Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Happy New Year's Eve
I hope, as you review your 2009, that you find little to regret and MUCH to to be thankful for! AND... plenty to giggle about!
Have a blast tonight!!!
:D
Monday, December 28, 2009
AVATAR in 3D
I just got back from one of the most intensely beautiful films in a while!!!
Not to over-hype it, lol. ;P
But I totally get why everyone -- famous folks and friends alike -- are excited about James Cameron's Avatar!
First, this summer I got the sense of some online buzz about it, if only because James Cameron was back behind the camera. The man makes the highest-grossing film of all time, a film that everyone universally seems to love and hail, and then the cat disappears for the better part of a decade! Some might wonder if he had any more films left in him. Some might wonder if maybe he's afraid to make another movie -- after all, how do you follow up Titanic? We all knew the ending, and yet we all went to see it multiple times while it was still in cinemas.
I had a hint that this movie would probably be great, because I saw Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Solaris, and knew that Cameron produced it. Not just produced it, though -- there are many, many levels of producers in Hollywood, and some of them are just business guys who took lunches on the studio's dime. Cameron was an active producer on Soderbergh's Solaris, and even did the DVD audio commentary with Soderbergh.
So I knew Cameron was up to something... I didn't have a clue what, though.
But, as I said, I figured it would be good. Here's why: Behind and beneath -- running throughout, really -- of Cameron's work is a soul, a beating heart. It's really the only thing that ties all his work together. Sometimes his soul is laid bare and stamped on every frame of his films, like The Abyss and Titanic. And sometimes the soul is masked by spectacle and/or comedy, like T2 and True Lies. But how else could you link works like Titanic and The Terminator? What other creative element binds them?
And when you watch Soderbergh's version of Solaris, you can see Cameron in the amazing visual effects (another creative element that marks Cameron's work) and you might be tempted to stop there. But I've seen enough Soderbergh to have sensed a more "spiritual" (for lack of a better adjective) quality in Solaris than in, say, Erin Brockovich or Ocean's Eleven. There are areas of the human condition that Soderbergh is interested in, and areas that Cameron is interested in, and Solaris appeared to me to be a blending of those two artists.
Still, even after seeing the first trailers for Avatar, I wasn't quite sold.
I mean, I knew it would be great, and I would have bet real money that it would be a better movie than I expected. I grew up with Cameron's work. I grew up on Cameron's work! One of my favorite movies of all-time is The Abyss! But the trailer didn't really show me anything that grabbed me, in particular. I mean, I LOVE blues and greens, so the blue people in the forest was definitely a plus. The trailer promised that James Cameron trademark action. And you've got to like a movie where a self-absorbed military ass is transformed by an aboriginal people into a deep, thoughtful person. (Which is what the first trailer suggested would be the case.)
But what really started to get my attention was when stars who aren't in the mvoie started talking about how excited they were about Avatar!
I mean, these people were doing press for these other films that they were in, but when they talked about Avatar, they sounded the same way my friends and I did in high school, when the release of a certain movie with a certain star or a certain director was a major event in our life! For that moment, they weren't stars, they were fans!
And how often do you watch stars turn into film geeks?
I mean, if you know them personally, maybe you see that a lot. But I don't know any personally. I see them in their work, or I see them promoting their work. Or on behind-the-scenes featurettes on their DVDs.
So it caught my attention when this started happening.
But that's not what sold me...
When my Gnomey and I got a chance to chat for a while week before last -- like really talk for a while, for the first time in some time -- she was all about Avatar! She loved this movie and couldn't wait for me to see it!
That's when I was 100% SOLD! My baby wants me to see it? I'm SO THERE!
The problem with seeing new movies for me, though, is time and money. I had already made a date with my li'l bro to see Sherlock Holmes on Christmas Day. That was time and money already spent.
I didn't know when the next time I would have both the time and the money would be, but I was determined that I would see Avatar AS SOON AS I could! I wanted to be able to talk to my baby about this movie that had so affected her.
She mentioned how good the music was, so I bought the soundtrack. And James Horner's score is awesome! :D But that's so substitute for the experience of seeing the film.
As it turned out, I got tonight (Sunday night) OFF! I had been scheduled to work straight through the rest of 2009, but just recently the other overnight op, for whom I was filling in, changed his mind and decided to work tonight!
AND, as fate would have it, I had some money!
In fact, the Alamo Drafthouse right next to me (so close that I've walked there before, though I didn't tonight because it's so frickin' cold in Austin right now) is showing it in 3-D!!!
Now, if you don't have an Alamo Drafthouse in your town (which is likely, since it's a local franchise that only recently started expanding to other cities) I need to describe the Drafthouse experience...
They don't serve popcorn, and overpriced hot dogs and nachos. They do serve overpriced candy, but that's not what most people buy there. At the Alamo Drafthouse, you can buy a REAL burger, or pizza, or some gourmet sandwich, and BEER. :) You can buy nachos, but they're not those cheapo cinema nachos, they're REAL nachos! Or you can buy Cheese Sticks or Jalapeno Poppers, if you're just looking for something light.
Me, usually I barely have enough money to buy the movie ticket. I usually don't eat when I go to the movies. If I can scrounge together enough money to get into the theater, that's absolutely good enough for me! :D
But tonight was an EVENT.
I woke up just before 9:00pm. It was too late to hope that my baby would be online, so I didn't bother. I did, however, check Fandango.com to see if the Drafthouse had a 9p-or-later showing of Avatar.
THEY DID!!! 10:00pm!
So I hauled myself out of bed, did some dishes (not apropos to the story, but they needed to be done) and headed to the movie.
I was already a little bit hungry, so I decided I'd shoot the moon and have me some Drafthouse food! This is a ridiculous extravagance for myself, but what the heck? It's that magical time after Christmas and before New Year's Day, when that magic of the Yuletide celebration is still in every breath you take! Plus, this was a magical Day Off! I was supposed to be working tonight, but magically, I wasn't! Plus, when I watched this movie, I knew I would be watching it with Gnomey!!! :D (I do most things with her, even though she's not with me physically at the time I'm doing them, but this was different; this was something she really wanted me to do, so that makes it even more special!)
Another fun aspect of the Drafthouse experience is that instead of playing boring-ass commercials before the feature, they fill the screen with wild & wacky pre-show stuff. Tonight as I was standing in line, or sitting and waiting for the movie to start, I saw the trailers for Return of the Creature in 3-D, Giant Gila-Monster and It Came From Outter Space in 3-D. Whether you can afford the food or not, a movie at the Drafthouse is a REAL movie experience! :D
For breakfast, I settled on this awesome Chicken Parmesan sandwich with REAL, steak-cut fries! You wouldn't believe the chicken patty, either! I've had a lot of Chicken Parmesan -- some from nice restaurants, most cheap frozen stuff you nuke at home -- and there was a subtlety about the seasoning of this Chicken Parmesan sandwich that I've only experienced in restaurants!
But none of this, the Drafthouse movie going experience, compared to the film!!!
Cameron has created this world for us that, at first, feels more or less like "typical" James Cameron... It's the future, it's high-tech, the military is all around... It's gorgeous! (You know, in that high-tech, gritty, futuristic sort of way.) And the way he used 3-D is GENIUS! It's not the old-school, stuff-poppin'-out-at-ya-because-this-is-a-3-D-flick shtick. Cameron uses the 3-D to thoroughly convince you that everything you see is real! And if it were real, THIS is how it would all look!
And starting you out in the gritty, militaristic, mechanized world is the PERFECT beginning for this movie! Because, very shortly, he introduces you into this world of organic, orgasmic beauty!!! A lot of filmmakers use special effects in films to take you to places you've never been before. (Cameron has done this in most of his movies. But, then again, EVERYONE does that now, lol.) But this film... It's all alien and beautiful, but most of the beauty can be found right here, on Earth! It's the beauty of a hike in the woods, or the look on your loved one's face!
Okay, I could get off on a tangent here about the gorgeousness of everyday life, but I'm not going to. It's all been said before, and when you see the film, you'll experience it for yourself.
And THAT is kind of the point of this movie...
I'm sure professional movie reviewers will comment on the "Green" themes or spiritual themes or whatever themes Cameron has woven into this amazing film experience, but what I am profoundly struck by about this film is the LIFE. This action-packed, intensely emotional, 3-D, mostly CG wonder that James Cameron has given us feels like living!
I don't know how to explain it better than that.
I'll put it this way: When I was a kid, the movies that I loved the most were the ones that made me immediately want to go outside and play. Like, after seeing Star Wars I wanted to go outside, gather the neighborhood kids and be Luke Skywalker (though I was usually Chewie, but that was fun, too). After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark the kids in the apartment complex and I ran outside and got as dirty as we could hurling ourselves off jungle gyms and the like. Superman: The Movie had me running around as fast as I could with my arms outstretched, imagining what it felt like to fly.
Tonight after the movie, I spent half an hour running around the parking lot, leaping from one car rooftop to another...
Just kidding.
But what I'm talking about is that really good movies (the ones I prefer, anyway) tend to make me intensely aware of all the tiny little components of being alive, all the millions of second-by-second miracles that life as to offer. When I was a kid, these miracles included being able to run fast, kicking up dust, leaping off things and crashing to the ground. As an adult, they tend to include the colors of things, the textures of things, a single breath of air. And always, one of the most powerful elements of life, when I was a kid and now, is the ability to feel emotion.
What an amazing thing, emotion!
The ability to be filled-up with this inexplicable sensation that can make you weep tears of joy! Or the ability to feel appreciation -- deep, profound appreciation -- for something you already have not something that you hope to one day attain)! How cool is that!
I'm getting all abstract now, which is probably my cue to move on, lol.
But Avatar is a great movie and great fun! If you don't experience a sense of awe when you see it, you might want to have someone check your pulse.
Know what else is amazing?
Sherlock Holmes!
It's awesome for a whole other set of reasons. A very different film from Avatar, but no less amazing!
I did get to see it on Christmas Day, before I went into work. I didn't get to see it with my li'l bro, however, because he was exhausted and couldn't keep his eyes open, lol.
It also has an excellent soundtrack, this one by the astounding Hans Zimmer! He greats this musical soundscape for Holmes that places you intimately inside his world.
Very cool!
Sherlock Holmes was so cool that I finally broke down and am reading the novels for the first time. I've read the collections of short stories several times each, but I've avoided the novels. So last night I picked up A Study in Scarlet (the story in which Watson meets Holmes for the first time) and am enjoying it.
One thing that amazed me about the movie was how faithful it is to the cannon! I've heard a few complaints, based on the TV ads for the flick, along the lines of "I like Sherlock Holmes, and that's not Sherlock Holmes." I was concerned about the same thing when I saw the first couple of trailers for it. It seems like the trailers are actually designed to make you think Guy Ritchie and company are raping the mythology, lol.
But I have 2 notes for anyone debating seeing the film because they're fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories:
First, in the first 2 minutes of the movie the filmmakers sort of explain to you why this more energetic version of the legend is going to work. (It's a subtle thing, but within the first 2 minutes, if you're worried that the visual style is going to violate Doyle's creation, you'll go "Okay, I get it!")
Second, whatever happens throughout the movie, by the last 2 minutes you'll discover that the filmmakers really weren't taking any liberties at all with the original.
Both of these will make perfect sense after you've seen the movie. Because there are times when, if you know Doyle's work well, you go, "Hey, wait a minute..." But then when the movie wraps up, you realize that the writer and director were toying with you and your expectations.
If you've seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels you know that Guy Ritchie is an amazingly clever filmmaker. And after you've seen Holmes you realize that he is the perfect artist to reinterpret the characters/world for a new generation!
Okay, I've actually been blogging for a few hours now, and I have a couple of things to do before I go back to work tomorrow. So I bid you adieu for now, and I hope you have a KICK ASS New Year!!! (I will be working New Year's Eve, but I'm taking the first week of 2010 off, so I plan to celebrate the birth of the new year in my own way.)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
:D
Not to over-hype it, lol. ;P
But I totally get why everyone -- famous folks and friends alike -- are excited about James Cameron's Avatar!
First, this summer I got the sense of some online buzz about it, if only because James Cameron was back behind the camera. The man makes the highest-grossing film of all time, a film that everyone universally seems to love and hail, and then the cat disappears for the better part of a decade! Some might wonder if he had any more films left in him. Some might wonder if maybe he's afraid to make another movie -- after all, how do you follow up Titanic? We all knew the ending, and yet we all went to see it multiple times while it was still in cinemas.
I had a hint that this movie would probably be great, because I saw Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of Solaris, and knew that Cameron produced it. Not just produced it, though -- there are many, many levels of producers in Hollywood, and some of them are just business guys who took lunches on the studio's dime. Cameron was an active producer on Soderbergh's Solaris, and even did the DVD audio commentary with Soderbergh.
So I knew Cameron was up to something... I didn't have a clue what, though.
But, as I said, I figured it would be good. Here's why: Behind and beneath -- running throughout, really -- of Cameron's work is a soul, a beating heart. It's really the only thing that ties all his work together. Sometimes his soul is laid bare and stamped on every frame of his films, like The Abyss and Titanic. And sometimes the soul is masked by spectacle and/or comedy, like T2 and True Lies. But how else could you link works like Titanic and The Terminator? What other creative element binds them?
And when you watch Soderbergh's version of Solaris, you can see Cameron in the amazing visual effects (another creative element that marks Cameron's work) and you might be tempted to stop there. But I've seen enough Soderbergh to have sensed a more "spiritual" (for lack of a better adjective) quality in Solaris than in, say, Erin Brockovich or Ocean's Eleven. There are areas of the human condition that Soderbergh is interested in, and areas that Cameron is interested in, and Solaris appeared to me to be a blending of those two artists.
Still, even after seeing the first trailers for Avatar, I wasn't quite sold.
I mean, I knew it would be great, and I would have bet real money that it would be a better movie than I expected. I grew up with Cameron's work. I grew up on Cameron's work! One of my favorite movies of all-time is The Abyss! But the trailer didn't really show me anything that grabbed me, in particular. I mean, I LOVE blues and greens, so the blue people in the forest was definitely a plus. The trailer promised that James Cameron trademark action. And you've got to like a movie where a self-absorbed military ass is transformed by an aboriginal people into a deep, thoughtful person. (Which is what the first trailer suggested would be the case.)
But what really started to get my attention was when stars who aren't in the mvoie started talking about how excited they were about Avatar!
I mean, these people were doing press for these other films that they were in, but when they talked about Avatar, they sounded the same way my friends and I did in high school, when the release of a certain movie with a certain star or a certain director was a major event in our life! For that moment, they weren't stars, they were fans!
And how often do you watch stars turn into film geeks?
I mean, if you know them personally, maybe you see that a lot. But I don't know any personally. I see them in their work, or I see them promoting their work. Or on behind-the-scenes featurettes on their DVDs.
So it caught my attention when this started happening.
But that's not what sold me...
When my Gnomey and I got a chance to chat for a while week before last -- like really talk for a while, for the first time in some time -- she was all about Avatar! She loved this movie and couldn't wait for me to see it!
That's when I was 100% SOLD! My baby wants me to see it? I'm SO THERE!
The problem with seeing new movies for me, though, is time and money. I had already made a date with my li'l bro to see Sherlock Holmes on Christmas Day. That was time and money already spent.
I didn't know when the next time I would have both the time and the money would be, but I was determined that I would see Avatar AS SOON AS I could! I wanted to be able to talk to my baby about this movie that had so affected her.
She mentioned how good the music was, so I bought the soundtrack. And James Horner's score is awesome! :D But that's so substitute for the experience of seeing the film.
As it turned out, I got tonight (Sunday night) OFF! I had been scheduled to work straight through the rest of 2009, but just recently the other overnight op, for whom I was filling in, changed his mind and decided to work tonight!
AND, as fate would have it, I had some money!
In fact, the Alamo Drafthouse right next to me (so close that I've walked there before, though I didn't tonight because it's so frickin' cold in Austin right now) is showing it in 3-D!!!
Now, if you don't have an Alamo Drafthouse in your town (which is likely, since it's a local franchise that only recently started expanding to other cities) I need to describe the Drafthouse experience...
They don't serve popcorn, and overpriced hot dogs and nachos. They do serve overpriced candy, but that's not what most people buy there. At the Alamo Drafthouse, you can buy a REAL burger, or pizza, or some gourmet sandwich, and BEER. :) You can buy nachos, but they're not those cheapo cinema nachos, they're REAL nachos! Or you can buy Cheese Sticks or Jalapeno Poppers, if you're just looking for something light.
Me, usually I barely have enough money to buy the movie ticket. I usually don't eat when I go to the movies. If I can scrounge together enough money to get into the theater, that's absolutely good enough for me! :D
But tonight was an EVENT.
I woke up just before 9:00pm. It was too late to hope that my baby would be online, so I didn't bother. I did, however, check Fandango.com to see if the Drafthouse had a 9p-or-later showing of Avatar.
THEY DID!!! 10:00pm!
So I hauled myself out of bed, did some dishes (not apropos to the story, but they needed to be done) and headed to the movie.
I was already a little bit hungry, so I decided I'd shoot the moon and have me some Drafthouse food! This is a ridiculous extravagance for myself, but what the heck? It's that magical time after Christmas and before New Year's Day, when that magic of the Yuletide celebration is still in every breath you take! Plus, this was a magical Day Off! I was supposed to be working tonight, but magically, I wasn't! Plus, when I watched this movie, I knew I would be watching it with Gnomey!!! :D (I do most things with her, even though she's not with me physically at the time I'm doing them, but this was different; this was something she really wanted me to do, so that makes it even more special!)
Another fun aspect of the Drafthouse experience is that instead of playing boring-ass commercials before the feature, they fill the screen with wild & wacky pre-show stuff. Tonight as I was standing in line, or sitting and waiting for the movie to start, I saw the trailers for Return of the Creature in 3-D, Giant Gila-Monster and It Came From Outter Space in 3-D. Whether you can afford the food or not, a movie at the Drafthouse is a REAL movie experience! :D
For breakfast, I settled on this awesome Chicken Parmesan sandwich with REAL, steak-cut fries! You wouldn't believe the chicken patty, either! I've had a lot of Chicken Parmesan -- some from nice restaurants, most cheap frozen stuff you nuke at home -- and there was a subtlety about the seasoning of this Chicken Parmesan sandwich that I've only experienced in restaurants!
