This is what happens when we get out the bag of Milk Bone Trail Mix.
(I don’t know how to make the actual animated gif show up on this page, so click on the image and you’ll see it).
Jeeped.
Why yes, this is a new post, and yes, it has only been a week. Madness!
I’m anxiously checking my email over and over again, waiting for my manager’s final notes on my new spec script. So far she’s only had a couple, and those were very minor — simple tweaks, really — but she was gonna give the script a second read last night and let me know if she had anything else. So I’m twitchin’ a bit today.
The Jeep continues to task me. The thing died Thursday night, seemingly from lack of gas. We put a gallon in and it still wouldn’t start, plus the battery acted like it was draining very quickly. Yesterday I bought a new battery and put that in. Still wouldn’t start. The sounds it was making during the not-starting process reminded me of what it did when the power valve crapped out a couple years ago, so we pulled that out of the carb and looked it over. It was in perfect shape.
By this point I was flummoxed. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt, we put another couple gallons of gas in the bastard, and — you guessed it — it started. It’s been running reasonably well since then, but I still have my doubts that everything is okay (for one thing, there’s that exhaust leak at the manifold that fills the cab with delicious, intoxicating fumes).
Meanwhile: you should read Pete, Drinker of Blood if you haven’t already! It’s getting some pretty glowing reviews, and they’re not just from my mom.
Terrible Blogging Skills.
Jeez, is it hard to keep up with this thing. Figured I’d give anyone still reading the blog a quick update, though.
Been getting a great response to the new spec script, which is a huge relief. A heck of a lot of personal stuff went into that script, and the insecurity over it was pretty high. Of course, I still have to get a great response from someone who wants to make the dang thing, but here’s hopin’.
Meanwhile, I’m working on the new Boone Butters story — probably about halfway there now. This one’s called Smoker. I’m not gonna make my hoped-for release date of the end of February, but we’ll see how it goes in March.
Not much else to report. Dawgs are doing well, I’m now wearing bifocals, and things are okay overall. Except for my ability to crank out blog posts.
Finding Moneymaker.
I’ve got a new post up at Cheese Magnet — an interview with low-budget filmmaker and all-around great guy, Joe Sherlock. Check it out if you’re so inclined.
Spent the last few weeks finishing up a spec script I started writing about a year ago — got about 30 pages in before I put it aside to write Pete, Drinker of Blood. It was a tough script to write, for reasons I won’t go into, but I think I’m pretty happy with the results (I never really know for sure). In any case, it went off to my manager yesterday, and I’m sure she’ll have notes (thankfully, her notes tend to be very good, too).
Meanwhile, I’m starting in on the new Boone Butters story today. In this one, Boone and Shandi head off to Los Angeles to help Boone’s old pal with the production of an — ahem — exotic film. It ties in with the previous story, The Bombay Beach Boys, as well. Of course, you can still get that one and Roomies, the first Boone story, for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo and more. I’m aiming at having this new one out in the world around the end of this month, but we’ll see.
In other news, I stopped by a gas station to buy a couple of sodas, and I saw a guy who looked so much like Matt Moneymaker from Finding Bigfoot that I loitered around waiting for him to approach the door so I could hold it open for him, in hopes that he’d thank me and I could positively identify him by his voice. All went well with this plan, but as soon as I heard him speak, it was obvious he wasn’t Moneymaker — the man has what you might call a distinctive voice.
Equals Writing.
KISS beer is a thing now. Can Gorn Dogs be far behind? Let’s get on that, food inventors.
Will I get back in the habit of posting regularly here? I don’t know. To be honest, I’m more concerned with getting lots of writing done, and sometimes I tend to fall into the trap of convincing myself that writing for the blog = writing, and then I avoid working on the novel or the new Boone Butters story or whatever. Granted, some folks write some damn fine blog posts that actually do qualify as writing with a capital W, but I ain’t one of them. So I’ll just try to do these posts when I can, because my hope is that the folks out there would prefer to read my books (or whatever) over reading about spiders in my pants.
Here’s a cool little post at MTV Geek — it’s about Mark Dacascos signing on for the new Mortal Kombat web series, and has some nice things to say about Drive, the Markie D movie I wrote.
J.R. on right.
And over at Cheese Magnet, a blog I write movie reviews and whatnot for, you can read an interview I conducted with J.R. Bookwalter, one of the guiding forces in the shot-on-video, no-budget filmmaking revolution.
Right now I’m gonna get back to work on the new spec script — I think I’m about four days away from finishing off the first draft.
2013. Sheesh.
Nearly two months since my last post — I guess that “once or twice a week” thing didn’t work out. In my defense, things have been crazy. For one thing, I moved from Bernalillo back into Albuquerque, and just dealing with all my junk took nearly two months.
The Casey-dawg in her new backyard.
On top of that we’ve had those holidays and whatnot, and I was also working like a fiend to complete the ebook edition of Unsafe On Any Screen, the collection of my movie reviews — it includes a fancy index that’s linked throughout the book to make searching for stuff easier, and you can get it right here:
It’s also available for Nook, iBooks, and more (as well as the old standard paperback edition).
Now I’m getting back to work on a spec script I started on nearly a year ago, but put aside for other projects (like Pete, Drinker of Blood).
