The title is a joke. ;P I'm not really going to lecture about what I think the proper way to write a novel is, lol.
But I am going to bore you with what I'm up to at the moment...
Okay, so I had an combat outline for the novel I'm working on -- I call it a Combat Outline because Michael A. Stackpole used it (coined it, for all I know) in his podcast The Secrets and it sounded so much more exciting and cool than the boring term "outline", so I'm borrowing it indefinitely -- and it was just too "thin". There wasn't enough story. One of the reasons I'm writing this a a novel is because I've created this small town in Texas (two, actually) that I really want to revisit, and I figured that if I wrote the first story as a screenplay and sold it (which is, you know, what you want to do with screenplays) the production company that bought the screenplay would own the rights to the characters/situations/locations and would, legally, have a say in whether or not I get to write the continuing adventures of my characters.
So if I write a few novels in the series first, then I have a bit more creative control over my "intellectual property". (It's a disdainful term, created by lawyers, but it's a quicker way to communicate what I mean, lol.)
But, somehow, my combat outline was thin! My story didn't really feel like a full novel!
Mr. Stackpole -- who offers podcasts that are phenomenally nuts-and-bolts in a way that no How-To book I've ever read is; check out the The Secrets Special Edition 01 - 12!!! -- says that if you hit the "What happens next?" place while writing, you don't know enough about your characters. I knew I have plenty of stories about my characters in this fictional small Texas town... So why did my story feel so small?
If I couldn't pack this novel full of story/character goodness, then I didn't really have a series, much less a novel that anyone would want to buy.
So my fix...
I imagined the series as a TV series, I imagined the pilot (the "origin story", if you will) was already written, and I tried to come up with the "TV Guide logline" description of episodes 2 - 20. If I couldn't do this, then I knew I didn't have a series of novels, and may not actually have a single novel (that's worth reading, anyway).
Thankfully, I came up with episodes 2 - 22!!! :D I had more story than I even realized! :D I EASILY have a series of novels! And even a TV series, if I ever decide to pitch it, hee-hee!
But the GREAT part is that some of the character storylines that I came up with as the basis for an episode-long exploration of the character can be whittled down into mere scenes or sequences that enrich the novel as a whole, but -- more importantly -- reveal character in a much more interesting way than merely having the characters respond to the central dilemma of the book! :D
And tonight, I get to parse my 2 lists (Story fodder and Character fodder) and see what actually fits where! :D
Editing and rewriting is always much easier than creating from scratch! Always!
So I may have stumbled onto a novel way to create from scratch: Create more than you need, then edit it down into the final story.
I mean, you're still creating from scratch, but... it some how doesn't feel like it?
I know it doesn't make logical sense, but it kind of works, in practice. Go figure.
HEY...!
I need some advise...
I've started doing that Twitter-thang, and I so don't know the lingo!
If I'm "twitter-ing", what's that called? Am I, at that point, "tweeting"? I ask because I've seen twitter-ers refer to those of us reading their post as their "tweets". But can a twitter-er tweet to his or her tweets? Or does a twitter-er, say, twit to his/her tweets? And am I twitter-ing, or am I tweeting? Or am I twitting?
I'm no new to all of this.
Help a bra' out?
:D
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
I Have A Fan!!! :D
Well, okay, to be completely honest, my friend Kal and I have a fan, lol. ;P
First off, back story:
Back in 1999 (or 1998, maybe?) my friend Kal Ismail came to me with this idea he had been working on, off and on, for an independently produced TV series. We would shoot it with digital technology, which was just sort of emerging at the time. Digital cameras were able to shoot at 24 frames per second instead of the traditional 30 frames per second -- the difference meaning that the human eye perceives the movement recorded in a way that looks more like the way a film camera shoots, as opposed to the way a video camera shoots -- and the technology was being released in prosumer versions (which just means comparable quality to professional equipment, but priced for the "consumer" market, e.i. affordable for some "regular" folks).
The approach was BRILLIANT!!! Computers ran programs that could edit video and audio just as well as the professional AVID system that was quickly becoming the industry standard, and affordable gear -- mics, lighting setups, etc. -- had been affordable for independent filmmakers for years. The huge expenses had been camera rentals, film processing, editing suites and post-production facilities. Now the computer took care of editing and post-production, and video cameras were affordable enough to OWN, and didn't require film processing costs.