But none of this, the Drafthouse movie going experience, compared to the film!!!
Cameron has created this world for us that, at first, feels more or less like "typical" James Cameron... It's the future, it's high-tech, the military is all around... It's gorgeous! (You know, in that high-tech, gritty, futuristic sort of way.) And the way he used 3-D is GENIUS! It's not the old-school, stuff-poppin'-out-at-ya-because-this-is-a-3-D-flick shtick. Cameron uses the 3-D to thoroughly convince you that everything you see is real! And if it were real, THIS is how it would all look!
And starting you out in the gritty, militaristic, mechanized world is the PERFECT beginning for this movie! Because, very shortly, he introduces you into this world of organic, orgasmic beauty!!! A lot of filmmakers use special effects in films to take you to places you've never been before. (Cameron has done this in most of his movies. But, then again, EVERYONE does that now, lol.) But this film... It's all alien and beautiful, but most of the beauty can be found right here, on Earth! It's the beauty of a hike in the woods, or the look on your loved one's face!
Okay, I could get off on a tangent here about the gorgeousness of everyday life, but I'm not going to. It's all been said before, and when you see the film, you'll experience it for yourself.
And THAT is kind of the point of this movie...
I'm sure professional movie reviewers will comment on the "Green" themes or spiritual themes or whatever themes Cameron has woven into this amazing film experience, but what I am profoundly struck by about this film is the LIFE. This action-packed, intensely emotional, 3-D, mostly CG wonder that James Cameron has given us feels like living!
I don't know how to explain it better than that.
I'll put it this way: When I was a kid, the movies that I loved the most were the ones that made me immediately want to go outside and play. Like, after seeing Star Wars I wanted to go outside, gather the neighborhood kids and be Luke Skywalker (though I was usually Chewie, but that was fun, too). After seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark the kids in the apartment complex and I ran outside and got as dirty as we could hurling ourselves off jungle gyms and the like. Superman: The Movie had me running around as fast as I could with my arms outstretched, imagining what it felt like to fly.
Tonight after the movie, I spent half an hour running around the parking lot, leaping from one car rooftop to another...
Just kidding.
But what I'm talking about is that really good movies (the ones I prefer, anyway) tend to make me intensely aware of all the tiny little components of being alive, all the millions of second-by-second miracles that life as to offer. When I was a kid, these miracles included being able to run fast, kicking up dust, leaping off things and crashing to the ground. As an adult, they tend to include the colors of things, the textures of things, a single breath of air. And always, one of the most powerful elements of life, when I was a kid and now, is the ability to feel emotion.
What an amazing thing, emotion!
The ability to be filled-up with this inexplicable sensation that can make you weep tears of joy! Or the ability to feel appreciation -- deep, profound appreciation -- for something you already have not something that you hope to one day attain)! How cool is that!
I'm getting all abstract now, which is probably my cue to move on, lol.
But Avatar is a great movie and great fun! If you don't experience a sense of awe when you see it, you might want to have someone check your pulse.
Know what else is amazing?
Sherlock Holmes!
It's awesome for a whole other set of reasons. A very different film from Avatar, but no less amazing!
I did get to see it on Christmas Day, before I went into work. I didn't get to see it with my li'l bro, however, because he was exhausted and couldn't keep his eyes open, lol.
It also has an excellent soundtrack, this one by the astounding Hans Zimmer! He greats this musical soundscape for Holmes that places you intimately inside his world.
Very cool!
Sherlock Holmes was so cool that I finally broke down and am reading the novels for the first time. I've read the collections of short stories several times each, but I've avoided the novels. So last night I picked up A Study in Scarlet (the story in which Watson meets Holmes for the first time) and am enjoying it.
One thing that amazed me about the movie was how faithful it is to the cannon! I've heard a few complaints, based on the TV ads for the flick, along the lines of "I like Sherlock Holmes, and that's not Sherlock Holmes." I was concerned about the same thing when I saw the first couple of trailers for it. It seems like the trailers are actually designed to make you think Guy Ritchie and company are raping the mythology, lol.
But I have 2 notes for anyone debating seeing the film because they're fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories:
First, in the first 2 minutes of the movie the filmmakers sort of explain to you why this more energetic version of the legend is going to work. (It's a subtle thing, but within the first 2 minutes, if you're worried that the visual style is going to violate Doyle's creation, you'll go "Okay, I get it!")
Second, whatever happens throughout the movie, by the last 2 minutes you'll discover that the filmmakers really weren't taking any liberties at all with the original.
Both of these will make perfect sense after you've seen the movie. Because there are times when, if you know Doyle's work well, you go, "Hey, wait a minute..." But then when the movie wraps up, you realize that the writer and director were toying with you and your expectations.
If you've seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels you know that Guy Ritchie is an amazingly clever filmmaker. And after you've seen Holmes you realize that he is the perfect artist to reinterpret the characters/world for a new generation!
Okay, I've actually been blogging for a few hours now, and I have a couple of things to do before I go back to work tomorrow. So I bid you adieu for now, and I hope you have a KICK ASS New Year!!! (I will be working New Year's Eve, but I'm taking the first week of 2010 off, so I plan to celebrate the birth of the new year in my own way.)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
:D
Saturday, December 19, 2009
5 Days Till Christmas
I AM WRITING THIS ENTRY ON MY VERY FIRST LAPTOP!!! :D (Santa came early to the Edwards house.)
I now have a laptop! I can now live out my fantasy of sitting in a coffee shop or in a park or on the porch and writing!!! :D
How frickin' cool is THAT?!! :D
Does this mean I'll actually get more fiction writing done in 2010?
We'll see.
The truth is that I could have already been writing longhand in coffee shops or on the porch. But I haven't been.
Still, 2 things are true:
1. I seem to be open to more and better ideas when I'm outdoors.
2. Writing is sexier when it's being done one a laptop!
It feels cooler, more sophisticated to be writing on a laptop, lol.
I know, I'm a dork.
And probably old-fashioned, too. I'm guessing that teens and college students don't fantasize about writing on a laptop. That's passe by now. I'm guessing writing on a NetBook or and iPod Touch is probably more chic.
But what can I say? I'm old.
And not rich.
So writing on my very own laptop is the fulfillment of a 15-or-so-year old dream of mine.
So...
Five days till Christmas! Is everyone excited?!
As I've mentioned, I'm working through Christmas Eve and Christmas (and New Years Eve) but I plan to see SHERLOCK HOLMES before I go in to work Christmas Day! How long has it been since we've had a Sherlock Holmes flick in the cinemas? Was it YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES? Maybe WITHOUT A CLUE?
Although, in my heart of hearts, those two aren't really for-reals Holmes flicks. I mean, they're both absolutely great and fun, but, you know... They're sort of alternate-reality Holmes films. You know? Like, SMALLVILLE is to the Superman mythos -- It's Clark Kent and Metropolis and everything... but it's not really SUPERMAN Superman.
In fact, this will be my first time EVER to see a Holmes flick in the theaters!
I watched the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce flicks on VHS first, then DVD. I've watched ALL Holmes films on home video. (Naturally.) It's gonna be SO COOL to watch a Sherlock Holmes film in a movie theater!!!
What else is going on in my life at the mo...?
My Gnomey's a SWEETHEART!!!
That's nothing new, but she never loses her effect on me, lol.
I've watched the first 2 episodes of the new V series! That's going well. I'm not emotionally invested in it like LOST or CASTLE or DOLLHOUSE, but there's absolutely nothing negative I can say about it. I love their angle of Hope as a weapon, and the stories are tight, and the actors are SO COMPELLING to watch! The visual effects are good. There's no bad there. I suspect that in a few more episodes, the writers will have figured out how to own me. In fact, I still have 2 more eps to watch on Hulu... maybe they already have.
Brian is the greatest brother/roommate/friend a dude could ask for! My portable DVD player went out some time ago (the one I used to use to fall asleep to DVDs in my room), so my li'l bro bought me a DVD player for my room! I already had this little TV in there -- in HERE, actually; I'm writing this in my room! I haven't had a (working) PC in my room in SO LONG! I haven't had MY OWN COMPUTER in YEARS! I met my Gnomey Goddess on one of my brother's computers, lol! -- so I come home from work one morning to find UP playing in my room!!!
And Brian's just as broke as I am! But he wanted his bubba (that's how he refers to me, his bubba, lol) to be able to watch movies in my room again!
Dude is a PRINCE!
And this is, like, 2 weeks before Christmas, lol. He simply couldn't wait for me to have his present.
He gets that from our mom, I think. She and our Gan-Gan are the reason Brian & I have laptops. :) (Note: "Gan-Gan" is our maternal grandmother. I started calling her "Gan-Gan" when I was young, dumb and full of... youthful enthusiasm. I thought it was cool to call things by cutesy names -- and, I guess, it kind of was. It was the '80s. But the moniker has sort of stuck. my friend, now full-grown adults, some with kids of their own, still ask "How's Gan-Gan doing?")
DUDE!!!
I finally read Deepak Chopra's novel WHY IS GOD LAUGHING?!!! (That's not an exclamation of curiosity; the question mark there is part of the title. The three exclamation points are MY grammatical expression, whereas the question mark is the expression of the author within his title. Just wanted to be clear.)
I remember seeing the book around the time that THE LOVE GURU hit cinemas. But I never seemed to have the money handy to pick it up. (Because, as you know, I can't just buy the book... I have to buy the audiobook, if it exists, because I'm me. And the audiobook is always well-more expensive than the book.) Then I finally saw THE LOVE GURU on DVD -- thanks to the great and wonderful and loving Netflix!!! -- but I STILL didn't have the money.
Now, as you know, I have purchased and read many, many books between the time that THE LOVE GURU hit DVD and now.
BUT...
I had FORGOTTEN about WHY IS GOD LAUGHING? and so I didn't buy it.
Before now.
But Brian and I are working on 2 comedic novels, and we're playing with the idea of writing some sketches that we can shoot and edit and post on YouTube -- you KNOW I'll tell you about them and link up to them if/when we get them made and posted -- and so I've been itching to buy another copy of my old Comedy text book THE COMIC TOOLBOX by John Vorhaus. This is THE book on Comedy writing if you're an insecure writer looking to hone your comedy skills! I've read a few other authors, many legends in the field of writing Comedy, and NO ONE explains it better than Vorhaus! I don't know why that is. But like, if you want to know how to write, you go to Robert McKee and Karl Iglesias, neither of whom have written a screenplay (to my knowledge) in their life! but if you listen to what Aaron Sorkin or Joss Whedon have to say about writing, you'll be amazed and astounded and impressed, but it won't necessarily make YOUR script better. I think the same is true for Vorhaus. I don't know if he's ever written a screenplay or sitcom, but his take on how to write Comedy is sheer revelation!
They say -- rather snidely, if you ask me -- that "those who can't do teach." But it seems to me to be that many of those who can do, actually CAN'T teach. Not well, anyway. I mean, Stephen King, Michael A. Stackpole and William Goldman come to mind as exceptions to the rule... But you're always going to have the exceptions, right?
Anyway...
So I'm at Amazon, tracking down THE COMIC TOOLBOX, and some angel from Above reminds me about Deepak's novel about a comedian who goes on a spiritual journey -- the novel that Dan Akroyd and John Cleese praise, I might add -- and I happen to have enough money to buy BOTH!!! :D
And it turns out that WHY IS GOD LAUGHING? is great!
Whodathunk!
This is actually the 2nd Deepak Chopra novel I've read! Back in 1996, when I was living in Georgetown and could get a library card without paying a yearly fee for it (grumble, grumble, grumble, freakin' North Austin politics and their questionable politics, grumble, grumble) I listened to Deepak's OTHER work of fiction! It has to do with King Arthur and the gang, and there are these time/space slips, and it's very, very cool! I was just then getting into the Hindu/Eastern/Quantum Physics way viewing Time and I had heard about this guy Deepak Chopra who wrote all these books and was teaching people about the mysteries of Life, and so when I discovered he had written a novel and it was on cassette and I could check it out from the Georgetown Public Library, I pounced on it!
It would still be a decade before I would discover what Deepak Chopra and his work were really all about, but it was cool to get the taste. Plus, if you really want to experience non-linear Time -- Time as described by Eastern yogis and quantum physics -- read this book! Rollicking intensity! Besides Michael Crichton, who knew a doctor had such an adventurous side?!
So anyway, Deepak has written 2 novels -- out of 50+ -- and I've read them both, lol. And I haven't, YET, read a word of his non-fiction, lol.
But I've watched and listened to several of his talks. This man is AMAZING! He can tell you that simply thinking that you are healthy can make you healthy, then explain the intricate biological processes so clearly that you simply have no choice but to believe him! I mean, after he explains it, you feel like a million bucks, all energized and youthful and invigorated! GENIUS! Plus, he's got this sly wit and dry sense of humor that makes him easy to listen to. Oh, and don't forget the accent! Something about his very deep, very calm Indian accent makes you think of the voice of God, lol! James Earl Jones or Deepak Chopra, THAT'S what God sounds like!
THIS IS SO COOL, being able to write this!
For a while now, my physical location has limited my ability to write!
I mean, not really. It's all in my head.
If Stephen King were here, he'd call me a puss and tell me I'm not really a writer, I suspect.
I don't disagree, either, but I'm what Eddie Izzard might call "a Comfy Man", lol. I'm no Spartan, I can't fight naked, or live in a box with no bed. Stephen King and Scott Pressfield (author of THE WAR OF ART) are all about "write, no matter what the conditions are". But I'm, artistically, a wimp. If it's not fun, screw it; I'm not doin' it. I'll be creative when I FEEL creative. Otherwise, I can find some other way to occupy my time. I have an RCA Opal, I can let some other creative soul entertain ME. ;P
But anyway, lately I've had trouble being able to write.
In the past -- when Brian had 2 working computers -- I could slip off into his room (which he never used anymore, except for storage) and write on his computer. I met my Gnomey Goddess there, fell in love, wrote at least 2 short screenplays there, one short story, one audioplay, a handful of chapters of a doomed novel, and 2 feature-length screenplays in that room on that computer.
But then it broke down. :(
And, honestly, I haven't been able to write much since.
Something about the conditions one writes in seems to ease or stop-up the flow of creativity.
I'm writing this entry with Notepad, so I have no way of knowing how many words I've written so far, but it feels like a fair few! I can't seem to stop typing! The words keep coming and I feel compelled to type them out!
You can't write a work because... well... there's WORK going on.
And I really couldn't write on the Common Computer, because the chair was so uncomfortable and and space was just... I don't know... it seemed "restrictive" somehow. Read your email, respond if you have to, then get the hell out!
But sitting here, in my room, on my bed... Somehow this just feels PERFECT!
OOH! And I can't wait to see what it feels like to actually GO SOMEWHERE and write!!! :D
I remember, in 1998, my former boss had an extra laptop that he loaned to me. I was living with a roommate in Central Austin (I have yet to live alone... Curious... But usually I live with family, or a hot girl I intended to marry, or my ex-wife. (Who, you know... Was my WIFE wife then...) So the 2 times I live with "roommates" stand out in memory, for some reason.
Anyway, I may have done my best bit of writing back then. It was 45 or 75 pages (my memory can't decide on which) of a feature-length film that has yet to be completed. But the concept was, apparently, so good that two of my best friends, who happen to both be aspiring directors, fought over who was going to direct this movie when the script was completed.
Again, this was more than a decade ago, and we were young enough to hold pretty grandiose ideas about how our lives were going to turn out. Now, one of the friends -- the one that won the battle, actually -- is a husband and father of two AMAZING young girls, and the other is a producer in L. A. but he has yet to direct his own movie. And me... Not sure what I am. I am a blogger, a spiritual journeyman, a paranormal investigator, and I suppose an aspiring writer still.
And I'm Gnomey's boyfriend!!! :D xoxoxo And I'll one day be her fiance, and then her husband, and then the father of her children!!!
Which reminds me of a strange mental journey I took earlier this week! :)
It was the last couple of hours of my shift at work, and my mind wandered to what I might say to my younger self if I could travel, say, 20 years back in time.
At 19, I was thin and sexy, I was at what now appears to be my creative height as an actor (assuming I don't sprout an acting career in the future). I had just performed a lead in the "adult" production of THE NERD (I played Hammond, if you know the play) after more than a decade of playing leads and supporting character in the "children's" productions. I was "taking a year off from school" because, deep down, I suspected I was going to find my way to Hollywood and become a superstar, and skip the whole "higher education" process completely.
And I was also about to become a husband and very young father.
Now, twenty years later, what might I advise my younger self.
The exercise wasn't completely masturbatory: If the tale turned out interesting enough, I might make it a novel. There's certainly a market for it. What teen wouldn't want to learn the secrets of experience from an older version of himself/herself? And what adult wouldn't be intrigued by the possibility of hanging with his/her younger self? If I fit in enough humor and charm, this could be a sure sale!
So I explored it over the course of an hour or so...
You've got a pretty hot 19-year-old me who is at a sort of superficial peak, and you've got a you've got a sort of charming 39-year-old me who is at what may be a sort of spiritual peak. (Actually, I don't really feel like I'm "peaking". I really feel like I'm, maybe, a quarter of the way up a staircase that leads to whatever my next peak will be. But for the sake of the possible story, the character would need to be at a peak, or else there's really little point in telling the story, lol.)
So the 19-year-old me believes he's going to go to Hollywood and become the next Michael J. Fox. The 39-year-old me is the blogger you've come to sort of know. (Actually, if you read this blog, you probably know me in real life. But I'm tend to blog as though I have readers who only know me through this blog, lol.)
I considered the twists and turns my life was about to take -- failed application to the U. S. Coast Guard, a stint in Hollywood as a professional Extra and a failed actor, 17 years of study as a writer, author of a single unpublished Young Adult Horror novel, divorcee, more-or-less-absentee father to Tisha, working behind the scenes at a local TV station, rather than in front of the cameras of a Network TV show, non-degree-holding member of the national workforce making just enough to stay in electricity and a home and sometimes food, blogger, avid porn fan.
At 19, I thought I would be a rich and famous movie star by now.
When I examined the choices I was going to make in the next 20 years, how might I advise myself? How might I help my younger self avoid the needless pitfalls, and make choices to optimize my younger self's Life experience?
