BONUS: Throwback Post #1

This piece was originally posted in 2007. Enjoy.

Shortly after I started working at Gino's Pizza, the woman I worked with (who ended up marrying my best friend) turned to me and asked me a question. Whatever she asked was lost forever beneath the exhaust noise from the oven, the ringing phones and the sounds of traffic from outside. I looked at her and said, "Did you just say 'Do you have poop in your bed?'" She started howling and that was the end of getting any real work done that day.

Now when we meet, instead of asking each other "How are you?" (which is a really dumb thing to ask, especially if you don't want a real answer) we ask "Do you have poop in your bed?" It's a much more interesting conversation starter.

Every time I think of that it reminds me of the incident my cousin James calls "The Funniest Thing Ever". When my English Bull Terrier, Frodo was just a little puppy, we put him on my bed so we could keep an eye on him while we played "Daggerfall" on my PC. So of course we lost track of time somewhere in the depths of Scourg Barrow, searching for the King of Worms (but that's another story) and Frodo suddenly decided he'd had enough of being ignored.

For those of you who aren't familiar with bull terriers, let me explain. Calling the breed "willful" or "stubborn" is like calling President Bush a "moron" or an "idiot". Those simple words fail to convey the full flavour and scope of stupidity he's capable of. (or in the case of Frodo, the Bull-headedness he's capable of.) To those who object to my categorizing the President of the United States of America using such terms, I present to you my favorite Bush Quote.

During a ceremony at the Rose Garden, in response to criticism about Donald Rumsfeld's continued status as Secretary of Defense, George W. Bush on camera said the following...

"I'm the decider and I decide what's best."

Enough said.

So Frodo came over to the corner of my bed nearest where we were sitting, hunkered down and started dispensing a thin spiral of brown soft-serve that bore a freakish resemblance to a DQ Peanut Buster Parfait. My cousin noticed first, but he thought it would be funnier if he didn't warn me that my dog was defecating on my BED! I looked up and said, "It smells like shit in here." at which point he lost it and started laughing so hard he was in tears.

I realized what was happening just as Frodo squeezed off the last little curl on the pile, gave me a look of total innocence and wagged his tail, happy that I was finally paying attention to him.

Thank god for Febreeze.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

A better question would be, "Which of your ideas do you use and which do you ignore?"

Fiction writing is like stone sculpture. You start with a large block of stone, then cut and chip away all the pieces of stone you don't need, leaving only the smaller statue behind. In my case the problem is, which large block of stone do I choose, from the Everest-sized mountain of stones available to me?

What? It's a peregrine falcon with a fedora. How can you not see it? Uncultured swine!

Yes, it's crowded in my head.

I've always had story elements, characters and scenes, coming into my head. Half of my earliest childhood memories are of making up stories to entertain myself. With no siblings, a sick mother, and a father always working or watching TV, I spent most of my at home time alone.

Apparently, when I was three and we lived at the house on Kenilworth, I would tell whoever would listen that there were lions in the laundry room. I also remember staging train crashes, along with their ensuing disaster narratives. Not with actual toy trains of course, with whatever was at hand. I had very few toys growing up. My mother believed they were unnecessary. She allowed me books though. My father did manage to get me Brix Blox, and later Meccano, under the umbrella of "they're educational".

We are so excited!

Red, white, and blue, the funny things you do...

Metal strips, screws, motors. What could possibly go wrong?

Any other toys I had were gifts from relatives, though those were few and far between, as my parents didn't celebrate the holidays or birthdays. I remember one incident with my grandfather at a Canadian Tire store, him holding this huge box that was clearly a train set. When I inquired about it in the checkout line he responded with a big grin, "It's a TOOL." I also remember being allowed to pick one souvenir while on a trip to I-don't-remember, and to my mother's shame and horror I picked a shiny red hatchback sedan toy. The same toy I blew up in the bathroom sink later, but that's another story.

So yeah, entertaining myself by making up stories and character and scenes became my one of my brain's most used functions in my early childhood, and as a result, my brain now does it all the time, whether I want it to or not. It never stops. They just keep coming. I can't make a coffee or go to the bathroom without thinking of half a dozen story ideas.

Where do you get your ideas? Wrong question.

How do you make them stop?

You write.

LEGENDARY: Game of Heroes

Seriously loving this game. Best CCG game I've played to date. A fun mix of collecting, color match puzzles, tactics, strategy, and social co-operation. With excellent graphics!