TV shows are always struggling with budget and time constraints, so a show that utilized the cutting-edge technology to cut production costs WAY DOWN was a superbly visionary idea!
(The idea was, in fact, several years before its time. If you doubt me, ask yourself why there are so many "Reality TV" programs on every station nowadays. What are they shot on? Video -- not film -- cameras. What are they edited with? The difference is that they cut out the price of hiring quality writers and talented actors. Any beginning writer knows -- or should know -- the basic elements of drama, and since Reality shows are improvised, the writers only have to come up with basic conflicts. And any actor who has spent half a semester in acting classes knows how to improv. So the producers don't need quality, they simply need enthusiasm. But Kal's idea was, as I said, ahead of its time. Hollywood is an industry that is slow to change. But Kal's idea was better, because you would be using unknown actors and writers, rather than unskilled ones. "Unknown" talent and "unskilled" talent get paid the same amount, but shooting documentary style has the advantage of being better for time: You don't have a director possibly going over on his shooting schedule because he's trying to get this one specific shot.)
Kal's concept for the series was also brilliant: 6 college students going to UT.
Austin, Texas -- as Hollywood now knows, but hadn't yet discovered back then -- is an AMAZING place! It's a very Liberal city in the midst of a very Conservative area, you have computer geniuses going to work in the same town as struggling musicians and lawyers (being the state capitol), so you have all these different types of people living together in this finite space!
And if you're looking at the college scene alone, you have every personality type you can imagine! You want militant lesbians? We've got 'em. You want fundamentalist Christians (or Mormons, or Baptists, or Atheists)? We've got 'em. You want ultra-conservative materialists? We've got those, too! You want hippies? Rastafarians? Yuppies? Stoners? Freaks? Geeks? Name a stereotypical young person and they live here!
The series was going to be a Coming Of Age piece, where formerly sheltered young adults had to deal with culture shock and being on their own, had to fit new ideas into old framework... It was kind of Felicity, but way-not. Because of the ensemble cast, this was more about culture than a single person's journey. You know?
And Kal came to me because (1) we are good friends, (2) we are both film flunkies who know and love film, and (3) I am all about the Writing! He's a director and a producer (in the TV sense of the word "producer" -- as in "someone who is all about story, as well as the technical logistics of capturing those story moments on film") and I'm a writer and a producer.
So Kal had a story he wanted to tell, and I helped him tell it. We worked on the script for hours and days and weeks at his apartment and at coffee shops, and it was a magnificent time for me! I hate writing alone, but I LOVE writing with a partner!!! :D I come from Community Theatre, where it's a bunch of unpaid artisans all pooling their many and varying talents to get a show in front of an audience! It doesn't matter if I'm working with 100 people or 1 person, when I'm collaborating, I'm in heaven! :D
The idea was this: We write and shoot the pilot, then Kal shops it around until we find a buyer. We already have, like, the first 6 episodes ready to script, and a really good idea for what the first 3 seasons will be.
So we shot the pilot, Kal edited it and made a DVD, then he went to Hollywood and shopped it, and then the project died.
But I got a copy of the DVD! :D It's really nice!!!
None of us made a cent off it, and Kal spent a great deal of money on it.
Classic film flunky failure, right?
Not so much!
First, film flunkies don't fail, ever, unless we give up. We learn something form every experience, and we ALWAYS have a great time!!! ;P (I'm serious: ALWAYS! We're like the Black Eyed Peas in that regard! If we're creating, we are HAVING A MOTHERFRAKKIN' BLAST!) So writing 40 Acres -- that's the name of the show, because it's another name for UT at Austin -- and producing it, then watching the finished project, taught us both A LOT about filmmaking. I went on to use a lot of what I learned with Kal when I was producing my friend Kelly's shorts, and then working with Tommy and Brian after that.
Secondly, it turns out that 9 years later, the pilot for 40 Acres actually moved some people!!!
THIS is the part that boggles my mind!!! :D
I mean, THAT'S WHY YOU TELL STORIES!!! You're not doing it for the paycheck (I have yet to see one, except for a couple of times that Kal bailed me out of financial jams during the production of the pilot, God bless his kindness!) and you're not doing it for the prestige (because until you reach a certain level of success, you don't get any prestige whatsoever). You tell stories because something about Life, about living, has moved you, and you want to share this insight with anyone who will listen and, hopefully, watch them moved by the experience you created.