There's the old cliche, "If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing." This works well for popular entertainment, because it makes us feel more comfortable with the mistakes we've made and the mis-steps we've taken in our lives. We walk away from the movie, or put down the novel, thinking "Whatever I do, it's all going to work out okay in the end." But intellectually, we know that this is probably a lie we choose to believe, so that we can just do any stupid ol' thing we feel like doing in the moment.
So I carried on a silent conversation with my younger self for an hour or so, re-examining the actions (or reactions) I took and where they lead me.
And I discovered a truly mind-boggling fact. Something I couldn't believe, but something the facts only verified, and could not dissuade.
I honestly would not change a thing in my past.
How freaky is THAT?!! I mean, you hear the old saying, and you know it's probably bullshit from an Old Timer to make himself feel better about his pathetic lot in Life, but when I honestly, candidly re-examined my choices and where they got me, I CAN NOT honestly imagine a better outcome!
I mean, could I have made choices that landed me a savings account and a better monthly income? Hell yeah!
Could I have made choices that resulted in less emotional pain? Fuck yeah!
But at what cost?
I'm being dead serious here.
My financial choices:
Until 2008, I read about the paranormal as entertainment, searching for ideas for Horror stories. It wasn't until around October of 2008 that it actually occurred to me that I could investigate this stuff for myself. I could learn for myself! I could take all the theoretical knowledge I gained from my reading and apply it to real-life situations and discover my own truth about the paranormal!
And my real fascination with the paranormal is a study of that shadow-land where the spiritual meets the physical. If I were a rich and famous movie star, I seriously doubt I would be exploring ANY aspect of the spiritual. Seriously, I grew up a fundamentalist Christian, and even still, I was A SLUT! I was perfectly comfortable telling my friends about how they would burn in hell if they didn't stop listening to stand-up comedians (whom I worshiped, too) who cursed, and yet I was getting laid by any hotty who was insecure enough to let me into her panties.
I was a shallow, shallow dude.
And yet, my very strict beliefs about how inescapable hell is are directly responsible for my deepr, more thorough exploration of my relationship to God. Just exactly HOW MUCH does He want me to die and suffer, lol? Why is He pissed off at me, and can I ever make Him not pissed? If He's "all love" then why did He create us to be unlovable? Etc.
My original belief system made it a sin -- I mean, "SIN!!!" -- to even explore paranormal subjects. As much as I wanted to be the Karate Kid, I thought I couldn't learn martial arts because Satan was hiding in Eastern Philosophy, lurking to turn me away from the path of God and lure me into eternal hellfire!
But it was one of my "bad choices" that led me to a deeper, more effortless, more fulfilling relationship as God as I (now) understand Her. (Btw, I don't really believe God has a gender, but I prefer the feminine because it forces me to think of Her in more open-minded terms than the masculine, which I grew up with.)
I'm not trying to preach to you or sell you on anything here, I'm just describing my journey.
But my spiritual identity has A LOT to do with how I perceive myself. And so I couldn't advise my younger self to change any of his choices regarding his spiritual path. Every choice he was going to make was going to subtly guide him to the spiritual landscape I now inhabit. And I know for a fact that THIS is where he wants to be right now.
But more than that, my younger self doesn't know that there will be something called "paranormal investigators"! as far as he knows, there are these nerdy eggheads called "parapsychologists" who have to deal with all the unpleasant aspects of academia, but don't get to make the money a PHd is supposed to afford other folk! My younger self has NO IDEA that some people will find relief from serious fear when he brings to bear his knowledge of the paranormal, and that some people will treat him like a rock star when we wears his investigator uniform, lol. He has no idea that the subject he studies now as a form of entertainment will one day become valuable, useful information for people who simply never gave as much attention to this topic as he has. In other words, by simply being himself, interested in what he's interested in, he will one day HELP strangers!
So if this younger self makes choices that lead him to more personal wealth, he's going to get distracted from the paranormal which, for him, is just a minor curio in which he occasionally indulges when something shinier isn't attracting his attention.
And THIS cat, this younger me, is going to LOVE being a paranormal investigator!!!
Who knows? Maybe in 2011 or 2012 his experiences in and knowledge of the paranormal will even gain him some notoriety.
But what about the heartaches? I know this cat has some seriously emotionally trying times ahead of him. For one thing, he will spend a decade alone, knowing there "must be" some perfect woman out there for him, with absolutely NO proof to corroborate his faith. This guy will spend some lonely, lonely nights imagining a perfect woman that he has no evidence exists. If I offer him a few pointers, he might be married to a great woman in the early 1990s, living a "normal" life and raising 2.5 children in a house with a white, picket fence.
If I help my younger self out, I can see to it that he holds onto a couple of the "good ones", or at least avoids a couple of the "bad ones".
But then there's Gnomey.
I have QUITE an imagination. I'm a writer. I can dream up a woman who is so sweet that your heart just goes out to her and you only want to protect her, and yet she's so sexy that you really, really want to just bend her over and do really naughty things to her, AND YET her physical appearance is just girl-next-door-ish that you really believe you have a shot with her, and only YOU perceive her TRUE beauty and sex appeal. It's not a hard task, actually. I just have to imagine everything I want from a woman, then consider my own insecurities as a man and as a human, then consider what Life has taught me about getting what I think I want, then meld all that into a character who possess the qualities that attract me so much that I want her, but who had flaws (to make her believable) but her flaws are small enough that they don't distract from the positive attributes.
I have imagined many, many incarnations of my "perfect woman".
And then I met Gnomey.
You hear these "spiritual truths" throughout your life. You hear that, for instance, holding our for the "right" whatever makes all the waiting worth it. You hear that everyone has a "perfect someone" somewhere out there, waiting for them. "Patience is its own virtue". Blah, blah, blah.
These "spiritual truths" aren't much comfort when you're on a 10-year "dry spell".
And yet...
This perfect combination of "failed" dreams and optimism, of closed doors and unforeseen opportunities leads the 36-year-old version of myself to meet a woman who possesses ALL my ideals about what "the perfect woman" is like AND BLOWS THEM OUT OF THE WATER!!!
When I got married at 19, I remember considering all the times I had been without a girlfriend and thinking "Thank God I'll never have to be lonely again".
An ironic thought, to be sure.
But now that I have my Gnomey Goddess, I am genuinely SO thankful for all she has given me that if something happened (and I have NO reason to believe it would, God bless) and she decided to break up with me, I would honestly be GRATEFUL for the time she shared with me! I mean, how perverse is THAT?!! This woman, effectively, loves me so thoroughly that Ever After is beside the point! I mean, usually we're looking for that person we want to spend the rest of our life with. And I have found a woman that I SO want to spend the rest of my life with, but if I didn't get the rest of my life, I would be cool with the time we've had with each other!
I get to have my cake AND eat it, too!
I somehow got to fall in love with a woman who makes all my ideals about perfection look half-formed, I got to experience HER falling in love with ME, I get to be loved by her and to love her, and her love for me -- however much it turns out to be in the long-run -- is ENOUGH for me!!!
How insane is THAT?!! Imagine you're at a buffet that you paid A LOT to attend. And imagine you eat absolutely EVERYTHING you want, and after an hour or so you're full and completely sated. BUT THE BUFFET IS STILL OPEN! If you get hungry in another hour, you can eat MORE! And if you're hungry an hour after that, YOU CAN EAT MORE! You don't have to leave! It's just THERE, right there in front of you! And if, for whatever reason, the owner actually does escort you out of the restaurant and tells you the meal is finally over, you feel contended that you have eaten WAY MORE than your money's worth. BUT YOU HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT MOMENT WILL EVER COME!!! You may well be allowed to stay at that restaurant for the rest of your life, continually enjoying that amazing feast, forever more!
And if I advised my younger self to avoid any of the emotional low points he has ahead of him, he might never experience this feeling. One emotional low point leads, inescapably, to this emotional high he has waiting for him when he becomes me. I mean, as a writer I might be able to contrive some situation which allows my younger self to avoid the lows and still experience the highs, but even I wouldn't believe they were actually possible.
So where all this is leading is here:
In my imaginary conference with my younger self, I discovered that I simply could not, in good conscience, suggest that he make any choices different from what I, myself, chose.
In all sincerity, no bullshit and I'm not being sentimental here, if I had it all to do over again, I genuinely would not change a thing.
How messed-up is that?
I sincerely hope you're enjoying your holidays, and I very genuinely hope that should you ever take the time to look over your past choices, you discover that you are exactly where you want to be!!!
:D
I now have a laptop! I can now live out my fantasy of sitting in a coffee shop or in a park or on the porch and writing!!! :D
How frickin' cool is THAT?!! :D
Does this mean I'll actually get more fiction writing done in 2010?
We'll see.
The truth is that I could have already been writing longhand in coffee shops or on the porch. But I haven't been.
Still, 2 things are true:
1. I seem to be open to more and better ideas when I'm outdoors.
2. Writing is sexier when it's being done one a laptop!
It feels cooler, more sophisticated to be writing on a laptop, lol.
I know, I'm a dork.
And probably old-fashioned, too. I'm guessing that teens and college students don't fantasize about writing on a laptop. That's passe by now. I'm guessing writing on a NetBook or and iPod Touch is probably more chic.
But what can I say? I'm old.
And not rich.
So writing on my very own laptop is the fulfillment of a 15-or-so-year old dream of mine.
So...
Five days till Christmas! Is everyone excited?!
As I've mentioned, I'm working through Christmas Eve and Christmas (and New Years Eve) but I plan to see SHERLOCK HOLMES before I go in to work Christmas Day! How long has it been since we've had a Sherlock Holmes flick in the cinemas? Was it YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES? Maybe WITHOUT A CLUE?
Although, in my heart of hearts, those two aren't really for-reals Holmes flicks. I mean, they're both absolutely great and fun, but, you know... They're sort of alternate-reality Holmes films. You know? Like, SMALLVILLE is to the Superman mythos -- It's Clark Kent and Metropolis and everything... but it's not really SUPERMAN Superman.
In fact, this will be my first time EVER to see a Holmes flick in the theaters!
I watched the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce flicks on VHS first, then DVD. I've watched ALL Holmes films on home video. (Naturally.) It's gonna be SO COOL to watch a Sherlock Holmes film in a movie theater!!!
What else is going on in my life at the mo...?
My Gnomey's a SWEETHEART!!!
That's nothing new, but she never loses her effect on me, lol.
I've watched the first 2 episodes of the new V series! That's going well. I'm not emotionally invested in it like LOST or CASTLE or DOLLHOUSE, but there's absolutely nothing negative I can say about it. I love their angle of Hope as a weapon, and the stories are tight, and the actors are SO COMPELLING to watch! The visual effects are good. There's no bad there. I suspect that in a few more episodes, the writers will have figured out how to own me. In fact, I still have 2 more eps to watch on Hulu... maybe they already have.
Brian is the greatest brother/roommate/friend a dude could ask for! My portable DVD player went out some time ago (the one I used to use to fall asleep to DVDs in my room), so my li'l bro bought me a DVD player for my room! I already had this little TV in there -- in HERE, actually; I'm writing this in my room! I haven't had a (working) PC in my room in SO LONG! I haven't had MY OWN COMPUTER in YEARS! I met my Gnomey Goddess on one of my brother's computers, lol! -- so I come home from work one morning to find UP playing in my room!!!
And Brian's just as broke as I am! But he wanted his bubba (that's how he refers to me, his bubba, lol) to be able to watch movies in my room again!
Dude is a PRINCE!
And this is, like, 2 weeks before Christmas, lol. He simply couldn't wait for me to have his present.
He gets that from our mom, I think. She and our Gan-Gan are the reason Brian & I have laptops. :) (Note: "Gan-Gan" is our maternal grandmother. I started calling her "Gan-Gan" when I was young, dumb and full of... youthful enthusiasm. I thought it was cool to call things by cutesy names -- and, I guess, it kind of was. It was the '80s. But the moniker has sort of stuck. my friend, now full-grown adults, some with kids of their own, still ask "How's Gan-Gan doing?")
DUDE!!!
I finally read Deepak Chopra's novel WHY IS GOD LAUGHING?!!! (That's not an exclamation of curiosity; the question mark there is part of the title. The three exclamation points are MY grammatical expression, whereas the question mark is the expression of the author within his title. Just wanted to be clear.)
I remember seeing the book around the time that THE LOVE GURU hit cinemas. But I never seemed to have the money handy to pick it up. (Because, as you know, I can't just buy the book... I have to buy the audiobook, if it exists, because I'm me. And the audiobook is always well-more expensive than the book.) Then I finally saw THE LOVE GURU on DVD -- thanks to the great and wonderful and loving Netflix!!! -- but I STILL didn't have the money.
Now, as you know, I have purchased and read many, many books between the time that THE LOVE GURU hit DVD and now.
BUT...
I had FORGOTTEN about WHY IS GOD LAUGHING? and so I didn't buy it.
Before now.
But Brian and I are working on 2 comedic novels, and we're playing with the idea of writing some sketches that we can shoot and edit and post on YouTube -- you KNOW I'll tell you about them and link up to them if/when we get them made and posted -- and so I've been itching to buy another copy of my old Comedy text book THE COMIC TOOLBOX by John Vorhaus. This is THE book on Comedy writing if you're an insecure writer looking to hone your comedy skills! I've read a few other authors, many legends in the field of writing Comedy, and NO ONE explains it better than Vorhaus! I don't know why that is. But like, if you want to know how to write, you go to Robert McKee and Karl Iglesias, neither of whom have written a screenplay (to my knowledge) in their life! but if you listen to what Aaron Sorkin or Joss Whedon have to say about writing, you'll be amazed and astounded and impressed, but it won't necessarily make YOUR script better. I think the same is true for Vorhaus. I don't know if he's ever written a screenplay or sitcom, but his take on how to write Comedy is sheer revelation!
They say -- rather snidely, if you ask me -- that "those who can't do teach." But it seems to me to be that many of those who can do, actually CAN'T teach. Not well, anyway. I mean, Stephen King, Michael A. Stackpole and William Goldman come to mind as exceptions to the rule... But you're always going to have the exceptions, right?
Anyway...
So I'm at Amazon, tracking down THE COMIC TOOLBOX, and some angel from Above reminds me about Deepak's novel about a comedian who goes on a spiritual journey -- the novel that Dan Akroyd and John Cleese praise, I might add -- and I happen to have enough money to buy BOTH!!! :D
And it turns out that WHY IS GOD LAUGHING? is great!
Whodathunk!
This is actually the 2nd Deepak Chopra novel I've read! Back in 1996, when I was living in Georgetown and could get a library card without paying a yearly fee for it (grumble, grumble, grumble, freakin' North Austin politics and their questionable politics, grumble, grumble) I listened to Deepak's OTHER work of fiction! It has to do with King Arthur and the gang, and there are these time/space slips, and it's very, very cool! I was just then getting into the Hindu/Eastern/Quantum Physics way viewing Time and I had heard about this guy Deepak Chopra who wrote all these books and was teaching people about the mysteries of Life, and so when I discovered he had written a novel and it was on cassette and I could check it out from the Georgetown Public Library, I pounced on it!
It would still be a decade before I would discover what Deepak Chopra and his work were really all about, but it was cool to get the taste. Plus, if you really want to experience non-linear Time -- Time as described by Eastern yogis and quantum physics -- read this book! Rollicking intensity! Besides Michael Crichton, who knew a doctor had such an adventurous side?!
So anyway, Deepak has written 2 novels -- out of 50+ -- and I've read them both, lol. And I haven't, YET, read a word of his non-fiction, lol.
But I've watched and listened to several of his talks. This man is AMAZING! He can tell you that simply thinking that you are healthy can make you healthy, then explain the intricate biological processes so clearly that you simply have no choice but to believe him! I mean, after he explains it, you feel like a million bucks, all energized and youthful and invigorated! GENIUS! Plus, he's got this sly wit and dry sense of humor that makes him easy to listen to. Oh, and don't forget the accent! Something about his very deep, very calm Indian accent makes you think of the voice of God, lol! James Earl Jones or Deepak Chopra, THAT'S what God sounds like!
THIS IS SO COOL, being able to write this!
For a while now, my physical location has limited my ability to write!
I mean, not really. It's all in my head.
If Stephen King were here, he'd call me a puss and tell me I'm not really a writer, I suspect.
I don't disagree, either, but I'm what Eddie Izzard might call "a Comfy Man", lol. I'm no Spartan, I can't fight naked, or live in a box with no bed. Stephen King and Scott Pressfield (author of THE WAR OF ART) are all about "write, no matter what the conditions are". But I'm, artistically, a wimp. If it's not fun, screw it; I'm not doin' it. I'll be creative when I FEEL creative. Otherwise, I can find some other way to occupy my time. I have an RCA Opal, I can let some other creative soul entertain ME. ;P
But anyway, lately I've had trouble being able to write.
In the past -- when Brian had 2 working computers -- I could slip off into his room (which he never used anymore, except for storage) and write on his computer. I met my Gnomey Goddess there, fell in love, wrote at least 2 short screenplays there, one short story, one audioplay, a handful of chapters of a doomed novel, and 2 feature-length screenplays in that room on that computer.
But then it broke down. :(
And, honestly, I haven't been able to write much since.
Something about the conditions one writes in seems to ease or stop-up the flow of creativity.
I'm writing this entry with Notepad, so I have no way of knowing how many words I've written so far, but it feels like a fair few! I can't seem to stop typing! The words keep coming and I feel compelled to type them out!
You can't write a work because... well... there's WORK going on.
And I really couldn't write on the Common Computer, because the chair was so uncomfortable and and space was just... I don't know... it seemed "restrictive" somehow. Read your email, respond if you have to, then get the hell out!
But sitting here, in my room, on my bed... Somehow this just feels PERFECT!
OOH! And I can't wait to see what it feels like to actually GO SOMEWHERE and write!!! :D
I remember, in 1998, my former boss had an extra laptop that he loaned to me. I was living with a roommate in Central Austin (I have yet to live alone... Curious... But usually I live with family, or a hot girl I intended to marry, or my ex-wife. (Who, you know... Was my WIFE wife then...) So the 2 times I live with "roommates" stand out in memory, for some reason.