LEGENDARY: Game of Heroes

Space Exploration Is Important, So Stop Whining About Space Spending

My response to anyone who complains about money spent on space exploration, says we should be feeding the poor or providing health care with that money:

Why is it when someone spends $100M on a movie no one will care about a year from now, no one complains. Or when someone spends $100M on a military aircraft that will be immediately mothballed, no one complains? Or when the Atlanta Falcons build a 1 Billion Dollar Stadium (that's ten times $100M) no one bats an eye. For a sports stadium. But spend any money on space and suddenly everyone complains and wants to feed the poor and save the world.

My question is, where do people imagine this money is being spent? Do they think it's being hurled into the sun by a giant catapult? No. The money is spent on materials and equipment that have to be made, assembled and transported, by engineers, scientists and laborers, all of whom GET PAID to do those jobs, and every piece of equipment is bought from a company, who PAYS TAXES and contributes to the economy. Money spent ON space is spent ON Earth, creating jobs and industries here on Earth that provide jobs (which fights poverty) and create advancements (like the mammogram machines that save so many women from breast cancer, remember to thank NASA and the Hubble Telescope Program for that) but most of all that inspire and educate and make people think, get people excited. Be glad these rich people and corporations are finally doing something with their money instead of just leaving it sitting in hedge funds where it helps no one.

Favorite Book Number One

'Strangers' by Dean Koontz (link to Amazon Books)


Let me be clear, I'm not saying that Strangers is the 'best' book, merely that it hits all the right notes for me, personally.

Strangers is the story of six strangers who experience strange waking terrors, and eventually meet, share their stories, and discover that they share an impossible secret. Strangers is a classic ensemble story, wide in scope and full of tension and mystery, questions that last well into the third act. The final reveal is very well crafted, one of the best slow reveals I've read so far.

The characters are what makes the story. An adult sleepwalker. A surgeon with panic attacks. An ex-marine hotel owner who is afraid of the dark. And of particular interest to me, a priest who has lost his faith, who suddenly experiences what seems to be a genuine miracle.

It's very hard to discuss the rest of the story without spoilers. (Be careful if you read reviews of this book. They tend to be full of spoilers.)

As I grow older, I become more comfortable with stories that don't explain everything, that don't answer all the questions they raise. But Strangers stands out as one of those rare works of suspense where the explanation truly and completely satisfies.

I've read Strangers many times, and each time it's just as satisfying. I recommend Strangers without reservation.

The Keep

Tonight, they will all be face-melted.

I finally sat down and watched Michael Mann's THE KEEP, based on the terrific book by F. Paul Wilson. I'm glad I did.

To be clear, the movie is a muddled, inexplicable mess of 80's backlit, smoke-machine, shitty effect-driven scenes, all set to a glorious roller rink electronic score by Tangerine Dream (I'm serious). But I enjoyed it anyway.

The scene where the two greedy German soldiers inadvertently release 'The Evil' is iconic. As is the first time we see Molasar materialize and explode the heads of two more soldiers as they try to rape Eva. The 'smoky' version of Molasar is really well done. If they'd kept him looking like that for the whole film it would have been epic.

Epic.

 

The reason why I mention this film is, I remember catching a glimpse of it on TV in the mid 80's when I was a young teenager. The greedy soldier getting face-melted in the narrow tunnel, the acrobatic sex scene (yay sweaters!), and Molasar generally being a bad-ass must have made an impression.

Why? Because as I was watching I realized that some of the scenes in this movie (from way back  in '83) have informed and inspired stories I've written since then. Only I'd forgotten the film's influence. Scenes from Upstairs, The Image, A Conversation With the Devil and possibly others all have imagery and moments that remind me of scenes in this film.

It's kind of incredible that a movie I only saw parts of, one time, thirty years ago, could be so influential.

Gabriel Byrne does not want to be face-melted.

Great cast too. Ian McKellen, Scott Glenn, Jurgen Prochnow, and Gabriel Byrne sounding a lot like an Irishman not pulling off a German accent.

I wish the original 200-minute version Mann showed the studio still existed somewhere, because the choppy 90-minute theatrical cut leaves much to be desired.

It's a great, high concept story about the nature of evil, and visually it's a work of art but my God is it ever hampered by phoned-in performances and some really bad editing choices.

Running won't help, sorry buddy.

Despite it's many, many flaws, I enjoyed the movie. Apparently it stirred my imagination when I was young too. And it scared the shit out of me.

What more can you ask for from an 80's B-Horror movie?