And it's a natural, human thing to do. Something fucked-up happens to you on your way to work, you tell your co-workers about it! Something jacked-up happens to you at work, and you go home and tell your family/roommate/spouse about it! WE SHARE STORIES. That's the human condition. And it's a beautiful part of being human! It's one of the best things we do with each other while in this physical shell! :D I adore telling people stories and listening to the stories people tell me, because I learn from those stories -- both in the telling and, especially, in the listening.
Okay, so the stage is now thoroughly set.
Kal & I made a pilot for an indy TV show, it didn't sell, we went our separate ways creatively. (That is to say, our lives took us in separate directions for a while. There was never a falling out or a decrease in the level of love shared between us, lol. But when you're young, life does tend to pull you away from some of those who are important to you, and unite you with those who become equally important to you.)
Kal doesn't live in Austin now, but recently -- over the last few months -- I've gotten to see him more and more frequently. He'll call me at work and ask if he can stop by, and then we have these really great conversations while I do my work-thang. It's really cool! :D
So then this Sunday night/Monday morning he calls and asks if he can stop by, and says that he's got someone with him, a fan of 40 Acres. I laugh and respond with something like "Is there such a thing?!"
I mean, we screened 40 Acres at the downtown (original) Alamo Drafthouse and we've each shown our friends, and then that's the extent of it. It's a film flunky project: You pour your soul into it, show as many people as you can, and then it's part of your history. It's something that you've done. It's a project that helped shape who you are today, but everyone else (except for other film flunkies) sees a little movie that you made. I've showed my teenage daughter several such projects and her reaction has been a polite, "Cool," lol. Unless a project gets picked up and sees theatrical release of national air, a film flunky never really expects anyone to be genuinely impressed with work he's/she's done.
So Kal shows up at work on my "Friday" with this gorgeous and intelligent young woman named Rawan. And over the course of a very fun conversation, I discover that she actually, genuinely is a fan of 40 Acres!!! She frickin' LOVES this pilot! She has watched it 12 times, and has shown it to 8 others who also enjoyed it! She's got these amazing plans for making it viral and stuff!!! :D She wishes there were MORE!
I mention that she's intelligent because we're not talking about someone who simply enjoys a piece of fiction because Kal created it! It's not like a fan of a fanfic writer, lol. There was a point in the conversation where she and I are trying to describe Dollhouse to Kal, who hasn't seen it, and she's talking about the subtext, the thematic material (everything that's not on the page, but IS in between the lines of the writing, acting and directing of a show or movie or novel), stuff that I assumed only the writers of the show and I got, lol!!!
So when this woman says she appreciates 40 Acres, I feel very, very confident that she not only appreciates what we were showing and telling the audience, but what we were hoping the audience would figure out for themselves!!! :D In other words, she doesn't merely appreciate the overt stuff, she appreciates the implied stuff, as well!
AND THEN...
This is where my head wants to explode...
And THEN, I discover -- after Kal has taken her home and come back so he and I could discuss an in-progress project -- that she WANTED TO meet me, lol! Apparently, if I understand this correctly, Kal said he was going to meet with me and she discovered I was the co-writer of 40 Acres and decided she wanted to come along, lol!
Now, keep in mind a few key points here: Rawan isn't a fan of me because she just met me. The only work of mine that she's familiar with is 40 Acres, which is a collaboration. And as such, it's Kal's genius that I helped realize. So it's not like I'm saying I have a groupie, lol. ;P
However...
This woman is a fan of a work of fiction, and I am one of the people who helped create that work of fiction! It's like this: If I wrote a few episodes of Buffy, I would know that it's Joss Whedon's brilliance that people were responding so emotionally and passionately to. But imagine I wrote one of the episodes of Buffy that a fan of the show was moved by!!! HOW FRIGGIN' HUMBLING IS THAT?!! :D In essence, I did some work that someone really, really appreciated! :D
Something that I poured my soul into moved someone else!!!
THIS is what blows my mind. :)
And it was an amazing start to my weekend!
Since then, I have watched some more Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Brian, as well as Yes Man, Seven Pounds and Futurama: Bender's Game and Friday the 13th: Killer Cut. I also am a few more episodes into Invasion America -- which I'm REALLY, REALLY enjoying!!! It was better than I remembered it being, and that's always a pleasant surprise -- and watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on my iPod, and I also opened a Twitter account.