Anyway, I may have done my best bit of writing back then. It was 45 or 75 pages (my memory can't decide on which) of a feature-length film that has yet to be completed. But the concept was, apparently, so good that two of my best friends, who happen to both be aspiring directors, fought over who was going to direct this movie when the script was completed.
Again, this was more than a decade ago, and we were young enough to hold pretty grandiose ideas about how our lives were going to turn out. Now, one of the friends -- the one that won the battle, actually -- is a husband and father of two AMAZING young girls, and the other is a producer in L. A. but he has yet to direct his own movie. And me... Not sure what I am. I am a blogger, a spiritual journeyman, a paranormal investigator, and I suppose an aspiring writer still.
And I'm Gnomey's boyfriend!!! :D xoxoxo And I'll one day be her fiance, and then her husband, and then the father of her children!!!
Which reminds me of a strange mental journey I took earlier this week! :)
It was the last couple of hours of my shift at work, and my mind wandered to what I might say to my younger self if I could travel, say, 20 years back in time.
At 19, I was thin and sexy, I was at what now appears to be my creative height as an actor (assuming I don't sprout an acting career in the future). I had just performed a lead in the "adult" production of THE NERD (I played Hammond, if you know the play) after more than a decade of playing leads and supporting character in the "children's" productions. I was "taking a year off from school" because, deep down, I suspected I was going to find my way to Hollywood and become a superstar, and skip the whole "higher education" process completely.
And I was also about to become a husband and very young father.
Now, twenty years later, what might I advise my younger self.
The exercise wasn't completely masturbatory: If the tale turned out interesting enough, I might make it a novel. There's certainly a market for it. What teen wouldn't want to learn the secrets of experience from an older version of himself/herself? And what adult wouldn't be intrigued by the possibility of hanging with his/her younger self? If I fit in enough humor and charm, this could be a sure sale!
So I explored it over the course of an hour or so...
You've got a pretty hot 19-year-old me who is at a sort of superficial peak, and you've got a you've got a sort of charming 39-year-old me who is at what may be a sort of spiritual peak. (Actually, I don't really feel like I'm "peaking". I really feel like I'm, maybe, a quarter of the way up a staircase that leads to whatever my next peak will be. But for the sake of the possible story, the character would need to be at a peak, or else there's really little point in telling the story, lol.)
So the 19-year-old me believes he's going to go to Hollywood and become the next Michael J. Fox. The 39-year-old me is the blogger you've come to sort of know. (Actually, if you read this blog, you probably know me in real life. But I'm tend to blog as though I have readers who only know me through this blog, lol.)
I considered the twists and turns my life was about to take -- failed application to the U. S. Coast Guard, a stint in Hollywood as a professional Extra and a failed actor, 17 years of study as a writer, author of a single unpublished Young Adult Horror novel, divorcee, more-or-less-absentee father to Tisha, working behind the scenes at a local TV station, rather than in front of the cameras of a Network TV show, non-degree-holding member of the national workforce making just enough to stay in electricity and a home and sometimes food, blogger, avid porn fan.
At 19, I thought I would be a rich and famous movie star by now.
When I examined the choices I was going to make in the next 20 years, how might I advise myself? How might I help my younger self avoid the needless pitfalls, and make choices to optimize my younger self's Life experience?
There's the old cliche, "If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn't change a thing." This works well for popular entertainment, because it makes us feel more comfortable with the mistakes we've made and the mis-steps we've taken in our lives. We walk away from the movie, or put down the novel, thinking "Whatever I do, it's all going to work out okay in the end." But intellectually, we know that this is probably a lie we choose to believe, so that we can just do any stupid ol' thing we feel like doing in the moment.
So I carried on a silent conversation with my younger self for an hour or so, re-examining the actions (or reactions) I took and where they lead me.
And I discovered a truly mind-boggling fact. Something I couldn't believe, but something the facts only verified, and could not dissuade.
I honestly would not change a thing in my past.
How freaky is THAT?!! I mean, you hear the old saying, and you know it's probably bullshit from an Old Timer to make himself feel better about his pathetic lot in Life, but when I honestly, candidly re-examined my choices and where they got me, I CAN NOT honestly imagine a better outcome!
I mean, could I have made choices that landed me a savings account and a better monthly income? Hell yeah!
Could I have made choices that resulted in less emotional pain? Fuck yeah!
But at what cost?
I'm being dead serious here.
My financial choices:
Until 2008, I read about the paranormal as entertainment, searching for ideas for Horror stories. It wasn't until around October of 2008 that it actually occurred to me that I could investigate this stuff for myself. I could learn for myself! I could take all the theoretical knowledge I gained from my reading and apply it to real-life situations and discover my own truth about the paranormal!
And my real fascination with the paranormal is a study of that shadow-land where the spiritual meets the physical. If I were a rich and famous movie star, I seriously doubt I would be exploring ANY aspect of the spiritual. Seriously, I grew up a fundamentalist Christian, and even still, I was A SLUT! I was perfectly comfortable telling my friends about how they would burn in hell if they didn't stop listening to stand-up comedians (whom I worshiped, too) who cursed, and yet I was getting laid by any hotty who was insecure enough to let me into her panties.
I was a shallow, shallow dude.
And yet, my very strict beliefs about how inescapable hell is are directly responsible for my deepr, more thorough exploration of my relationship to God. Just exactly HOW MUCH does He want me to die and suffer, lol? Why is He pissed off at me, and can I ever make Him not pissed? If He's "all love" then why did He create us to be unlovable? Etc.
My original belief system made it a sin -- I mean, "SIN!!!" -- to even explore paranormal subjects. As much as I wanted to be the Karate Kid, I thought I couldn't learn martial arts because Satan was hiding in Eastern Philosophy, lurking to turn me away from the path of God and lure me into eternal hellfire!
But it was one of my "bad choices" that led me to a deeper, more effortless, more fulfilling relationship as God as I (now) understand Her. (Btw, I don't really believe God has a gender, but I prefer the feminine because it forces me to think of Her in more open-minded terms than the masculine, which I grew up with.)
I'm not trying to preach to you or sell you on anything here, I'm just describing my journey.
But my spiritual identity has A LOT to do with how I perceive myself. And so I couldn't advise my younger self to change any of his choices regarding his spiritual path. Every choice he was going to make was going to subtly guide him to the spiritual landscape I now inhabit. And I know for a fact that THIS is where he wants to be right now.
But more than that, my younger self doesn't know that there will be something called "paranormal investigators"! as far as he knows, there are these nerdy eggheads called "parapsychologists" who have to deal with all the unpleasant aspects of academia, but don't get to make the money a PHd is supposed to afford other folk! My younger self has NO IDEA that some people will find relief from serious fear when he brings to bear his knowledge of the paranormal, and that some people will treat him like a rock star when we wears his investigator uniform, lol. He has no idea that the subject he studies now as a form of entertainment will one day become valuable, useful information for people who simply never gave as much attention to this topic as he has. In other words, by simply being himself, interested in what he's interested in, he will one day HELP strangers!
So if this younger self makes choices that lead him to more personal wealth, he's going to get distracted from the paranormal which, for him, is just a minor curio in which he occasionally indulges when something shinier isn't attracting his attention.
And THIS cat, this younger me, is going to LOVE being a paranormal investigator!!!
Who knows? Maybe in 2011 or 2012 his experiences in and knowledge of the paranormal will even gain him some notoriety.
But what about the heartaches? I know this cat has some seriously emotionally trying times ahead of him. For one thing, he will spend a decade alone, knowing there "must be" some perfect woman out there for him, with absolutely NO proof to corroborate his faith. This guy will spend some lonely, lonely nights imagining a perfect woman that he has no evidence exists. If I offer him a few pointers, he might be married to a great woman in the early 1990s, living a "normal" life and raising 2.5 children in a house with a white, picket fence.
If I help my younger self out, I can see to it that he holds onto a couple of the "good ones", or at least avoids a couple of the "bad ones".
But then there's Gnomey.
I have QUITE an imagination. I'm a writer. I can dream up a woman who is so sweet that your heart just goes out to her and you only want to protect her, and yet she's so sexy that you really, really want to just bend her over and do really naughty things to her, AND YET her physical appearance is just girl-next-door-ish that you really believe you have a shot with her, and only YOU perceive her TRUE beauty and sex appeal. It's not a hard task, actually. I just have to imagine everything I want from a woman, then consider my own insecurities as a man and as a human, then consider what Life has taught me about getting what I think I want, then meld all that into a character who possess the qualities that attract me so much that I want her, but who had flaws (to make her believable) but her flaws are small enough that they don't distract from the positive attributes.
I have imagined many, many incarnations of my "perfect woman".
And then I met Gnomey.
You hear these "spiritual truths" throughout your life. You hear that, for instance, holding our for the "right" whatever makes all the waiting worth it. You hear that everyone has a "perfect someone" somewhere out there, waiting for them. "Patience is its own virtue". Blah, blah, blah.
These "spiritual truths" aren't much comfort when you're on a 10-year "dry spell".
And yet...
This perfect combination of "failed" dreams and optimism, of closed doors and unforeseen opportunities leads the 36-year-old version of myself to meet a woman who possesses ALL my ideals about what "the perfect woman" is like AND BLOWS THEM OUT OF THE WATER!!!
When I got married at 19, I remember considering all the times I had been without a girlfriend and thinking "Thank God I'll never have to be lonely again".
An ironic thought, to be sure.
But now that I have my Gnomey Goddess, I am genuinely SO thankful for all she has given me that if something happened (and I have NO reason to believe it would, God bless) and she decided to break up with me, I would honestly be GRATEFUL for the time she shared with me! I mean, how perverse is THAT?!! This woman, effectively, loves me so thoroughly that Ever After is beside the point! I mean, usually we're looking for that person we want to spend the rest of our life with. And I have found a woman that I SO want to spend the rest of my life with, but if I didn't get the rest of my life, I would be cool with the time we've had with each other!
I get to have my cake AND eat it, too!
I somehow got to fall in love with a woman who makes all my ideals about perfection look half-formed, I got to experience HER falling in love with ME, I get to be loved by her and to love her, and her love for me -- however much it turns out to be in the long-run -- is ENOUGH for me!!!
How insane is THAT?!! Imagine you're at a buffet that you paid A LOT to attend. And imagine you eat absolutely EVERYTHING you want, and after an hour or so you're full and completely sated. BUT THE BUFFET IS STILL OPEN! If you get hungry in another hour, you can eat MORE! And if you're hungry an hour after that, YOU CAN EAT MORE! You don't have to leave! It's just THERE, right there in front of you! And if, for whatever reason, the owner actually does escort you out of the restaurant and tells you the meal is finally over, you feel contended that you have eaten WAY MORE than your money's worth. BUT YOU HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT MOMENT WILL EVER COME!!! You may well be allowed to stay at that restaurant for the rest of your life, continually enjoying that amazing feast, forever more!
And if I advised my younger self to avoid any of the emotional low points he has ahead of him, he might never experience this feeling. One emotional low point leads, inescapably, to this emotional high he has waiting for him when he becomes me. I mean, as a writer I might be able to contrive some situation which allows my younger self to avoid the lows and still experience the highs, but even I wouldn't believe they were actually possible.
So where all this is leading is here:
In my imaginary conference with my younger self, I discovered that I simply could not, in good conscience, suggest that he make any choices different from what I, myself, chose.
In all sincerity, no bullshit and I'm not being sentimental here, if I had it all to do over again, I genuinely would not change a thing.
How messed-up is that?
I sincerely hope you're enjoying your holidays, and I very genuinely hope that should you ever take the time to look over your past choices, you discover that you are exactly where you want to be!!!
:D
Friday, December 11, 2009
13 Days Till Christmas
Finally found a moment to blog.
I've been busy!
Looking back, I see that I last posted back in November. Since then I have finished Under the Dome -- which was AWESOME!
PLUS, it has a cameo by a friend of mine, Reynolds Wolf, who was our morning weather guy back in the '90s, and now he's at CNN! So how weird is it to have and old friend pop up in a Stephen King novel?!! Cooler still was the fact that I appear to be the first person who knows him to have read the book, because I got to be the guy who told him! :D That was a neat feeling. His response was, naturally, "Really?"
Brian & I also drove to Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with Mom, Gan-Gan and Mom's husband. (It seems weird calling him my step-dad because I'm 39 years old, lol. I think of him as Mom's Boy-Toy. Mom's Man-Thang. Is that wrong?)
I've also read MICHAEL CRICHTON'S LAST NOVEL, PIRATE LATITUDES!!! It's a PIRATE NOVEL!!! :D MICHAEL CRICHTON WROTE A PIRATE NOVEL!!! :D
It was awesome!
The visual authenticity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is matched by the EVERYTHING authenticity of Pirate Latitudes. What I mean is, the way everything looks realistic and believable in the Pirates movies, everything in Crichton's novels feels that real. Anyone who has read his work knows Crichton is fascinated with historical and technical details, and is a master at entegrating them into a tight, fast-paced, exciting story. The historical detail in Pirate Latitudes is no exception. You feel as though you're cruising around in mid-1600s.
What else?
I'm working.
What I mean is that I'm filling in for a co-worker on vacation. This Sunday will be 1 of 2 days I get off for the rest of 2009. I'm off Sunday, then off again next Sunday, then the next time I'm off work is January 1, 2010.
But this isn't a bad thing!
First of all, who couldn't use overtime nowadays, right?
Secondly, overnight on the weekends is pleasantly uneventfuly usually. (Unless something blows up... which happens... but, thankfully, not often.) So I may get to catch up on my Hulu queue. I'm behind several episodes of Castle and Dollhouse and Ghost Hunters, and I added V to my queue and haven't even watched the first episode yet. So I'm hoping to empty my Hulu queue out by the tiome 2010 rolls around. (We're having computer issues at home, so I haven't been watching much Hulu at the house.)
Anything else?
I haven't heard much from my sweety, but she texts me whenever she can. The holidays always seem to be busy for her, and I imagine they are more so this year. (♥LOVE YOU, GNOMEY!!! xoxoxo ♥)
OH! The paranormal-thang is AWESOME! I lead my first investigation with Texas Spirits recently!!! :D And I think I did a competent job! It was freaky, because I'm directing people who are much more experienced than I am! And they're following my lead!!! :P It's wacky!
I'm not really into titles, so being "lead investigator" on a case doesn't really do anything for me (besides make me anxious, lol), but what I'm floored by is the fact that these cats that I love and respect seem to think of me as an equal. (I guess I've got them fool, huh?)
Also, I've been corresponding with a couple of people who have questions about possible paranormal activity, and it's really neat to be able to share my thoughts on the subject! You know? Like, to have someone ask me a question and be interested to hear what I think about a paranormal matter. VERY cool! :) I feel like a legitimate member of the paranormal community, lol!
I know, I'm a nerd, right?
OOH!
SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!
CHRISTMAS DAY!
I'm working Christmas, but I am making it my mission to see the new Sherlock Holmes flick ON CHRISTMAS DAY!
DUDE!!!
Holmes is one of my FAVORITE, FAVORITE, FAVORITE characters of all time! I love the original Conan Doyles stories, I love the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies, I love the Rathbone/Bruce radio show, and I love the Jeremy Brett series (1984-1994 by Granada Television)!
Now, it seems wierd to me to have a Yank playing Holmes -- like having an American play Bond (or, for that matter, like Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft) -- but if you've got to cast an American as Holmes, Robert Downey, Jr. is DEFINITELY a good candidate!
Plus, this new flicks looks like it's going to explore some "new" aspects of the Holmesean mythos.
Like, for instance, the action angle!
In the short stories, the action always takes place "off screen", as dialogue. "Oh yes," said Holmes, "I had to rough up eighteen hooligans before being thrown off a train crossing a hundred-thousand foot bridge, and then I was forced to duel Jack the Ripper with sabers before vanquishing a sasquatch with a straight razor, but finally I was free to look at the footprints inbedded in the clay surrounding the murder site and I noticed..."
Apparently, Conan Doyle simply wasn't interested in the action as much as the deduction, so he never wrote those parts, merely had his characters refer to them.
Then, I believe, Holmes went to the stage. Well, the theatre doesn't really lend itself to action set pieces so, again, the action elements of a Holmes story was de-emphesized or removed.
Then, if I'm not mistaken, Holmes moved to the radio... Again, not really an action-friendly medium.
Then Holmes moved to the big screen... BUT...
By now, everyone is used to a sort of non-action style Holmes. Plus, it's more expensive to shoot action scenes than it is to shoot talking scenes. And I'll bet part of the appeal of Holmes for the studio was the fact that they could simply film a stage play (logistically speaking) and still rake in Big Budget box office. (I don't know how much the Holmes films made when they we in cinemas, but they made 14 of them, so I'm guessing they made plenty.)
So, basically, generations have grown up with an inactive Holmes.
Jeremy Brett energized the personality of Holmes with his performance, but that was still a TV show, so action still remained largely off-screen.
So I'm excited to see an Action-Hero version of Holmes! I think it'll be fun. Plus, there have been flicks in the last 15 years or so that have played-up some of Holmes' more eccentric personality traits, but usually in a more somber way. It looks like Downey, Jr.'s interpretation of Holmes is, like Brett's, that sort of manic energy, dropped into a Guy Ritchie scope! :D
FUN!!!
PLUS... WATSON!!!
I blame Nigel Bruce for being so loveable as Watson and for being so talented as a comedian, but Watson WAS NEVER a bumbler! EVER! In the Conan Doyle stories, Watson is a doctor and a war vet! He may not be as smart as Holmes, but NOBODY is as smart as Holmes. (There is Moriority and Mycroft, but that's it. Holmes is in a league of his own, and that's the point of the character.) Watson was smart enough to continue to get calls from Scottland Yard to help them on cases after Holmes (apparently) died! That fact really doesn't jibe with Nigel Bruce's intepretation of Watson.
Still, the long-standing popularity of the Rathbone/Bruce team in 14 films and 7 years on the radio has created this sort of inescapable image of Dr. Watson being an affable bumbler.
The Granada TV series(s) did a whole lot to repair that image, though. There are now generations of folks who know that Watson is competent.
