemoHouses_279

High School Reunion

So this morning I load up facebook and see that there's a group to plan next May's 5 year High School reunion for me.

Needless to say, reactions were mixed here in Lit Rock land.

On the one hand, I'm inherently against rights of passage. I barely put up with graduation, and that was mainly due to parental pressure. The idea of voluntarily caring about a suppose 'right of passage' is so foreign to me that my head instantly starts spinning a little.

On the other hand, I'm kind of amused at the idea. I had fun in high school. It wasn't great, but it was amusing.

No matter what the reaction, I'm having a hard time grasping the fact that five years have passed since then. My how time flies, y'know?

Giving further, more serious thought to the idea, I'm really at a loss. Five years isn't really a lot of time. One would argue ten years isn't really a lot of time. Most of these people who will show up are just getting out of college or going to grad school, and ... really, nothing much changes until you get out of college (everyone in college can bitch to me about how that's not true but talk to me a few years after you're in the real world and we'll talk again kthx).

So there isn't any time for all the real appealing features of high school reunions to take place--people breeding, failing, surprising success stories, the beauties getting skanky and the late bloomers becoming awesome.

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I want to see some train wrecks. That's half the reason I'd ever go to one of these. Then again, maybe I could get back into touch with people who dropped off my radar. Decisions, decisions.

Stupid people and social events. Seriously.

Jesus Christ, he's still alive!

Not Jesus, mind you. He's dead. Has been for ... oh, 1975 years.

Nah, I'm talking about me. Not a savior, not even a good guy, I can turn wine into vinegar and try to stay away from water because I don't like swimming. But I am alive, and I am here to once again make an entry. A good one? Ha, not hardly. I don't have enough to say to make a good post, but I'm sure I'll fill this with enough inane errata and meaningless life updates to make people glad I'm not filling my blog with this shit on a regular basis.

So lately (other than being sick [yeah, I know, I'm sick a lot] and just in the past few days feeling 100%) I've fallen back into my gaming habit. It comes and goes, and right now it's here. Hardcore. Obsession of choice these days? Blue Dragon. I've dropped an embarassing amount of time into it in the past week and a half. Thankfully, I'm almost done, so I can move on to more sane activities. But it's been a crazy week and a half. It reminds me of junior high, when I spent all summer gaming. Those were the days, those carefree lazy days, when all I needed was a spikey-haired protagonist with a big sword repeatedly killing waves of enemies for minimal gains to make me happy.

Not anymore. No way, Jose (unrelated to Jesus). No, now I demand ... well, no, it's the same shit, different disk. But now it has achievements. That's gotta count for something, right? Certainly it's motivated me to drop ridiculous amounts of time into the damn thing.

In other news, I think I might have mentioned I have a netflix account. Because I'm a movie person, I'm serious about my netflix. And I'd like friends. So if you read this, have netflix, and aren't my friend on there yet, feel free to add me. I'll mostly just judge you based on your ratings and queue, not tell you that I think I'm better than you, and look over what you've seen to find stuff I've seen to rate because I'm too lazy to try to remember and rate them individually.

Good times

Speaking of films--good god (related to Jesus, if you believe those Christian folk) it's been a crazy movie season, hasn't it? One weekend after another, stuff I needed to see. I might as well go ahead with the obligitory "What I watched and what I thought of it" but instead of listing everything I'll just point out the three I enjoyed the most and maybe a bit of why

1. Speed Racer

The fact that nobody saw this film is, quite frankly, fucking embarassing. It's still the best thing I saw all year (so far). It's absolutely fantastic. What should have been a train wreck turned into a thing of beauty. It's very experimental, at times edging towards impressionism and abstraction. And it works. I don't know how, I just sit down and enjoy the damn thing. But it's worth it

So when it comes out on DVD, put it on your netflix queue and watch it (or better yet buy it so the Wachowski's can stop crying) so I'll respect you again.

2. Wanted

It's stupid. Yes, I'll admit, it's very stupid.

It's also very, very stylish. And I'm the kind of guy who appreciates a film that doesn't mess around when it comes to being cool

I have nothing else to say here. Watch the trailer. If you don't think it looks cool ... well, then I can't talk to you any more. And guess what? The best stuff isn't even in the trailer.

3. Wall-E

Lots has been said about this one lately, because those right-wing crazies are calling it leftist propaganda. You wanna know why? Because they'd be happy to have us all floating in chairs all day, oblivious to the world around us.

Wall-E is probably going to turn out to be Pixar's dark horse film. It's not really for kids. They know they have an adult demographic, and I really think they played to that this time. There are some surprising subtexts here, and plenty of the typical Pixar touches that add up to make the film something special.