This weekend continues the slackin' and relaxin' theme of the month, and I'm lovin' it! :D
Things should start hopping soon, though. Texas Spirits has client investigations lined up for the next month solid, and I won't be able to make this coming weekend, but I'll be on the team for every one of the following investigations that I can. (Investigation is always time-consuming because you're not just doing the investigation, you're also reviewing the evidence from the investigation, which takes some 3 times longer than the investigation itself, lol. But it's WONDERFUL work to be doing!!!)
So I am thoroughly enjoying what I imagine may be my last weekend of slacking for a while.
I have Miss March on my iPod and plan to watch that soon, too.
But now the sun is thoroughly up, which means I should be thinking about sleep.
I hope you have the opportunity to feel appreciated in what you do! You deserve it, whether anyone acknowledges you or not, and you know that!
:D
First off, back story:
Back in 1999 (or 1998, maybe?) my friend Kal Ismail came to me with this idea he had been working on, off and on, for an independently produced TV series. We would shoot it with digital technology, which was just sort of emerging at the time. Digital cameras were able to shoot at 24 frames per second instead of the traditional 30 frames per second -- the difference meaning that the human eye perceives the movement recorded in a way that looks more like the way a film camera shoots, as opposed to the way a video camera shoots -- and the technology was being released in prosumer versions (which just means comparable quality to professional equipment, but priced for the "consumer" market, e.i. affordable for some "regular" folks).
The approach was BRILLIANT!!! Computers ran programs that could edit video and audio just as well as the professional AVID system that was quickly becoming the industry standard, and affordable gear -- mics, lighting setups, etc. -- had been affordable for independent filmmakers for years. The huge expenses had been camera rentals, film processing, editing suites and post-production facilities. Now the computer took care of editing and post-production, and video cameras were affordable enough to OWN, and didn't require film processing costs.
TV shows are always struggling with budget and time constraints, so a show that utilized the cutting-edge technology to cut production costs WAY DOWN was a superbly visionary idea!
(The idea was, in fact, several years before its time. If you doubt me, ask yourself why there are so many "Reality TV" programs on every station nowadays. What are they shot on? Video -- not film -- cameras. What are they edited with? The difference is that they cut out the price of hiring quality writers and talented actors. Any beginning writer knows -- or should know -- the basic elements of drama, and since Reality shows are improvised, the writers only have to come up with basic conflicts. And any actor who has spent half a semester in acting classes knows how to improv. So the producers don't need quality, they simply need enthusiasm. But Kal's idea was, as I said, ahead of its time. Hollywood is an industry that is slow to change. But Kal's idea was better, because you would be using unknown actors and writers, rather than unskilled ones. "Unknown" talent and "unskilled" talent get paid the same amount, but shooting documentary style has the advantage of being better for time: You don't have a director possibly going over on his shooting schedule because he's trying to get this one specific shot.)
Kal's concept for the series was also brilliant: 6 college students going to UT.
Austin, Texas -- as Hollywood now knows, but hadn't yet discovered back then -- is an AMAZING place! It's a very Liberal city in the midst of a very Conservative area, you have computer geniuses going to work in the same town as struggling musicians and lawyers (being the state capitol), so you have all these different types of people living together in this finite space!
And if you're looking at the college scene alone, you have every personality type you can imagine! You want militant lesbians? We've got 'em. You want fundamentalist Christians (or Mormons, or Baptists, or Atheists)? We've got 'em. You want ultra-conservative materialists? We've got those, too! You want hippies? Rastafarians? Yuppies? Stoners? Freaks? Geeks? Name a stereotypical young person and they live here!
The series was going to be a Coming Of Age piece, where formerly sheltered young adults had to deal with culture shock and being on their own, had to fit new ideas into old framework... It was kind of Felicity, but way-not. Because of the ensemble cast, this was more about culture than a single person's journey. You know?
And Kal came to me because (1) we are good friends, (2) we are both film flunkies who know and love film, and (3) I am all about the Writing! He's a director and a producer (in the TV sense of the word "producer" -- as in "someone who is all about story, as well as the technical logistics of capturing those story moments on film") and I'm a writer and a producer.