But THIS Watson...! Jude Law, dude!!! :D THIS is gonna be an AWESOME Watson!!! In fact, the trailers and commercials I've seen so far sort of make Holmes look like the oddball! Like, Watson is this cool, competent guy, and Holmes is the freak... which... is really the way the relationship would have worked out, if you think about it. I mean, yeah, Holmes was famous and all, but he was a geek. Watson was really the one you would rather have a conversation with. Like Monk and Sharona/Natalie: You talk to Sharona/Natalie, and let her deal with the crazy genius freak-guy.
Blah.
So anyway, I'm stoked! I SO can't wait to see this flick!
Merry Christmas to me! :D
Okay, I'm goign to go do work now. There's not a ton to do, but it would be wisest for me to go ahead and do it before I slack any further.
Enjoy your weekends and the season! :D It's the greatest time of the year!!!
I've been busy!
Looking back, I see that I last posted back in November. Since then I have finished Under the Dome -- which was AWESOME!
PLUS, it has a cameo by a friend of mine, Reynolds Wolf, who was our morning weather guy back in the '90s, and now he's at CNN! So how weird is it to have and old friend pop up in a Stephen King novel?!! Cooler still was the fact that I appear to be the first person who knows him to have read the book, because I got to be the guy who told him! :D That was a neat feeling. His response was, naturally, "Really?"
Brian & I also drove to Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with Mom, Gan-Gan and Mom's husband. (It seems weird calling him my step-dad because I'm 39 years old, lol. I think of him as Mom's Boy-Toy. Mom's Man-Thang. Is that wrong?)
I've also read MICHAEL CRICHTON'S LAST NOVEL, PIRATE LATITUDES!!! It's a PIRATE NOVEL!!! :D MICHAEL CRICHTON WROTE A PIRATE NOVEL!!! :D
It was awesome!
The visual authenticity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is matched by the EVERYTHING authenticity of Pirate Latitudes. What I mean is, the way everything looks realistic and believable in the Pirates movies, everything in Crichton's novels feels that real. Anyone who has read his work knows Crichton is fascinated with historical and technical details, and is a master at entegrating them into a tight, fast-paced, exciting story. The historical detail in Pirate Latitudes is no exception. You feel as though you're cruising around in mid-1600s.
What else?
I'm working.
What I mean is that I'm filling in for a co-worker on vacation. This Sunday will be 1 of 2 days I get off for the rest of 2009. I'm off Sunday, then off again next Sunday, then the next time I'm off work is January 1, 2010.
But this isn't a bad thing!
First of all, who couldn't use overtime nowadays, right?
Secondly, overnight on the weekends is pleasantly uneventfuly usually. (Unless something blows up... which happens... but, thankfully, not often.) So I may get to catch up on my Hulu queue. I'm behind several episodes of Castle and Dollhouse and Ghost Hunters, and I added V to my queue and haven't even watched the first episode yet. So I'm hoping to empty my Hulu queue out by the tiome 2010 rolls around. (We're having computer issues at home, so I haven't been watching much Hulu at the house.)
Anything else?
I haven't heard much from my sweety, but she texts me whenever she can. The holidays always seem to be busy for her, and I imagine they are more so this year. (♥LOVE YOU, GNOMEY!!! xoxoxo ♥)
OH! The paranormal-thang is AWESOME! I lead my first investigation with Texas Spirits recently!!! :D And I think I did a competent job! It was freaky, because I'm directing people who are much more experienced than I am! And they're following my lead!!! :P It's wacky!
I'm not really into titles, so being "lead investigator" on a case doesn't really do anything for me (besides make me anxious, lol), but what I'm floored by is the fact that these cats that I love and respect seem to think of me as an equal. (I guess I've got them fool, huh?)
Also, I've been corresponding with a couple of people who have questions about possible paranormal activity, and it's really neat to be able to share my thoughts on the subject! You know? Like, to have someone ask me a question and be interested to hear what I think about a paranormal matter. VERY cool! :) I feel like a legitimate member of the paranormal community, lol!
I know, I'm a nerd, right?
OOH!
SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!
CHRISTMAS DAY!
I'm working Christmas, but I am making it my mission to see the new Sherlock Holmes flick ON CHRISTMAS DAY!
DUDE!!!
Holmes is one of my FAVORITE, FAVORITE, FAVORITE characters of all time! I love the original Conan Doyles stories, I love the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies, I love the Rathbone/Bruce radio show, and I love the Jeremy Brett series (1984-1994 by Granada Television)!
Now, it seems wierd to me to have a Yank playing Holmes -- like having an American play Bond (or, for that matter, like Angelina Jolie playing Lara Croft) -- but if you've got to cast an American as Holmes, Robert Downey, Jr. is DEFINITELY a good candidate!
Plus, this new flicks looks like it's going to explore some "new" aspects of the Holmesean mythos.
Like, for instance, the action angle!
In the short stories, the action always takes place "off screen", as dialogue. "Oh yes," said Holmes, "I had to rough up eighteen hooligans before being thrown off a train crossing a hundred-thousand foot bridge, and then I was forced to duel Jack the Ripper with sabers before vanquishing a sasquatch with a straight razor, but finally I was free to look at the footprints inbedded in the clay surrounding the murder site and I noticed..."
Apparently, Conan Doyle simply wasn't interested in the action as much as the deduction, so he never wrote those parts, merely had his characters refer to them.
Then, I believe, Holmes went to the stage. Well, the theatre doesn't really lend itself to action set pieces so, again, the action elements of a Holmes story was de-emphesized or removed.
Then, if I'm not mistaken, Holmes moved to the radio... Again, not really an action-friendly medium.
Then Holmes moved to the big screen... BUT...
By now, everyone is used to a sort of non-action style Holmes. Plus, it's more expensive to shoot action scenes than it is to shoot talking scenes. And I'll bet part of the appeal of Holmes for the studio was the fact that they could simply film a stage play (logistically speaking) and still rake in Big Budget box office. (I don't know how much the Holmes films made when they we in cinemas, but they made 14 of them, so I'm guessing they made plenty.)
So, basically, generations have grown up with an inactive Holmes.
Jeremy Brett energized the personality of Holmes with his performance, but that was still a TV show, so action still remained largely off-screen.
So I'm excited to see an Action-Hero version of Holmes! I think it'll be fun. Plus, there have been flicks in the last 15 years or so that have played-up some of Holmes' more eccentric personality traits, but usually in a more somber way. It looks like Downey, Jr.'s interpretation of Holmes is, like Brett's, that sort of manic energy, dropped into a Guy Ritchie scope! :D
FUN!!!
PLUS... WATSON!!!
I blame Nigel Bruce for being so loveable as Watson and for being so talented as a comedian, but Watson WAS NEVER a bumbler! EVER! In the Conan Doyle stories, Watson is a doctor and a war vet! He may not be as smart as Holmes, but NOBODY is as smart as Holmes. (There is Moriority and Mycroft, but that's it. Holmes is in a league of his own, and that's the point of the character.) Watson was smart enough to continue to get calls from Scottland Yard to help them on cases after Holmes (apparently) died! That fact really doesn't jibe with Nigel Bruce's intepretation of Watson.
Still, the long-standing popularity of the Rathbone/Bruce team in 14 films and 7 years on the radio has created this sort of inescapable image of Dr. Watson being an affable bumbler.
The Granada TV series(s) did a whole lot to repair that image, though. There are now generations of folks who know that Watson is competent.
But THIS Watson...! Jude Law, dude!!! :D THIS is gonna be an AWESOME Watson!!! In fact, the trailers and commercials I've seen so far sort of make Holmes look like the oddball! Like, Watson is this cool, competent guy, and Holmes is the freak... which... is really the way the relationship would have worked out, if you think about it. I mean, yeah, Holmes was famous and all, but he was a geek. Watson was really the one you would rather have a conversation with. Like Monk and Sharona/Natalie: You talk to Sharona/Natalie, and let her deal with the crazy genius freak-guy.
Blah.
So anyway, I'm stoked! I SO can't wait to see this flick!
Merry Christmas to me! :D
Okay, I'm goign to go do work now. There's not a ton to do, but it would be wisest for me to go ahead and do it before I slack any further.
Enjoy your weekends and the season! :D It's the greatest time of the year!!!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
UNDER THE DOME!!! :D
I have spent this week enjoying Stephen King's latest opus, Under the Dome, and I am SO loving it!!! It's HUGE, too! 34+ hours of audiobook listening. But the vastness and complexity of the story is part of what makes it amazing!
It's crazy, I was in the middle of Furies of Calderon (audiobook) and about 1/4 into Seeking Spirits (hard copy), AND after this past Saturday's investigation Mike loaned me Collison Course by William Shatner and John loaned me the Starhunter box set. So it's not like I was looking for entertainment, lol. If anything, I was budgeting my time to get through this embarrassment of riches.
But then I'm in Walmart, shopping (essentials) and I see that King has a new blockbuster out, and it looked COOL! A small northeastern town finds itself TRAPPED UNDER AN INVISIBLE DOME!!! :D
I mean, in the hands of just about any author besides King, Koonts, Crichton or Adams I probably would have scoffed and forgotten about it. But I've read enough of King's work to know that he can make the silliest of notions work! (He somehow finds the reality of the most unreal situations, and forces you to invest your emotions into the characters trapped in that circumstance.)
And as I'm listening to this, I'm struck by what genius horror writers King and Koontz are!
If you study the horror genre long enough, you will find that one of the psychological tricks horror writers use is to have characters enjoy the Darkness... If you want to create a human monster, you have that character do horrible things, and enjoy doing it. For some reason, it's really, really creepy to watch a person enjoying doing something that you have difficulty imagining real people doing.
When this is done poorly, you get sexy vampires who always smile coyly when the kill their victims, or evil geniuses who laugh ominously when they reveal their evil plans.
But when this is done well, you get the creeps whenever that character is in the chapter or on the screen.
Then, if the horror writer is particularly ambitious, he/she might have one of the main characters enjoying doing some dark deed. There is a literary theory that horror stories are about breaking down people so that they are, themselves, almost monsters. (Some folks swear by this, but I believe it's merely one of several approaches to writing an effective horror storie.) So, maybe, in the climactic battle, you might have the hero not only dismantle the monster, but really get into it, like in a sick way. (Think about the ending of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter when Corey Feldman's character hacks up Jason, killing him, then can't stop hacking. His sister pulls him away and hugs him to her, but the camera reveals his expression: His bloodlust is still up, and he may have been permanently altered by this experience.)
But what I've noticed King doing in this book (and Koontz in some of his work; and more besides these two, I'm sure, but I'm not really widely read (I like who I like and I generally stick with them)) is a bit more insidious -- and may be a contributing factor to why these novels are so effective: King makes you, the reader, enjoy the Darkness!
Here's what I mean: King creates characters who are so... inhuman that you really, really want to see them killed! You want to see them tortured and tormented in the most excrutiating ways possible!
I've never really noticed this before.
King makes me hate these characters. He makes me want to watch them die. (And, I suspect, I'm not the only one to react this way.)
Since I was a kid, I've always gotten of when the really, really bad man is stopped by the really, really good guy -- usually mortally. But because a staple of the horror genre is gore, when the bad guys die, they die bloody!
You expect it.
You're disappointed if you don't get it.
One of the best novels I've ever read is a Koontz novel (the name of which I won't reveal here for reasons that will be obvious in 2 seconds) and it contains one of the most frightening human monsters of all time (on par with Hannibal Lector, or Hitler) and his ultimate end... left me unfulfilled.
Which is sort of ironic (if I'm using the word correctly here) because the point of the novel is the power of people loving and looking out for one another. I hated any chapter that featured this character because the warped way he thought and acted made me feel like I needed a shower every time he took the page, whereas I adored every paragraph and sentence with any of the myriad other characters in the book! I loved these character because they were good people getting along the best they could in unfairly difficult circumstances, helping each other out along the way.
But then when the "monster" is removed from the picture (which is, basically, what you're waiting for from the start of the novel) in a fairly tidy manner, I feel a little cheated because he didn't die horribly enough.
How warped is that?!!
And earlier in life, I didn't find anything wrong with my emotional reactions -- wanting the bad guys to die horribly -- because these were fictitious characters, these were "people" who had never lived, except in imagination. And that was good enough for me.
But these past years my intention -- the desire behind my thoughts, feelings and actions -- has become important to me, and monitoring my intentions has become an ongoing practice of mine.
And it has been quite an interesting revelation to observe the intricacy of the craft behind a master writer's work! I didn't notice it in the last 2 King novels I read -- Duma Key (AWESOME!!!) and From a Buick 8 because the "bad guys" were supernatural. I don't actually feel a desire to seek out sick, twisted retribution against a vicious hurricane that ravages hundreds or thousands of victims, even though my deepest sympathy and empathy is with them.
So it was quite interesting, and not a little disturbing, to notice how quickly and thoroughly I desire the blood of an evil character. (And I tend to imagine myself to be so "enlightened"! Tisk, tisk!)
And I'm not certain, but I think the way I discovered King's skillful use of this "enjoying the Darkness" (that's not, like, an official term for this literary device, just one I'm calling it for now) tool is because he also used a simple, wide-spread literary tool when he finally killed off a couple of minor monsters in this book I'm reading now:
He made me empathize with the monsters.
Movies are a bit simplistic with the application of literary tools, because they're looking for the biggest bang for their buck, if you will. Finding out that the shark in Jaws II is the mother of the other shark (if I'm remembering this correctly, and not confusing it with another Jaws movie) gives the monster motivation, but you don't empathize with it. On the other hand, whatever version of Frankenstein you watch, you totally empathize with Frankenstein's creation, but you're not likely to be frightened of it.
Novels are a great deal more complex.
In this one (and this is just a teeny-tiny shard of the story, barely even a sub-plot, really, in the scope of this huge story) King creates these 2 human monsters, who are monsters for the duration of their literary lives... until they die. Then, with just a few words, you sort of feel bad for their fate, despite the inhuman things they have done to earn their end.
Shakespeare was right: "What a piece of work is man..."
I had no idea I was particularly complex! And yet, here I am lusting after a "person's" blood when I never would have imagined it possible! (Regardless of whether or not the "person" is real, it's my intention that interests me in this particular matter.)
Also -- and perhaps this is my original point in writing this entry -- HOW BADASS IS STEPHEN KING?!! :D
It's crazy, I was in the middle of Furies of Calderon (audiobook) and about 1/4 into Seeking Spirits (hard copy), AND after this past Saturday's investigation Mike loaned me Collison Course by William Shatner and John loaned me the Starhunter box set. So it's not like I was looking for entertainment, lol. If anything, I was budgeting my time to get through this embarrassment of riches.
But then I'm in Walmart, shopping (essentials) and I see that King has a new blockbuster out, and it looked COOL! A small northeastern town finds itself TRAPPED UNDER AN INVISIBLE DOME!!! :D
I mean, in the hands of just about any author besides King, Koonts, Crichton or Adams I probably would have scoffed and forgotten about it. But I've read enough of King's work to know that he can make the silliest of notions work! (He somehow finds the reality of the most unreal situations, and forces you to invest your emotions into the characters trapped in that circumstance.)
And as I'm listening to this, I'm struck by what genius horror writers King and Koontz are!
If you study the horror genre long enough, you will find that one of the psychological tricks horror writers use is to have characters enjoy the Darkness... If you want to create a human monster, you have that character do horrible things, and enjoy doing it. For some reason, it's really, really creepy to watch a person enjoying doing something that you have difficulty imagining real people doing.
When this is done poorly, you get sexy vampires who always smile coyly when the kill their victims, or evil geniuses who laugh ominously when they reveal their evil plans.
But when this is done well, you get the creeps whenever that character is in the chapter or on the screen.
Then, if the horror writer is particularly ambitious, he/she might have one of the main characters enjoying doing some dark deed. There is a literary theory that horror stories are about breaking down people so that they are, themselves, almost monsters. (Some folks swear by this, but I believe it's merely one of several approaches to writing an effective horror storie.) So, maybe, in the climactic battle, you might have the hero not only dismantle the monster, but really get into it, like in a sick way. (Think about the ending of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter when Corey Feldman's character hacks up Jason, killing him, then can't stop hacking. His sister pulls him away and hugs him to her, but the camera reveals his expression: His bloodlust is still up, and he may have been permanently altered by this experience.)
But what I've noticed King doing in this book (and Koontz in some of his work; and more besides these two, I'm sure, but I'm not really widely read (I like who I like and I generally stick with them)) is a bit more insidious -- and may be a contributing factor to why these novels are so effective: King makes you, the reader, enjoy the Darkness!
Here's what I mean: King creates characters who are so... inhuman that you really, really want to see them killed! You want to see them tortured and tormented in the most excrutiating ways possible!
I've never really noticed this before.
King makes me hate these characters. He makes me want to watch them die. (And, I suspect, I'm not the only one to react this way.)
Since I was a kid, I've always gotten of when the really, really bad man is stopped by the really, really good guy -- usually mortally. But because a staple of the horror genre is gore, when the bad guys die, they die bloody!
You expect it.
You're disappointed if you don't get it.
One of the best novels I've ever read is a Koontz novel (the name of which I won't reveal here for reasons that will be obvious in 2 seconds) and it contains one of the most frightening human monsters of all time (on par with Hannibal Lector, or Hitler) and his ultimate end... left me unfulfilled.
Which is sort of ironic (if I'm using the word correctly here) because the point of the novel is the power of people loving and looking out for one another. I hated any chapter that featured this character because the warped way he thought and acted made me feel like I needed a shower every time he took the page, whereas I adored every paragraph and sentence with any of the myriad other characters in the book! I loved these character because they were good people getting along the best they could in unfairly difficult circumstances, helping each other out along the way.
But then when the "monster" is removed from the picture (which is, basically, what you're waiting for from the start of the novel) in a fairly tidy manner, I feel a little cheated because he didn't die horribly enough.
How warped is that?!!
And earlier in life, I didn't find anything wrong with my emotional reactions -- wanting the bad guys to die horribly -- because these were fictitious characters, these were "people" who had never lived, except in imagination. And that was good enough for me.
But these past years my intention -- the desire behind my thoughts, feelings and actions -- has become important to me, and monitoring my intentions has become an ongoing practice of mine.
And it has been quite an interesting revelation to observe the intricacy of the craft behind a master writer's work! I didn't notice it in the last 2 King novels I read -- Duma Key (AWESOME!!!) and From a Buick 8 because the "bad guys" were supernatural. I don't actually feel a desire to seek out sick, twisted retribution against a vicious hurricane that ravages hundreds or thousands of victims, even though my deepest sympathy and empathy is with them.