If you have the attention span of a newt, you might find it a slow-starter. It's certainly a lot less funny and a lot more competant as a film than some of their films. But it is, without a doubt, worth seeing.

Today is the day Hellboy 2: The Golden Army comes out. I have to tell you, I'm crazy excited for this one. Hellboy was great. This one almost HAS to be better in probably every way. That's just how it goes

Though, needless to say, my excitement is somewhat overshadowed by something coming out next week. Hehe.

(Lies. I'm really hoping for earth-shatteringly influential, but again ... modesty is a virtue and I need all the help I can get.)

Um ... let's see. Anything else?

Oh yes. My friend Sarah writes really good movies but nobody reads her scripts for her. I think we should all give a collective 'aww' and if you have free time annoy her to do something with her scripts so we can have movie versions in our theatres before we're all collecting social security.

And maybe, if you have free time, see if you can't pry her screenplay draft out of her greedy fingers. I'm totally not running this by her, so she could say no to total strangers, but the thought would likely flatter her and I do what I can. Not to mention you'll get to see her squirm as she fights warring impulses to show her work to people and to be protective of where it goes, all the while trying to turn you down gently in her overly-nice way.

Speaking of readers, Kris got around to reading MS this past weekend, making my failure rate on people I can rely on somewhat less embarassing. Too bad she already had a free pass, since my books aren't anywhere close to her typical reading habits. Especially a novel as full of navel-gazing art-house sensibility as MS.

That said, her opinions were solid, even if she maybe wasn't super keen on the book. Which is fine. She suffers for having known the author longer than is healthy for anyone.

Speaking of, my vacation to see said Kris is coming up, so I'll be going on hiatus from August 6th to the 10th to soak up the rays (more like the rain, since it's monsoon season there) in hot and desert-like Tucson. Should be a gas. Or something.

Expect me to get wasted, wander off into the desert, and be eaten by scorpions. Or something similarly grisly.

Of course, given how often I update this blog, nobody would have noticed my absence anyway. But ... I figure advance notice is a good idea, regardless.

And I'm done. Now let's see how long it takes me to give a shit and do this again. Bets? Winner gets a free drink of their choice*!

*Drink of choice limited to one beverage purchased under $10 by me at a time convenient by me at a location of my choosing. Offer not valid for those living out of the United States, unless they come back here to claim their prize. One play per customer, one winner will be chosen, not all who play will win (unless only one lucky bastard plays). Prize can not be redeemed for cash. In the event of a tie, I'll pick whoever catches my fancy at that moment.

Alive!

So I've spent the past week being horrendously sick. Like bed-ridden, my soul is being crushed kinds of sick. But I'm slowly crawling out of it and that's (of course) a plus. There's nothing quite like the feeling of wellness after illness to make you appreciate what it is to be healthy.

That said, it's time to pick back up the writing again and start kicking ass on it. I'd like to get a good chunk of my current novel pounded out before I leave on vacation (going to Tucson for five days in August), and that's going to take some concentrated effort on my part.

Oh, and my novel has a title now! The CDE Project is now known as The Cafe Between Reality and Dreams. I'll undoubtedly still refer to it as CDE, but now it has something more official to go by. Updates will be shown in the sidebar

>>>>THIS WAY!>>>>>>

Whenever I get around to updating them.

That is all.

The Top 5 Books That Changed My Life

This idea's from Sarah. The idea is to list the top books that have changed your life. They don't have to be your favorites, but they have to be the ones that had the most impact. I actually have about eight books, but Sarah's a neophyte and insisted I make the list managable, so I cut it at five. Hope she's happy.

1. The Mystery of Chimney Rock - Choose Your Own Adventure.

No, I'm not kidding. This is the book that I blame for becoming a reader. Back, once upon a time, I really didn't like reading. Then one day, bored at school, I picked up this book. For some reason, be it the visceral feel of flipping back and forth or the various ways you could meet an untimely end or the stellar, award-winning writing, this book completely changed the way I looked at all those papery things sitting on the shelves.

I was truly never the same again.

2. The Stand - Stephen King

Believe it or not, it took a long long time for another book to blow my mind. To be honest, this book is kind of a placeholder for most of the work of Mr King, but it is quite a standout (pun mercifully unintended).

The Stand is more than just a book, it's an experience. Impossibly epic, the brick accompanied me on a road trip to the black hills when I was ... oh, fourteen? Reading about characters making their way across a country devastated by a supervirus as I was driving through the wastes of northern Nebraska and southern South Dakota was one of those magical summer childhood experiences that has always been with me.