So Kal had a story he wanted to tell, and I helped him tell it. We worked on the script for hours and days and weeks at his apartment and at coffee shops, and it was a magnificent time for me! I hate writing alone, but I LOVE writing with a partner!!! :D I come from Community Theatre, where it's a bunch of unpaid artisans all pooling their many and varying talents to get a show in front of an audience! It doesn't matter if I'm working with 100 people or 1 person, when I'm collaborating, I'm in heaven! :D
The idea was this: We write and shoot the pilot, then Kal shops it around until we find a buyer. We already have, like, the first 6 episodes ready to script, and a really good idea for what the first 3 seasons will be.
So we shot the pilot, Kal edited it and made a DVD, then he went to Hollywood and shopped it, and then the project died.
But I got a copy of the DVD! :D It's really nice!!!
None of us made a cent off it, and Kal spent a great deal of money on it.
Classic film flunky failure, right?
Not so much!
First, film flunkies don't fail, ever, unless we give up. We learn something form every experience, and we ALWAYS have a great time!!! ;P (I'm serious: ALWAYS! We're like the Black Eyed Peas in that regard! If we're creating, we are HAVING A MOTHERFRAKKIN' BLAST!) So writing 40 Acres -- that's the name of the show, because it's another name for UT at Austin -- and producing it, then watching the finished project, taught us both A LOT about filmmaking. I went on to use a lot of what I learned with Kal when I was producing my friend Kelly's shorts, and then working with Tommy and Brian after that.
Secondly, it turns out that 9 years later, the pilot for 40 Acres actually moved some people!!!
THIS is the part that boggles my mind!!! :D
I mean, THAT'S WHY YOU TELL STORIES!!! You're not doing it for the paycheck (I have yet to see one, except for a couple of times that Kal bailed me out of financial jams during the production of the pilot, God bless his kindness!) and you're not doing it for the prestige (because until you reach a certain level of success, you don't get any prestige whatsoever). You tell stories because something about Life, about living, has moved you, and you want to share this insight with anyone who will listen and, hopefully, watch them moved by the experience you created.
And it's a natural, human thing to do. Something fucked-up happens to you on your way to work, you tell your co-workers about it! Something jacked-up happens to you at work, and you go home and tell your family/roommate/spouse about it! WE SHARE STORIES. That's the human condition. And it's a beautiful part of being human! It's one of the best things we do with each other while in this physical shell! :D I adore telling people stories and listening to the stories people tell me, because I learn from those stories -- both in the telling and, especially, in the listening.
Okay, so the stage is now thoroughly set.
Kal & I made a pilot for an indy TV show, it didn't sell, we went our separate ways creatively. (That is to say, our lives took us in separate directions for a while. There was never a falling out or a decrease in the level of love shared between us, lol. But when you're young, life does tend to pull you away from some of those who are important to you, and unite you with those who become equally important to you.)
Kal doesn't live in Austin now, but recently -- over the last few months -- I've gotten to see him more and more frequently. He'll call me at work and ask if he can stop by, and then we have these really great conversations while I do my work-thang. It's really cool! :D
So then this Sunday night/Monday morning he calls and asks if he can stop by, and says that he's got someone with him, a fan of 40 Acres. I laugh and respond with something like "Is there such a thing?!"
I mean, we screened 40 Acres at the downtown (original) Alamo Drafthouse and we've each shown our friends, and then that's the extent of it. It's a film flunky project: You pour your soul into it, show as many people as you can, and then it's part of your history. It's something that you've done. It's a project that helped shape who you are today, but everyone else (except for other film flunkies) sees a little movie that you made. I've showed my teenage daughter several such projects and her reaction has been a polite, "Cool," lol. Unless a project gets picked up and sees theatrical release of national air, a film flunky never really expects anyone to be genuinely impressed with work he's/she's done.
So Kal shows up at work on my "Friday" with this gorgeous and intelligent young woman named Rawan. And over the course of a very fun conversation, I discover that she actually, genuinely is a fan of 40 Acres!!! She frickin' LOVES this pilot! She has watched it 12 times, and has shown it to 8 others who also enjoyed it! She's got these amazing plans for making it viral and stuff!!! :D She wishes there were MORE!