So it was quite interesting, and not a little disturbing, to notice how quickly and thoroughly I desire the blood of an evil character. (And I tend to imagine myself to be so "enlightened"! Tisk, tisk!)
And I'm not certain, but I think the way I discovered King's skillful use of this "enjoying the Darkness" (that's not, like, an official term for this literary device, just one I'm calling it for now) tool is because he also used a simple, wide-spread literary tool when he finally killed off a couple of minor monsters in this book I'm reading now:
He made me empathize with the monsters.
Movies are a bit simplistic with the application of literary tools, because they're looking for the biggest bang for their buck, if you will. Finding out that the shark in Jaws II is the mother of the other shark (if I'm remembering this correctly, and not confusing it with another Jaws movie) gives the monster motivation, but you don't empathize with it. On the other hand, whatever version of Frankenstein you watch, you totally empathize with Frankenstein's creation, but you're not likely to be frightened of it.
Novels are a great deal more complex.
In this one (and this is just a teeny-tiny shard of the story, barely even a sub-plot, really, in the scope of this huge story) King creates these 2 human monsters, who are monsters for the duration of their literary lives... until they die. Then, with just a few words, you sort of feel bad for their fate, despite the inhuman things they have done to earn their end.
Shakespeare was right: "What a piece of work is man..."
I had no idea I was particularly complex! And yet, here I am lusting after a "person's" blood when I never would have imagined it possible! (Regardless of whether or not the "person" is real, it's my intention that interests me in this particular matter.)
Also -- and perhaps this is my original point in writing this entry -- HOW BADASS IS STEPHEN KING?!! :D
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
9 on the "Narcissistic Personality Inventory"
Have you heard about this test?
Dr. Drew was on Conan O'Brien tonight, and he mentioned this test, and I immediately had to see if there was a copy of it online that I could take! I found it reprinted here...
The test says that the average score is 15.3, that celebrities generally average 17.8, and that Dr. drew himself scored a 16.
And I scored a 9.
Not sure what to make of that.
I mean, obviously, I don't want to score too high, because that means I'm really narcissistic.
But...
Surely scoring low means I have self-esteem issues or something, right?
But I don't think I have a poor self image. I mean, I quite fond of me. In fact, I'm a huge fan of me! (I wouldn't go so far as to suggest there should be more of me wandering around the planet, because then I would be slightly less special. I suspect a single me is probably the perfect amount of me in the world.)
But a 9?
The test further says it's important to consider which traits are dominant in my personality. Some traits, like authority and self-sufficiency, are more useful than others, like vanity and entitlement.
So I broke down my stats, and they are as follows:
• Authority: 4 (out of 8)
• Self-sufficiency: 0 (out of 6)
• Superiority: 3 (out of 5)
• Exhibitionism: 1 (out of 7)
• Exploitativeness: 1 (out of 5)
• Vanity: 0 (out of 3)
• Entitlement: 0 (out of 6)
So I seem to be right down the middle as far as my sense of authority (which makes sense if you've ever asked me "So what do you want to do tongiht?").
I, apparently, have no self-sufficiency. I don't know if that's fair...
I seem to feel fairly superior. Make of that what you will. I have been accused of being a pompous ass before, so perhaps this result confirms that assertion. ;)
1 out of 7 in Exhibitionism... Well, if you saw me without a shirt, I believe you would be grateful for my lack of exhibitionism.
I seem to be 1/5th exploitative. This seems like a fairly healthy number, right?
I appears to have NO vanity. :D I'm not sure how accurate this test is, but I'm fine with this result! ;P
And I appear to have no sense of entitlement. That's probably good, right? I mean, I've known some folks who seem to have a 5/6 or 6/6 Entitlement, and I'm happy to think I'm not like them.
But still... a 9? Aren't we naturally supposed to be a little more narcissistic than that? I mean, most folks score somewhere around a 15.
Hmm...
You think, maybe, it raises my score a little that the first thing I did after taking this test is blog about it?
Dr. Drew was on Conan O'Brien tonight, and he mentioned this test, and I immediately had to see if there was a copy of it online that I could take! I found it reprinted here...
The test says that the average score is 15.3, that celebrities generally average 17.8, and that Dr. drew himself scored a 16.
And I scored a 9.
Not sure what to make of that.
I mean, obviously, I don't want to score too high, because that means I'm really narcissistic.
But...
Surely scoring low means I have self-esteem issues or something, right?
But I don't think I have a poor self image. I mean, I quite fond of me. In fact, I'm a huge fan of me! (I wouldn't go so far as to suggest there should be more of me wandering around the planet, because then I would be slightly less special. I suspect a single me is probably the perfect amount of me in the world.)
But a 9?
The test further says it's important to consider which traits are dominant in my personality. Some traits, like authority and self-sufficiency, are more useful than others, like vanity and entitlement.
So I broke down my stats, and they are as follows:
• Authority: 4 (out of 8)
• Self-sufficiency: 0 (out of 6)
• Superiority: 3 (out of 5)
• Exhibitionism: 1 (out of 7)
• Exploitativeness: 1 (out of 5)
• Vanity: 0 (out of 3)
• Entitlement: 0 (out of 6)
So I seem to be right down the middle as far as my sense of authority (which makes sense if you've ever asked me "So what do you want to do tongiht?").
I, apparently, have no self-sufficiency. I don't know if that's fair...
I seem to feel fairly superior. Make of that what you will. I have been accused of being a pompous ass before, so perhaps this result confirms that assertion. ;)
1 out of 7 in Exhibitionism... Well, if you saw me without a shirt, I believe you would be grateful for my lack of exhibitionism.
I seem to be 1/5th exploitative. This seems like a fairly healthy number, right?
I appears to have NO vanity. :D I'm not sure how accurate this test is, but I'm fine with this result! ;P
And I appear to have no sense of entitlement. That's probably good, right? I mean, I've known some folks who seem to have a 5/6 or 6/6 Entitlement, and I'm happy to think I'm not like them.
But still... a 9? Aren't we naturally supposed to be a little more narcissistic than that? I mean, most folks score somewhere around a 15.
Hmm...
You think, maybe, it raises my score a little that the first thing I did after taking this test is blog about it?
Friday, November 06, 2009
The Men Who Stare At Goats... THE BOOK!
The movie looks like it's going to be awesome, but I just finished reading the book, WHICH I LOVED! :D
The difference, put simply, is that the book is completely non-fiction -- the information therein researched and verified as thoroughly as possible by the author -- and the film is a work of fiction.
I'm still going to see the movie! It looks like a hysterical flick, and if they can balance the duality of comedy and disturbing fact the way Jon Ronson does in his book, then the flick should be a great after-movie-coffeehouse-discussion topic! In fact, if the filmmakers get a larger audience discussing some of the things the book brings to light, then this could be an all-time favorite movie!
The book deals with Military Intelligence investigating paranormal abilities, with the intent of creating super-effective, super-inexpensive super soldiers .
It is not, however, a pro-paranormal book, lol. It's clear that Jon Ronson puts NO stock in claims of the paranormal abilities, and a lot of the humor comes from just how silly such people look to non-believers!
In fact, it gave me a new (much more amusing) vision of myself on Saturday nights, wandering around in the darkness looking for ghosts with equipment that was most decidely not designed for that purpose. :D
But that's really just the tip of the iceberg.
As Ronson tracks the effects of this stort-lived experiement in military human potential and observes how the ideas proposed in the 1970s have morphed into techniques for current PSYOPS, the book looses some of its wacky humor, but remains edge-of-your-seat riveting.
I had actually wanted to read the book before I found out there was a film version. It was mentioned (if memory serves) by a guest on one of the paranormal podcasts I listen to, which piqued my interest. (In particular, I believe the guest mentioned the military experiement in which a soldier stared at a numbered goat, attempting to burt its heart, until the goat next to it toppled over from a heart attack.) So when I saw the commercials for the flick, I figured I should read the book before the movie comes out because (a) the movie looks hysterical, and I suspect folks will be talking about it for a while, and (b) if I saw the movie first, I might be less inclinded to read the book. (I'm a lazy sort.)
Plus, it's always more fun to have the book in your mind when you see the movie. They have to cut a lot of information out of books to transform them into movies, and that extra information can sometimes make a poor adaptation a little more enjoyable. To illustrate: The Harry Potter films work just fine the way they are; Twilight was fine as a film, but the book is better (natch) and the movie is better when you know what's missing; the film version of Hannibal (if you even remember that flick) is really weak, so seeing the movie after having read the book makes you feel better by reminding you that you had previously enjoyed a different incarnation of this story.
But in the best of situations, it seems to me that a great adaptation of a great novel just create 2 great -- but different -- products. Like the Harry Potter films, Jurassic Park and other good Michael Crichton adaptations, the good Stephen King adaptations, as so on... No matter how good the movie is or how many times you watch it, you still get in the mood to go back and reread the original from time to time.
So, anyway, I wanted to have the book in my head before I saw the movie.
And I'm SO GLAD I did! :D GREAT READ!
Okay, just 1 hour 45 minutes left in my shift, so I'm going away now.
Hope you had a great Guy Fawkes Day yesterday!
:)
The difference, put simply, is that the book is completely non-fiction -- the information therein researched and verified as thoroughly as possible by the author -- and the film is a work of fiction.
I'm still going to see the movie! It looks like a hysterical flick, and if they can balance the duality of comedy and disturbing fact the way Jon Ronson does in his book, then the flick should be a great after-movie-coffeehouse-discussion topic! In fact, if the filmmakers get a larger audience discussing some of the things the book brings to light, then this could be an all-time favorite movie!
The book deals with Military Intelligence investigating paranormal abilities, with the intent of creating super-effective, super-inexpensive super soldiers .
It is not, however, a pro-paranormal book, lol. It's clear that Jon Ronson puts NO stock in claims of the paranormal abilities, and a lot of the humor comes from just how silly such people look to non-believers!
In fact, it gave me a new (much more amusing) vision of myself on Saturday nights, wandering around in the darkness looking for ghosts with equipment that was most decidely not designed for that purpose. :D
But that's really just the tip of the iceberg.
As Ronson tracks the effects of this stort-lived experiement in military human potential and observes how the ideas proposed in the 1970s have morphed into techniques for current PSYOPS, the book looses some of its wacky humor, but remains edge-of-your-seat riveting.
I had actually wanted to read the book before I found out there was a film version. It was mentioned (if memory serves) by a guest on one of the paranormal podcasts I listen to, which piqued my interest. (In particular, I believe the guest mentioned the military experiement in which a soldier stared at a numbered goat, attempting to burt its heart, until the goat next to it toppled over from a heart attack.) So when I saw the commercials for the flick, I figured I should read the book before the movie comes out because (a) the movie looks hysterical, and I suspect folks will be talking about it for a while, and (b) if I saw the movie first, I might be less inclinded to read the book. (I'm a lazy sort.)
Plus, it's always more fun to have the book in your mind when you see the movie. They have to cut a lot of information out of books to transform them into movies, and that extra information can sometimes make a poor adaptation a little more enjoyable. To illustrate: The Harry Potter films work just fine the way they are; Twilight was fine as a film, but the book is better (natch) and the movie is better when you know what's missing; the film version of Hannibal (if you even remember that flick) is really weak, so seeing the movie after having read the book makes you feel better by reminding you that you had previously enjoyed a different incarnation of this story.
But in the best of situations, it seems to me that a great adaptation of a great novel just create 2 great -- but different -- products. Like the Harry Potter films, Jurassic Park and other good Michael Crichton adaptations, the good Stephen King adaptations, as so on... No matter how good the movie is or how many times you watch it, you still get in the mood to go back and reread the original from time to time.
So, anyway, I wanted to have the book in my head before I saw the movie.
And I'm SO GLAD I did! :D GREAT READ!
Okay, just 1 hour 45 minutes left in my shift, so I'm going away now.
Hope you had a great Guy Fawkes Day yesterday!
:)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Ghost Light of Bragg Road
Last weekend was an AWESOME weekend!!! :D
Texas Spirits hit the road last weekend for a field trip to see the ghost light of Bragg Road in Saratoga, TX!
Bragg Road is this straight, 8-mile stretch of dirt road lined with trees on both sides and swamp on the other side of the trees. The road is just barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other going opposite directions IF one of the cars is stopped and pulled over to the side as far as they can go.
The reports are a glowing ball -- maybe the size of a tennis ball or a volleyball -- that can change colors from pale blue to yellow to greenish white, that shoots down the road, sometimes darting in and out of the trees, and sometimes even passing into and through cars that happen to be on the road. The ghost light can be differentiated from passing car headlights (about which I will talk in more detail shortly) by the fact that it moves up and down and sideways, varying in speed. The ghost light might, according to reports, zoom down the road toward you, darting in and out of the treeline, then pause maybe 15 feet in front of you, hover there for a minute or so, then shoot off faster than lightening, disappearing up into the night sky.
The backstory is less interesting...
See, whenever an area -- anywhere in the United States, like, anywhere -- with a ghost light, the legend is always one of 3 stories:
1. A railroad engineer/conductor was beheaded, and now he travels the tracks, carrying a lantern, looking for his head.
2. Some young lover was meant to meet some other young lover at a specific place, often so they could run off together and elope or something. But the other young lover was killed, and thereby failed to make the rendezvous, and now the one young lover wanders the area still, searching for his/her soul mate. (I don't remember what the specific size/shape of the ghost light is attributed to... maybe it's the young lover's ghost carrying a lantern for the search.)
3. There is something called the Will-O-The-Whisp that has something to do with unbaptized babies or something like that.
(I'm at work, so I can't be bothered to do the research to refresh my memory, lol.)
But wherever you are in the U.S., if you go to a place with a ghost light, you will get one of the first two back stories as "historical fact" to explain the ghost light. (I don't think people really go in for the Will-O-The-Wisp theory anymore.)
Well, the Bragg Road Ghost Light just mashed-up the first 2 stories -- just to cover all their bases, I suppose. ;P
HOWEVER...
The fact that people employ an age-old, oft-duplicated urban legend or folk tale as back story to explain a phenomenon DOES NOT negate the existence of the phenomenon. It just means that human nature is that people feel a little safer with weird stuff when they have a recognizable story to explain it. (It's similar to our need to name things and categorize them, even if the categories are as random as "normal" and "paranormal". It's simply a Human Thang.)
Making the Bragg Road Ghost Light more intriguing is the fact that Paula, founder of Texas Spirits Paranormal Investigations, ACTUALLY SAW THE LIGHT! :D
So you KNOW I was excited about this investigation!
[Quick Note: Please don't think that I blow off research and background in general. If I were making an official report or writing a chapter in a book or something, I would be much more thorough. But since this is a blog entry, I'm being much less formal. I'm just trying to convey the experience of this weekend here.]
More intriguing, still, is the fact that John investigated Bragg Rood, too, at a different time, was not there for Paula's experience, and did not experience the ghost light.
So two of the people whom I look up to as investigators have opposing experiences with Bragg Road! And I get to investigate it for myself now!!! :D
Stephanie and Mike picked me up from my casa at 10am, which was a really nice start to my Saturday morning. Then we hooked up with Jesse, Paula and John, and I rode out to Kountze (where we had hotel rooms booked, though Bragg Road is in Saratoga) with Paula and John. This is where I got to hear their past experiences investigating there, and then I got to talk their ears off about different paranormal stuff I usually don't have an opportunity to ask their takes on.
When we got to Kountze, we checked-in and got to meet our cheerleaders for the evening: Paula's sister had brought some friends to investigate Bragg Road with us! I call them "cheerleaders" because, at first, they talked to us as though we were celebrities, lol. It was a nice ego-boost. ;) It was also cool that these non-investigators were going with us because I would get to gage the investigator response to anything that happened against the lay-person response (for lack of a better way of describing it). In other words, when a door slams by itself in an abandoned asylum, normal folks run away, and investigators run toward the slamming door. So it would be cool, investigating Bragg Road for my first time, to have 2 different perspectives through which to view whatever we all experienced out there. (It's like 2 different sets of data gathered from the same experiment, or a scene in a movie shot from two different cameras at two different angles to the action.)
As it turned out, I ended up getting 2 shots at Bragg Road.
Phase 1:
It turns out that Bragg Road -- or "Ghost Road", as it is locally known -- is something of a hang-out on Saturday night. We spent several hours watching head lights make their way slowly down either side of the road. There were times when the lights, on either side, were so distant that the stretch of road we were on was really, really dark (except for the moon, which shone extremely bright with no street lamps or buildings around).
It was really cool, too! I got a kick out of walking up and down the road in the darkness, hearing something on the other side of the trees from time to time, imagining that I was going to catch a glimpse of Bigfoot disappearing deeper into the woods. (There were no reports of Sasquatch sightings, but a guy can hope, right?)
The heavy traffic during Phase 1 turned out to be quite useful. Car headlights and swamp gas (literally, swamp gas!) are two of the go-to debunk theories for the Bragg Road ghost light. The road lies between stretches of swamp, and the road lies between 2 stretches of highway. So seeing what headlights on the road looked like -- particularly as they looked when they were at the ends of the road -- was really informative.
So Phase 1 lasted a few hours, and really wasn't the slightest bit spooky, but was fun. And it gave me a nice sense of the road. A "feel" for it, if you will.
Phase 1 ended after a few hours of nothing happening and our guest investigators, having learned of a near-by cemetery and an old local legend about a hotel that burned down, decided they wanted to go explore (possibly) more fertile paranormal territory.
Jesse and I, and two of our guest investigators, spent quite some time wandering around intersection of Bragg Road and Old Bragg Road, looking for signs of at least a foundation where a hotel could be, even if it burned down decades ago.
No luck there.
We also swung by Sutton Cemetery for a peak. (You can't investigate Texas cemeteries after dark unless you have permission -- Texas cemeteries are off-limits to the public after sundown -- and we didn't have permission.
I believe it was around 1:00 am when we all got back to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel, I stepped outside for a smoke, and reflected on the night. The whole day had been a lot of fun! It was very cool!
When I got back inside, I found that Jesse had been looking for me. Was I interested in going back to Bragg Road?