Bonus points for King for using a unified world, of course, with characters from one book popping up in another. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm all about cross-pollination of my characters.

3. The Odyssey

Homer's Greek epic about ships and monsters and Odysseus. Yeah, I know, you look at me and say "So what?" And I tell you, "But it means EVERYTHING!"

The Odyssey is everything I love about quest tales (honorable mentions to this list Lord of the Rings and Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and epic poetry (other honorable mention The Divine Comedy) wrapped into one. The hero with his flaws sets out to do what he must, and along the way gets himself into shit you just want to strangle him for.

But because he's Odysseus, and he's just that cool, he always weasles his way out of situations. Odysseus is cut from the same character cloth as most trickster-archetypes, such as Bugs Bunny or Jack Sparrow. Unlike them, he racks up quite a body count of friends who aren't nearly as blessed with main character status.

It's funny, it's tragic, and it's epic. The Odyssey truly is epic in every sense of the word, spanning years and miles and planes of existance in its story. It opened my eyes to just how big a story could be. To the scope that could be presented to tell such a small moral (don't be an arrogant dick, especially to the gods).

And it's still my favorite Greek classic.

4. House of Leaves - Mark Z Danielewski

I've never met anyone who has read this book.

Everyone should read this book.

That said, this is one of the most frightening things I've ever read. A meta-book, a book within a book within a book, the story is the most convoluted, non-Euclidian nightmare that you could ever imagine. And it's fitting, too. This is a masterful book, that is very aware of itself as a book and utilizes the unique opportunities that the written word has over other media to help supercharge its tale in a unique way.

Never did I feel that books had as much power as I did when I read this one. I still feel uneasy when I look at my copy.

But I really wish I knew someone who had read this one.

5. Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins

Might as well be a stand in for all of Robbins' books, but it's my favorite, as well. When I think of Literary Rockstar-dom, Tom Robbins is the embodiment of exactly what I mean.

Fearless, edgy, yet endlessly comfortable, Jitterbug Perfume blew the doors off of writing and convinced me to take more risks and not only write bigger, but think bigger. With his comfortable, casual style, Robbins can both turn a phrase and warp a mind without much effort.

His books are endlessly cool, with metaphors hanging off of similies which cling desperately to symbolism that's slowly losing purchase as it holds, with one slowly weakening hand, to Robbin's cigarette (legal or not).

It shouldn't work, it should be a massive disaster, but it works amazingly. Never did I feel so empowered as I did after this book. In fact, this book is partially responsible for the creation of this blog.

.... and that's it. That's five. Hope you enjoy, and if you want to read any of them, I provided links so you could go get them yourselves. Ones that are also on the list (but didn't make it because of Sarah's silly cut-off:

- Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa
- 1984, George Orwell
- Dance, Dance, Dance, Haruki Murakami

Random Update

Sorry this space has been so quiet lately. There just isn't much to say. I've been sick and busy and generally bleh. Once I stop being bleh, maybe I'll have something more to put here. It doesn't help that all my heroes keep dying.

First it was Stan Winston, which was tragic. But then there was Carlin, a man who by all accounts should have been too full of spite to die. I suppose that's what happens when you start getting drug-induced heart attacks in your 40s.

Carlin was and is probably the biggest influence on my sense of humor. He taught me things about delivery and cadence that I use every day. It's not just to be funny ... in fact, funny isn't really important. It's all in how you say what you have to say. With the right twist and the proper sense of abandon, ANYTHING can be funny. It's that disregard for convention that I try to hold near and dear to my heart.

Anyway, I don't know how well my readers knew Carlin, but everyone should watch at least some of his stuff. Luckily, some gracious youtube person posted every single one of his shows. Go ahead and enjoy. The playlists are organized quite well. The best way to remember him would be to watch, and laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=DiavoloDiAno

getting back into the swing of things

So I've been writing daily, for the past few days anyway. The goal as it stands is 1000 words a day, and that's been all right. 1000 words a day is a focused effort of 30 minutes, which is about all the patience I have lately. I'm trying to write around my apathy, and work past it.

At this rate, the book should be done sometime late summer. >.< I need to speed it up, but I really just ... can't push myself too hard. Another burn out would throw me entirely off course, and I can't have that.

Lately I've been out of a reading mood, and into a movie mood. I got a netflix account, and have been enjoying that. It doesn't hurt that I can watch movies at work. If I make the effort, I can get through four movies in a day. It's great to get paid for that. I also watched all of The Office.

I should have more to say, but I don't, really. Second section of the Sugoi story is up, I suppose. Yay for that. I need to figure out where the hell it's going. Expect a new one next week, perhaps.