I’ve been posting excerpts from spammy emails on my Facebook page, and recently someone suggested I create a blog for them. I like that idea, but since I obviously don’t even have time to keep up with this blog, I figured I’d just combine the two and start posting some of the choice spam right here. Here’s one I received today — its not as spectacular as some, but it’s a good start:
Hey, I believed me and you talked well and after I sent you my erotic pictures I thought you would be back in touch with me. Did you not like them? Anyhow sexy here is my account send me your account and me and you can hook up. I can be much more naughtier than you’ve seen on my pics, they were not as erotic as I have lol. Dream of read you here soon
Stay tuned for more. And I shall dream of read you here soon, myself.
Spock… Help Me, Spock…
My post about Alpha Centura got me feeling all warm and fuzzy about the early days of my Star Trek geekiness, so I figured I’d share a couple photos of one of my prized Trek items — the Command Communications Console.
I wish I could say this is the same one I owned as a kid, but to be quite honest, I have no recollection of what happened to the thing. This one was a Christmas gift a few years back. Here’s the TV commercial for it:
I also had the communicators, but my biggest problem was not having anybody to talk to on the things. Sometimes I could get my dad to tell me what he was watching on TV, but that meant walking into the living room, handing him a communicator, and telling him to wait till I contacted him. Then I’d hustle back to my room, get on either the Command Console or my other communicator, and fuzzily ask him what he was up to. This, as you might imagine, wasn’t very exciting for either of us.
Late one night, I discovered that I could listen in on a CB conversation — what seemed to be the prelude to an illicit affair: a woman who complained about her husband being at work all night, and a guy who very obviously had designs on keeping her company in her lonely hours. These two talked every weeknight, and it was apparent that they were headed for trouble. I lost interest in their sordid tale for some reason, though, so I can only guess at how it ended.
Another thing I used to do was push the “Transmit” button and say “Spock… Help me, Spock…” until one night someone responded, telling me to knock it off. That freaked me out so much that I seriously don’t remember ever playing with the Console anymore afterwards.
Alpha Centura.
Nowadays, it’s supercool to be a nerd, but back in the 70s, it was a tough row to hoe. The last thing you ever wanted to do was let slip that you dug Star Trek or comic books or anything like that, because the torment would be endless. It didn’t even matter that I was into Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and Queen; I liked Star Trek and that was enough to cancel out anything that could ever be considered cool. And hell, even once Star Wars came out and every single person on the planet — and certainly every single kid in junior high — saw it and loved it, you didn’t wanna blurt out “Star Wars rocked!” at school, because that was a guarantee that, before the day was out, your underwear would be yanked so far up your ass crack the waistband would be around your shoulders.
That’s why I was so astonished when, while sitting through the local news one Saturday night waiting for Star Trek to come on, I saw a report about an entire club full of Star Trek nerds, right here in Albuquerque. This was sometime in 1976, and the club was called Alpha Centura. I convinced my dad to take me to their next meeting.
And it was amazing.
Not only were all these folks huge fans of Trek, science fiction in general, and comic books, they were all really nice. And even better — there were cute girls wearing Star Trek uniforms.
Me and my dad went to a bunch of Alpha meetings, but somewhere in mid-1977, we kind of fell out of the habit. I can’t even begin to explain how important the club was to me, though — just learning that there were other people like me out there was a big confidence booster. No, being in the club didn’t prevent the never-ending onslaught of thermonuclear wedgies that was the scholastic norm for me, but you learn to survive.
Recently, I discovered that my pal Stan Day was not only in the club at the same time I was, he was the official photographer for Alpha — and he’s created a website where you can peruse his photos. While I was going through ‘em, I found a few of particular interest — the one below is a blowup of a much larger photo, but that kid with the shaggy bowl haircut and the long-sleeved blue t-shirt? Yeah, that’s me.
This next one — another blowup — is extra cool to me, because that older fellow on the far left wearing glasses is my dad.
And this last one? Well, you may remember my recent post about the death of my buddy, Randy “Skids” Clark. That kid on the left is Skids himself, a 12-year-old nerd just like I was. The crazy part is, I don’t think me and Randy ever realized we were both in Alpha at the same time — we didn’t really “meet” until we were both 18.
Stan’s Alpha site is a heck of a lot of fun — it’s a nice personal remembrance of Stan’s days in the club, and the story of meeting — and working up the nerve to ask out — Carol, the woman who would become his wife, is just terrific (I thought I was gonna cry when Stan told it to me, it’s so dang sweet). But it’s also fun to check out the ’70s nerds — these folks were on the front lines of the battle so all you nerd youngsters would one day be able to openly let your geek flags fly. Check out the site, but be prepared to lose an hour or two.
Music Pete Likes, Part 3.
I’m making slow progress on the new book this week — I may have mentioned before that I always poke around nervously on a new project until I settle into the groove, but I’m pretty sure I can feel the groove coming on. Meanwhile, I’m avoiding writing by doing this blog post.
I figured it was time for a little more of the rawk one might find on the jukebox in The Starbucket, the bar Pete hangs out at in Pete, Drinker of Blood. First up is Speed King, from the first Ian Gillan-era Deep Purple record. That entire album is louder than hell and if you’ve never heard it, do yourself a favor and check it out now.
Up next is Sweet with Co-Co, a goofy song but one I love:
And we’ll wrap it up this time with Metal Guru from T-Rex.
And speaking of Pete, Drinker of Blood — get your copy today!