My response was something akin to "Hells yeah!"
Mike had work stuff he needed to do, so he and Stephanie stayed at the hotel. And Paula and John had investigated the site before, so I suspect that had something to do with their choice not to go back out tonight.
So the party for Phase 2 was Jesse, 3 of our guest investigators and myself.
The guest investigators, it turns out, BROUGHT FOOD, which they shared! :D Tasty sandwiches and muffins, and even brownies! :) So we ate a bite before heading back out to Bragg Road.
Paula let me borrow her car for the return trip... poor, silly woman. It's a stick-shift, and it's been years since I owned a stick-shift, but I didn't grind her gears too badly. ;P (I'm inserting this part of the story just to torment Paula, should she read this entry, lol.)
Phase 2 was when things got interesting...
Along the 8-mile stretch of road are approximately 4 niches where you can pull over and park or turn around. The road gets really rough at the north end of the road, and Paula's car rides low, so for this second trip, we intended to stay on the south half of Bragg Road. So we pulled into the first niche and parked.
The moon had disappeared now. All the traffic had cleared out, taking their Saturday night adventures elsewhere, apparently. So, as far as we could tell, it was only the 5 of us on Bragg Road now. The road was almost pitch black, except for the stars directly above us.
We started off walking north down the road.
We were, maybe, a quarter of a mile away from where we had parked when we saw a tiny pale-blue light down at the south end of the road, where we had entered it. The tiny blue light quickly split into 2 lights: headlights. A car was coming down the road toward us.
Bragg Road creates a sort of optical illusion -- things seem closer than they are. I speculate it's because we -- American, 21st Century human beings -- are simply not accustomed to looking at a straight road a mile or more longer. We've grown up seeing straight roads, but they never expand 8 miles! And it's 8 miles of trees, so there are no buildings or street lights to tell your brain "That's about 2 blocks away". The visual references we usually have are not provided here.
So -- thanks to all the traffic traveling up and down Bragg Road during Phase 1 of our investigation -- we knew it would be a long time before the car that had just entered the road would reach us.
Maybe 3 seconds had passed before we turned back toward the south end of the road and saw that the headlights had disappeared.
Well, that was odd, we all agreed.
There was nowhere the car could have turned into because there were no turns on the road, except for those 4 niches. Had they been traveling faster than most, and pulled in where we had parked Paula's car?
Jesse said, "Paula's car is locked, right?"
"Um... no." We were, as far as I could tell, alone on the road. I hadn't thought we needed to lock Paula's car.
So Jesse and I head back for the niche, flashlights pointed ahead of us. We weren't running, but we weren't strolling, either. Most likely, no one visiting the road this late was looking for trouble, and they hadn't been there long enough to make a thorough search of Paula's car, even if they...
Paula's car sat alone in the dark niche, unmolested.
There were no other vehicles in sight.
We shone out flashlights back down south, looking for evidence of the vehicle we had seen (we thought) pull onto Bragg Road. Some of the cars, earlier that night, would drive down the road with only their parking lights on. Since they we forced (because of the uneven dirt road) to travel so slowly, there was very little chance of a mishap. Others traveled with their lights off completely. Again, as long as they didn't drive off the road into the trees, it was unlikely there would be any trouble. Also, the trees lining either side of the road were so dense that it was impossible for a car to stray far. (They would have to pay to have the dent knocked out of their bumper, but that was about the worst likely to happen. There was no chance they were going off-roading from Bragg Road.)
But our flashlights didn't catch the glimmer of any vehicles on their way up the road.
That wasn't surprising, though, as out flashlight beams, while impressive, were not likely to reach half a mile, much less a mile down the dark road. But another thing we had learned from Phase 1 of the night was that you could trust your ears on Bragg Road. Even when a car was creeping up on us without its lights earlier in the evening, we could still hear the low rumble of its engine. Even when you can't see it, you can hear that there is a car somewhere around you.
But Bragg Road was silent, as well.
We discussed it, and the consensus was that the only logical possibility for a car to disappear was by backing out, only it would have taken the car longer to back out than the time it took for it to disappear. In all honesty, the car really couldn't have reached the niche in which we were now standing in the time it took for the lights to disappear.
It was a genuine mystery.
It wasn't anything like the reports we had heard of the Bragg Road Ghost Light, and we all agreed that the light looked like headlights.
Let's call this "Experience #1".
So, we decided to drive Paula's car north, to the next niche, and park there. This way, we could explore the road further north than we had been able to thus far tonight, or would be able to if we simply kept walking north from the previous niche.
Once again, we set out wandering northward.
I still hadn't seen the Headless Horseman or Bigfoot, but the walk continued to be cool.
One of the guest investigators, Donna, slowly became convinced she was seeing something up ahead. It looked to her like the orange "cherry" of a cigarette. Like, maybe, someone way down the road, standing there and smoking.
Or something.
She and I found ourselves walking a bit faster, unconsciously sort of racing to find out what it was that she could see and the rest of us could not.
But then Jesse made a point: If this thing were the ghost light or anything paranormal, we wouldn't be able to catch up with it, most likely. It would probably continue to recede further and further away, like the end of a rainbow. And if it were just a guy smoking, perhaps we didn't really want to catch up to him. He might want his privacy. there were a (very) few homes off the road (much farther down), and if it turned out to be a resident of Bragg Road, they might not appreciate a bunch of strangers pestering them at what now must be 3:00am. And if it were an optical illusion, then -- again, like the rainbow example -- there was a strong chance we would never catch up to it.
One thing that seems to prove true again and again is that paranormal phenomena doesn't seem to be "catch-able". If you chase it, you loose it. Every time. It seems -- not just from my very limited experience, but according to those who have years, and even decades, of experience in the field -- that if the paranormal wants you to experience it, it will present itself to you.
So Jesse, wisely, turned us all around to head back in the direction of the car.
We didn't talk much, so the profound darkness was joined by a creepy silence that you only experience when you're that far removed from the city.
As we walked, Donna, kept looking behind her. I did too for a bit. Since we were the only ones on the road, I could comfortably walk backward without worry of bumping into... well, anything, really.
We hadn't quite covered the (maybe) quarter mile to the car when we all saw a pale blue light, far in front of us, somewhere near the south entrance to Bragg Road.
We stopped and watched it.
It was a single light. This didn't look like car headlights.
The blue-white "ball" (for lack of a better description; we had no way of gauging how far in front of us it was) grew brighter, more intense, and turned yellow.
We murmured to each other that it was, indeed, a single light. This was not, as far as we could tell, the headlights from a car.
But still, we didn't have a clue how far away it was.
Then the bright yellow light became more intense, and green. It was sort of golden in the center, but the edges were clearly green. We all confirmed this to each other.
As the light grew more intense, I wondered it it was moving closer to us.
But it wasn't moving up or down, or sideways. It remained directly in the center of the road.
And then it was gone.
What the hell was that?
We ran to the car, hopped in, and drove as fast as we safely could toward the south entrance to the road. If it was a car, we wanted to be able to rule that possibility out.
It felt like it took us forever to get to the entrance!
The unfriendly road wouldn't allow us to move too fast, lest it vibrate Paula's poor car apart. Besides, if a car had decided to park in the middle of the road with its lights off, we could be right on top of it before we even saw it! (This had happened to Jesse and me during Phase 1, when we were on foot. A pickup truck, no less! Right there in front of us and we didn't see it until it turned on its lights and started up! Gave me quite a start.)
As we drove, I think I made a joke about who else was secretly hoping that the light appeared in front of us, passed into the car and just hung out with us for a few seconds. But that might have happened at some other time that night.
I was almost on the highway before I even realized we had exited Bragg Road. (Did I mention that there are no streetlights anywhere?)
I stopped, and we discussed what we had just witnessed.
The fact that we didn't pass -- or run into -- a car or truck meant that we had seen the ghost light, right? That was the reasoning of the guest investigators. It was reported to change colors and to simply disappear.
Jesse and I pointed out, though, that it was also reported to dart around the road (sometimes ducking into the trees), and be seen to disappear straight up into the air, or to the side. This light, as far as we could tell, remained perfectly still.
Besides this, I had a theory that might debunk what we had just seen...
The theory began as a way of explaining to myself how those headlights we had seen earlier might simply disappear the way they had.
If you look at a map of Bragg Road (like the one above (click on it to see the entire image)) you'll notice that Farm To Market Road 787 appears to head straight up into Bragg Road, then veers-off to form a sort of lower-case "y" shape. If it didn't veer off so swiftly, 787 would become Bragg Road.
Now, I know a little about the physicality of optics from my years making short films with my buddies -- as well as my study of special effects, my study of slight of hand and illusion, and my obsession with 3-D (even when you see 3-D naturally, with your naked eye, the perception of depth is still a sort of optical illusion, though a reliable one) -- and if my understanding is near accurate, here is what I believe we saw:
Experience #1 - Because of the darkness, the treeline and the distance from the south entrance to Bragg Road, we couldn't really know if the headlights we saw were on Bragg Road.
We might have seen a vehicle traveling up 787, but because it appeared to be between the treeline, it looked like it was on Bragg Road. Then when it veered west -- the way 787 does -- the trees blocked our view of the headlights and it, effectively, "disappeared" as far as we could tell.
Experience #2 - This is where my logic gets a little strained...
At first, the headlights in Experience #1 appeared to be a single light, either because the treeline blocked one of the headlights or because of the sheer distance from the entrance. Then the single pale-blue light seemed to split into two separate lights, revealing the source to be a vehicle.
For Experience #2, we were maybe a mile further from the entrance.
So is it possible that, at that distance, a pair of headlights might seem to our eyes as a single light? The light we perceive, at that point, is being forced through the treeline which, in effect, would be like forcing it through a cylinder of solid material.
Have you ever tried to shine a wide flashlight beam through a pinprick in a thick, black cloth? It looks like a star in the night sky. If you have a large enough light source and enough pinpricks, you can actually simulate a night sky. We did this back in theatre when I was a teenager. The effect isn't like you're getting a tiny sliver of the light radiating from the source, but as though all the radiance from the light source is forcing itself through that tiny hole.
The light seems to become brighter, rather than diminished. Focused.
So what about the color changes, though?
I can't explain this scientifically, but here's my theory: Assuming Experience #2 was a car, the headlights might have appeared blue-white when it was furthest away from us, and possibly traveling down a slight incline in the road. Then when the incline leveled out, the light became yellow and more intense. Then as the car got closer, that yellow light might have (and this is where my logic really strains) picked up the green from the leaves of the treeline that was focusing the beam of headlights into a single, intense ball of light for us.
That makes sense, right?
The explanation was really for Jesse's benefit, because our guest investigators weren't interested in debunking their cool experience.
After that, we headed back to the hotel because it was a little after 3:30am and we all had a long trip ahead of us in a few hours.
I rode back to Austin with Jesse in Stephanie and Mike's car (they live up north, closer to me, while Paula and John live WAY south). It was a fun trip! Even after a mere 4 or so hours of sleep, I didn't feel drowsy the whole way back!
So, just between you and me, here's my take on my Bragg Road experiences...
I don't really know how much water my "explaination" holds, scientifically. I don't know enough about optics to be able to even know where to start researching my theory to prove or disprove it.
Also, I don't know if the stretch of 787 just south of Bragg Road is long enough to allow a vehicle's headlights to do what I attempted to describe just now. I, stupidly and amateurishly, failed to note exactly how long Experience #2 lasted, and by now my memory is way-fuzzy.
I know that the light didn't move the way the light Paula saw moved. And the perfect stillness, centered-ness of the light we saw is more in line with my explanation. But I also have no idea how far ahead of us it was. If it were the Ghost Light and it were near the southern entrance to Bragg Road, might it not have been able to bob up and down, left and right and still appear, to us, to be standing still and centered? If it were that far away, might it not have been able to dart up into the sky, or sideways into the trees, without us seeing the tell-tale tracer of light that revealed which direction it went?
I'm not trying to make this paranormal, and I'm not trying to make it not-paranormal. I believe true skepticism questions both sides of an equation. I know zealot skeptics who will accept any explanation that points away from the paranormal, and I know zealot believers who will accept any explanation that points toward the paranormal. But as an investigator, I simply have to admit that I don't have enough data either way.
Still, I've got 2 interesting experiences under my belt! :D
Also, even though you're not supposed to enter cemeteries in Texas after dark, I might -- maybe -- have pulled out my digital audio recorder when we stopped by Sutton Cemetery and I might -- maybe -- have pressed Record, and so I might -- maybe -- have caught some voices that aren't supposed to be on the track I recorded. ;P
I still need to listen to it.
Tonight might be a good night to do that, huh?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
:D
Texas Spirits hit the road last weekend for a field trip to see the ghost light of Bragg Road in Saratoga, TX!
Bragg Road is this straight, 8-mile stretch of dirt road lined with trees on both sides and swamp on the other side of the trees. The road is just barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other going opposite directions IF one of the cars is stopped and pulled over to the side as far as they can go.
The reports are a glowing ball -- maybe the size of a tennis ball or a volleyball -- that can change colors from pale blue to yellow to greenish white, that shoots down the road, sometimes darting in and out of the trees, and sometimes even passing into and through cars that happen to be on the road. The ghost light can be differentiated from passing car headlights (about which I will talk in more detail shortly) by the fact that it moves up and down and sideways, varying in speed. The ghost light might, according to reports, zoom down the road toward you, darting in and out of the treeline, then pause maybe 15 feet in front of you, hover there for a minute or so, then shoot off faster than lightening, disappearing up into the night sky.
The backstory is less interesting...
See, whenever an area -- anywhere in the United States, like, anywhere -- with a ghost light, the legend is always one of 3 stories:
1. A railroad engineer/conductor was beheaded, and now he travels the tracks, carrying a lantern, looking for his head.
2. Some young lover was meant to meet some other young lover at a specific place, often so they could run off together and elope or something. But the other young lover was killed, and thereby failed to make the rendezvous, and now the one young lover wanders the area still, searching for his/her soul mate. (I don't remember what the specific size/shape of the ghost light is attributed to... maybe it's the young lover's ghost carrying a lantern for the search.)
3. There is something called the Will-O-The-Whisp that has something to do with unbaptized babies or something like that.
(I'm at work, so I can't be bothered to do the research to refresh my memory, lol.)
But wherever you are in the U.S., if you go to a place with a ghost light, you will get one of the first two back stories as "historical fact" to explain the ghost light. (I don't think people really go in for the Will-O-The-Wisp theory anymore.)
Well, the Bragg Road Ghost Light just mashed-up the first 2 stories -- just to cover all their bases, I suppose. ;P
HOWEVER...
The fact that people employ an age-old, oft-duplicated urban legend or folk tale as back story to explain a phenomenon DOES NOT negate the existence of the phenomenon. It just means that human nature is that people feel a little safer with weird stuff when they have a recognizable story to explain it. (It's similar to our need to name things and categorize them, even if the categories are as random as "normal" and "paranormal". It's simply a Human Thang.)
Making the Bragg Road Ghost Light more intriguing is the fact that Paula, founder of Texas Spirits Paranormal Investigations, ACTUALLY SAW THE LIGHT! :D
So you KNOW I was excited about this investigation!
[Quick Note: Please don't think that I blow off research and background in general. If I were making an official report or writing a chapter in a book or something, I would be much more thorough. But since this is a blog entry, I'm being much less formal. I'm just trying to convey the experience of this weekend here.]
More intriguing, still, is the fact that John investigated Bragg Rood, too, at a different time, was not there for Paula's experience, and did not experience the ghost light.
So two of the people whom I look up to as investigators have opposing experiences with Bragg Road! And I get to investigate it for myself now!!! :D
Stephanie and Mike picked me up from my casa at 10am, which was a really nice start to my Saturday morning. Then we hooked up with Jesse, Paula and John, and I rode out to Kountze (where we had hotel rooms booked, though Bragg Road is in Saratoga) with Paula and John. This is where I got to hear their past experiences investigating there, and then I got to talk their ears off about different paranormal stuff I usually don't have an opportunity to ask their takes on.
When we got to Kountze, we checked-in and got to meet our cheerleaders for the evening: Paula's sister had brought some friends to investigate Bragg Road with us! I call them "cheerleaders" because, at first, they talked to us as though we were celebrities, lol. It was a nice ego-boost. ;) It was also cool that these non-investigators were going with us because I would get to gage the investigator response to anything that happened against the lay-person response (for lack of a better way of describing it). In other words, when a door slams by itself in an abandoned asylum, normal folks run away, and investigators run toward the slamming door. So it would be cool, investigating Bragg Road for my first time, to have 2 different perspectives through which to view whatever we all experienced out there. (It's like 2 different sets of data gathered from the same experiment, or a scene in a movie shot from two different cameras at two different angles to the action.)
As it turned out, I ended up getting 2 shots at Bragg Road.
Phase 1:
It turns out that Bragg Road -- or "Ghost Road", as it is locally known -- is something of a hang-out on Saturday night. We spent several hours watching head lights make their way slowly down either side of the road. There were times when the lights, on either side, were so distant that the stretch of road we were on was really, really dark (except for the moon, which shone extremely bright with no street lamps or buildings around).
It was really cool, too! I got a kick out of walking up and down the road in the darkness, hearing something on the other side of the trees from time to time, imagining that I was going to catch a glimpse of Bigfoot disappearing deeper into the woods. (There were no reports of Sasquatch sightings, but a guy can hope, right?)
The heavy traffic during Phase 1 turned out to be quite useful. Car headlights and swamp gas (literally, swamp gas!) are two of the go-to debunk theories for the Bragg Road ghost light. The road lies between stretches of swamp, and the road lies between 2 stretches of highway. So seeing what headlights on the road looked like -- particularly as they looked when they were at the ends of the road -- was really informative.
So Phase 1 lasted a few hours, and really wasn't the slightest bit spooky, but was fun. And it gave me a nice sense of the road. A "feel" for it, if you will.
Phase 1 ended after a few hours of nothing happening and our guest investigators, having learned of a near-by cemetery and an old local legend about a hotel that burned down, decided they wanted to go explore (possibly) more fertile paranormal territory.
Jesse and I, and two of our guest investigators, spent quite some time wandering around intersection of Bragg Road and Old Bragg Road, looking for signs of at least a foundation where a hotel could be, even if it burned down decades ago.
No luck there.
We also swung by Sutton Cemetery for a peak. (You can't investigate Texas cemeteries after dark unless you have permission -- Texas cemeteries are off-limits to the public after sundown -- and we didn't have permission.
I believe it was around 1:00 am when we all got back to the hotel.
When we got back to the hotel, I stepped outside for a smoke, and reflected on the night. The whole day had been a lot of fun! It was very cool!
When I got back inside, I found that Jesse had been looking for me. Was I interested in going back to Bragg Road?
My response was something akin to "Hells yeah!"
Mike had work stuff he needed to do, so he and Stephanie stayed at the hotel. And Paula and John had investigated the site before, so I suspect that had something to do with their choice not to go back out tonight.
So the party for Phase 2 was Jesse, 3 of our guest investigators and myself.
The guest investigators, it turns out, BROUGHT FOOD, which they shared! :D Tasty sandwiches and muffins, and even brownies! :) So we ate a bite before heading back out to Bragg Road.
Paula let me borrow her car for the return trip... poor, silly woman. It's a stick-shift, and it's been years since I owned a stick-shift, but I didn't grind her gears too badly. ;P (I'm inserting this part of the story just to torment Paula, should she read this entry, lol.)
Phase 2 was when things got interesting...
Along the 8-mile stretch of road are approximately 4 niches where you can pull over and park or turn around. The road gets really rough at the north end of the road, and Paula's car rides low, so for this second trip, we intended to stay on the south half of Bragg Road. So we pulled into the first niche and parked.
The moon had disappeared now. All the traffic had cleared out, taking their Saturday night adventures elsewhere, apparently. So, as far as we could tell, it was only the 5 of us on Bragg Road now. The road was almost pitch black, except for the stars directly above us.
We started off walking north down the road.
We were, maybe, a quarter of a mile away from where we had parked when we saw a tiny pale-blue light down at the south end of the road, where we had entered it. The tiny blue light quickly split into 2 lights: headlights. A car was coming down the road toward us.
Bragg Road creates a sort of optical illusion -- things seem closer than they are. I speculate it's because we -- American, 21st Century human beings -- are simply not accustomed to looking at a straight road a mile or more longer. We've grown up seeing straight roads, but they never expand 8 miles! And it's 8 miles of trees, so there are no buildings or street lights to tell your brain "That's about 2 blocks away". The visual references we usually have are not provided here.
So -- thanks to all the traffic traveling up and down Bragg Road during Phase 1 of our investigation -- we knew it would be a long time before the car that had just entered the road would reach us.
Maybe 3 seconds had passed before we turned back toward the south end of the road and saw that the headlights had disappeared.
Well, that was odd, we all agreed.
There was nowhere the car could have turned into because there were no turns on the road, except for those 4 niches. Had they been traveling faster than most, and pulled in where we had parked Paula's car?
Jesse said, "Paula's car is locked, right?"
"Um... no." We were, as far as I could tell, alone on the road. I hadn't thought we needed to lock Paula's car.
So Jesse and I head back for the niche, flashlights pointed ahead of us. We weren't running, but we weren't strolling, either. Most likely, no one visiting the road this late was looking for trouble, and they hadn't been there long enough to make a thorough search of Paula's car, even if they...
Paula's car sat alone in the dark niche, unmolested.
There were no other vehicles in sight.
We shone out flashlights back down south, looking for evidence of the vehicle we had seen (we thought) pull onto Bragg Road. Some of the cars, earlier that night, would drive down the road with only their parking lights on. Since they we forced (because of the uneven dirt road) to travel so slowly, there was very little chance of a mishap. Others traveled with their lights off completely. Again, as long as they didn't drive off the road into the trees, it was unlikely there would be any trouble. Also, the trees lining either side of the road were so dense that it was impossible for a car to stray far. (They would have to pay to have the dent knocked out of their bumper, but that was about the worst likely to happen. There was no chance they were going off-roading from Bragg Road.)
But our flashlights didn't catch the glimmer of any vehicles on their way up the road.
That wasn't surprising, though, as out flashlight beams, while impressive, were not likely to reach half a mile, much less a mile down the dark road. But another thing we had learned from Phase 1 of the night was that you could trust your ears on Bragg Road. Even when a car was creeping up on us without its lights earlier in the evening, we could still hear the low rumble of its engine. Even when you can't see it, you can hear that there is a car somewhere around you.
But Bragg Road was silent, as well.
We discussed it, and the consensus was that the only logical possibility for a car to disappear was by backing out, only it would have taken the car longer to back out than the time it took for it to disappear. In all honesty, the car really couldn't have reached the niche in which we were now standing in the time it took for the lights to disappear.
It was a genuine mystery.
It wasn't anything like the reports we had heard of the Bragg Road Ghost Light, and we all agreed that the light looked like headlights.
Let's call this "Experience #1".
So, we decided to drive Paula's car north, to the next niche, and park there. This way, we could explore the road further north than we had been able to thus far tonight, or would be able to if we simply kept walking north from the previous niche.
Once again, we set out wandering northward.
I still hadn't seen the Headless Horseman or Bigfoot, but the walk continued to be cool.
One of the guest investigators, Donna, slowly became convinced she was seeing something up ahead. It looked to her like the orange "cherry" of a cigarette. Like, maybe, someone way down the road, standing there and smoking.
Or something.
She and I found ourselves walking a bit faster, unconsciously sort of racing to find out what it was that she could see and the rest of us could not.
But then Jesse made a point: If this thing were the ghost light or anything paranormal, we wouldn't be able to catch up with it, most likely. It would probably continue to recede further and further away, like the end of a rainbow. And if it were just a guy smoking, perhaps we didn't really want to catch up to him. He might want his privacy. there were a (very) few homes off the road (much farther down), and if it turned out to be a resident of Bragg Road, they might not appreciate a bunch of strangers pestering them at what now must be 3:00am. And if it were an optical illusion, then -- again, like the rainbow example -- there was a strong chance we would never catch up to it.
One thing that seems to prove true again and again is that paranormal phenomena doesn't seem to be "catch-able". If you chase it, you loose it. Every time. It seems -- not just from my very limited experience, but according to those who have years, and even decades, of experience in the field -- that if the paranormal wants you to experience it, it will present itself to you.
So Jesse, wisely, turned us all around to head back in the direction of the car.
We didn't talk much, so the profound darkness was joined by a creepy silence that you only experience when you're that far removed from the city.
As we walked, Donna, kept looking behind her. I did too for a bit. Since we were the only ones on the road, I could comfortably walk backward without worry of bumping into... well, anything, really.
We hadn't quite covered the (maybe) quarter mile to the car when we all saw a pale blue light, far in front of us, somewhere near the south entrance to Bragg Road.
We stopped and watched it.
It was a single light. This didn't look like car headlights.
The blue-white "ball" (for lack of a better description; we had no way of gauging how far in front of us it was) grew brighter, more intense, and turned yellow.
We murmured to each other that it was, indeed, a single light. This was not, as far as we could tell, the headlights from a car.
But still, we didn't have a clue how far away it was.
Then the bright yellow light became more intense, and green. It was sort of golden in the center, but the edges were clearly green. We all confirmed this to each other.
As the light grew more intense, I wondered it it was moving closer to us.
But it wasn't moving up or down, or sideways. It remained directly in the center of the road.
And then it was gone.
What the hell was that?
We ran to the car, hopped in, and drove as fast as we safely could toward the south entrance to the road. If it was a car, we wanted to be able to rule that possibility out.
It felt like it took us forever to get to the entrance!
The unfriendly road wouldn't allow us to move too fast, lest it vibrate Paula's poor car apart. Besides, if a car had decided to park in the middle of the road with its lights off, we could be right on top of it before we even saw it! (This had happened to Jesse and me during Phase 1, when we were on foot. A pickup truck, no less! Right there in front of us and we didn't see it until it turned on its lights and started up! Gave me quite a start.)
As we drove, I think I made a joke about who else was secretly hoping that the light appeared in front of us, passed into the car and just hung out with us for a few seconds. But that might have happened at some other time that night.
I was almost on the highway before I even realized we had exited Bragg Road. (Did I mention that there are no streetlights anywhere?)
I stopped, and we discussed what we had just witnessed.
The fact that we didn't pass -- or run into -- a car or truck meant that we had seen the ghost light, right? That was the reasoning of the guest investigators. It was reported to change colors and to simply disappear.
Jesse and I pointed out, though, that it was also reported to dart around the road (sometimes ducking into the trees), and be seen to disappear straight up into the air, or to the side. This light, as far as we could tell, remained perfectly still.
Besides this, I had a theory that might debunk what we had just seen...
The theory began as a way of explaining to myself how those headlights we had seen earlier might simply disappear the way they had.
If you look at a map of Bragg Road (like the one above (click on it to see the entire image)) you'll notice that Farm To Market Road 787 appears to head straight up into Bragg Road, then veers-off to form a sort of lower-case "y" shape. If it didn't veer off so swiftly, 787 would become Bragg Road.
Now, I know a little about the physicality of optics from my years making short films with my buddies -- as well as my study of special effects, my study of slight of hand and illusion, and my obsession with 3-D (even when you see 3-D naturally, with your naked eye, the perception of depth is still a sort of optical illusion, though a reliable one) -- and if my understanding is near accurate, here is what I believe we saw:
Experience #1 - Because of the darkness, the treeline and the distance from the south entrance to Bragg Road, we couldn't really know if the headlights we saw were on Bragg Road.
We might have seen a vehicle traveling up 787, but because it appeared to be between the treeline, it looked like it was on Bragg Road. Then when it veered west -- the way 787 does -- the trees blocked our view of the headlights and it, effectively, "disappeared" as far as we could tell.
Experience #2 - This is where my logic gets a little strained...
At first, the headlights in Experience #1 appeared to be a single light, either because the treeline blocked one of the headlights or because of the sheer distance from the entrance. Then the single pale-blue light seemed to split into two separate lights, revealing the source to be a vehicle.
For Experience #2, we were maybe a mile further from the entrance.
So is it possible that, at that distance, a pair of headlights might seem to our eyes as a single light? The light we perceive, at that point, is being forced through the treeline which, in effect, would be like forcing it through a cylinder of solid material.
Have you ever tried to shine a wide flashlight beam through a pinprick in a thick, black cloth? It looks like a star in the night sky. If you have a large enough light source and enough pinpricks, you can actually simulate a night sky. We did this back in theatre when I was a teenager. The effect isn't like you're getting a tiny sliver of the light radiating from the source, but as though all the radiance from the light source is forcing itself through that tiny hole.
The light seems to become brighter, rather than diminished. Focused.
So what about the color changes, though?
I can't explain this scientifically, but here's my theory: Assuming Experience #2 was a car, the headlights might have appeared blue-white when it was furthest away from us, and possibly traveling down a slight incline in the road. Then when the incline leveled out, the light became yellow and more intense. Then as the car got closer, that yellow light might have (and this is where my logic really strains) picked up the green from the leaves of the treeline that was focusing the beam of headlights into a single, intense ball of light for us.
That makes sense, right?
The explanation was really for Jesse's benefit, because our guest investigators weren't interested in debunking their cool experience.
After that, we headed back to the hotel because it was a little after 3:30am and we all had a long trip ahead of us in a few hours.
I rode back to Austin with Jesse in Stephanie and Mike's car (they live up north, closer to me, while Paula and John live WAY south). It was a fun trip! Even after a mere 4 or so hours of sleep, I didn't feel drowsy the whole way back!
So, just between you and me, here's my take on my Bragg Road experiences...
I don't really know how much water my "explaination" holds, scientifically. I don't know enough about optics to be able to even know where to start researching my theory to prove or disprove it.
Also, I don't know if the stretch of 787 just south of Bragg Road is long enough to allow a vehicle's headlights to do what I attempted to describe just now. I, stupidly and amateurishly, failed to note exactly how long Experience #2 lasted, and by now my memory is way-fuzzy.
I know that the light didn't move the way the light Paula saw moved. And the perfect stillness, centered-ness of the light we saw is more in line with my explanation. But I also have no idea how far ahead of us it was. If it were the Ghost Light and it were near the southern entrance to Bragg Road, might it not have been able to bob up and down, left and right and still appear, to us, to be standing still and centered? If it were that far away, might it not have been able to dart up into the sky, or sideways into the trees, without us seeing the tell-tale tracer of light that revealed which direction it went?
I'm not trying to make this paranormal, and I'm not trying to make it not-paranormal. I believe true skepticism questions both sides of an equation. I know zealot skeptics who will accept any explanation that points away from the paranormal, and I know zealot believers who will accept any explanation that points toward the paranormal. But as an investigator, I simply have to admit that I don't have enough data either way.
Still, I've got 2 interesting experiences under my belt! :D
Also, even though you're not supposed to enter cemeteries in Texas after dark, I might -- maybe -- have pulled out my digital audio recorder when we stopped by Sutton Cemetery and I might -- maybe -- have pressed Record, and so I might -- maybe -- have caught some voices that aren't supposed to be on the track I recorded. ;P
I still need to listen to it.
Tonight might be a good night to do that, huh?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
:D
Monday, October 19, 2009
AWESOME Birthday!!! :D
This has been a great weekend!!!
My weekend started with money in the bank -- a rare occasion for me, lol. I worked a couple extra days a couple weekends ago, which took care of ALL my bills (to date) and scored me a night of fine dining -- Pappa John's pizza for Brian & myself -- and scored me a couple of books!
First, I'm doing my shopping after work Friday morning, and I see that the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book is out! When I first heard about And Another Thing... I wasn't certain whether or not I would be reading it, since it's not by Douglas Adams. But I picked it up in the store and read the introduction, and I laughed out loud twice!
So I'm 192 pages into it (just finished Chapter 9 (of 12)).
Eoin Colfer is quite clever and whimsical!
The other book I picked up was Jason & Grant's second book about their adventures in The Atlantic Paranormal Society, which Brian is currently reading. (He, too, has been cramming his head full of paranormal research, but he paused all his reading to dive into Seeking Spirits, as I probably would have done, were I not working on H2G2, Book 6 of 3).
We also watched some Castle (Season 1) and the first disc of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And listened to some Spooky Southcoast and a few episodes of Paranormal Podcast.
AND...
I got past the place I was hung-up on in Level 6 of Tomb Raider: Underworld -- the second swinging roof-hammer in Valhalla -- and am now on Level 8!!! :D
I'm a bit stuck again, at the moment, though. I jump down the thing, kill the giant monster-guy, grab the gold brick, jump over to the little island thingy, climb the other thing, swing over to get the other gold brick, but then when I swing back to the one platform thingy I always overshoot and land in the toxic pool.
But that's okay!
I'm on the first part of the LAST LEVEL and I am not too terribly far from defeating Underworld!!! :D
Then, hopefully, the game will let me go back and re-play my favorite levels, like the previous games did.
Oh, and also, a lot of people posted some really sweet things to me on Facebook, which is cool!
Oh, and did I mention I'm really diggin' KISS's new album, Sonic Boom?!! They've got a couple of anthem-type songs that stand up to my all-time favorite KISS songs from any era! :D
So life is pretty groovy for Ray Jay!!! :D
OH! And check it out...
Last night/this morning, as I was winding down for bed, I did a tarot spread for the main character of one of the stories I'm working on, and it was FREAKY how informative it was!!! On the one hand, the reading provided me in-depth information about the character that was truly enlightening (which is what I expected), but on the other hand, the reading ACTUALLY CONFORMED to the fictitious fate I had already worked-out for my character! (Which I did not expect!) I'm talking about some specific aspects of the character's "life"! It was uncanny! I don't think even Carl Jung could explain what the hell's going on there, lol!
But it was very, very cool!
Okay, I really need to get back to work.
So PEACE!!! :D
My weekend started with money in the bank -- a rare occasion for me, lol. I worked a couple extra days a couple weekends ago, which took care of ALL my bills (to date) and scored me a night of fine dining -- Pappa John's pizza for Brian & myself -- and scored me a couple of books!
First, I'm doing my shopping after work Friday morning, and I see that the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book is out! When I first heard about And Another Thing... I wasn't certain whether or not I would be reading it, since it's not by Douglas Adams. But I picked it up in the store and read the introduction, and I laughed out loud twice!
So I'm 192 pages into it (just finished Chapter 9 (of 12)).
Eoin Colfer is quite clever and whimsical!
The other book I picked up was Jason & Grant's second book about their adventures in The Atlantic Paranormal Society, which Brian is currently reading. (He, too, has been cramming his head full of paranormal research, but he paused all his reading to dive into Seeking Spirits, as I probably would have done, were I not working on H2G2, Book 6 of 3).
We also watched some Castle (Season 1) and the first disc of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. And listened to some Spooky Southcoast and a few episodes of Paranormal Podcast.
AND...
I got past the place I was hung-up on in Level 6 of Tomb Raider: Underworld -- the second swinging roof-hammer in Valhalla -- and am now on Level 8!!! :D
I'm a bit stuck again, at the moment, though. I jump down the thing, kill the giant monster-guy, grab the gold brick, jump over to the little island thingy, climb the other thing, swing over to get the other gold brick, but then when I swing back to the one platform thingy I always overshoot and land in the toxic pool.
But that's okay!
I'm on the first part of the LAST LEVEL and I am not too terribly far from defeating Underworld!!! :D
Then, hopefully, the game will let me go back and re-play my favorite levels, like the previous games did.
Oh, and also, a lot of people posted some really sweet things to me on Facebook, which is cool!
Oh, and did I mention I'm really diggin' KISS's new album, Sonic Boom?!! They've got a couple of anthem-type songs that stand up to my all-time favorite KISS songs from any era! :D
So life is pretty groovy for Ray Jay!!! :D
OH! And check it out...
Last night/this morning, as I was winding down for bed, I did a tarot spread for the main character of one of the stories I'm working on, and it was FREAKY how informative it was!!! On the one hand, the reading provided me in-depth information about the character that was truly enlightening (which is what I expected), but on the other hand, the reading ACTUALLY CONFORMED to the fictitious fate I had already worked-out for my character! (Which I did not expect!) I'm talking about some specific aspects of the character's "life"! It was uncanny! I don't think even Carl Jung could explain what the hell's going on there, lol!
But it was very, very cool!
Okay, I really need to get back to work.
So PEACE!!! :D
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