I mention that she's intelligent because we're not talking about someone who simply enjoys a piece of fiction because Kal created it! It's not like a fan of a fanfic writer, lol. There was a point in the conversation where she and I are trying to describe Dollhouse to Kal, who hasn't seen it, and she's talking about the subtext, the thematic material (everything that's not on the page, but IS in between the lines of the writing, acting and directing of a show or movie or novel), stuff that I assumed only the writers of the show and I got, lol!!!
So when this woman says she appreciates 40 Acres, I feel very, very confident that she not only appreciates what we were showing and telling the audience, but what we were hoping the audience would figure out for themselves!!! :D In other words, she doesn't merely appreciate the overt stuff, she appreciates the implied stuff, as well!
AND THEN...
This is where my head wants to explode...
And THEN, I discover -- after Kal has taken her home and come back so he and I could discuss an in-progress project -- that she WANTED TO meet me, lol! Apparently, if I understand this correctly, Kal said he was going to meet with me and she discovered I was the co-writer of 40 Acres and decided she wanted to come along, lol!
Now, keep in mind a few key points here: Rawan isn't a fan of me because she just met me. The only work of mine that she's familiar with is 40 Acres, which is a collaboration. And as such, it's Kal's genius that I helped realize. So it's not like I'm saying I have a groupie, lol. ;P
However...
This woman is a fan of a work of fiction, and I am one of the people who helped create that work of fiction! It's like this: If I wrote a few episodes of Buffy, I would know that it's Joss Whedon's brilliance that people were responding so emotionally and passionately to. But imagine I wrote one of the episodes of Buffy that a fan of the show was moved by!!! HOW FRIGGIN' HUMBLING IS THAT?!! :D In essence, I did some work that someone really, really appreciated! :D
Something that I poured my soul into moved someone else!!!
THIS is what blows my mind. :)
And it was an amazing start to my weekend!
Since then, I have watched some more Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Brian, as well as Yes Man, Seven Pounds and Futurama: Bender's Game and Friday the 13th: Killer Cut. I also am a few more episodes into Invasion America -- which I'm REALLY, REALLY enjoying!!! It was better than I remembered it being, and that's always a pleasant surprise -- and watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans on my iPod, and I also opened a Twitter account.
This weekend continues the slackin' and relaxin' theme of the month, and I'm lovin' it! :D
Things should start hopping soon, though. Texas Spirits has client investigations lined up for the next month solid, and I won't be able to make this coming weekend, but I'll be on the team for every one of the following investigations that I can. (Investigation is always time-consuming because you're not just doing the investigation, you're also reviewing the evidence from the investigation, which takes some 3 times longer than the investigation itself, lol. But it's WONDERFUL work to be doing!!!)
So I am thoroughly enjoying what I imagine may be my last weekend of slacking for a while.
I have Miss March on my iPod and plan to watch that soon, too.
But now the sun is thoroughly up, which means I should be thinking about sleep.
I hope you have the opportunity to feel appreciated in what you do! You deserve it, whether anyone acknowledges you or not, and you know that!
:D
Thursday, June 11, 2009
THIS Is LIVING!!! :D
I have had the MOST RELAXING WEEKEND!!! :D
I mean, last weekend was relaxing, but this weekend was MORE than merely relaxing!!! I was able to engage in my favorite form of entertainment...
...well... one of them... ;P
I got to watch a ton of movies!
And I haven't come into any money recently. In fact, I'm so hard up for cash that I can't afford smoke. (I generally don't blog about smoking because it's a nasty habit and I don't encourage it. But, being an addict, I don't judge it, either, lol.) When I can't afford smokes, I am forced to resort to smoking pipe tobacco, which is, like, 500% cheaper. But it's, like, 50% less fulfilling to an cigarette addict, also. And tonight, I was rummaging around my room, thinking that months ago I remember putting a carton of smokes away when a pack fell out and disappeared somewhere. I remember thinking at the time that I could just leave it, in case I'm ever hard up. So I did.
And I have been hard-up all weekend.
So, like Bruce Willis's character in Last Boy Scout, I was thrilled to discover a stray pack of cigarettes!!!
Sad, but true. (Don't smoke, kids!)
But that also illustrates how sort of charmed my weekend has been!!!
It started out with a friend from high school inviting me to breakfast when I got off work Monday. Good breakfast, great conversation, and a really cool "Friday night" for me!
Then I woke up, strapped on by cyberspace interface and went to those seedy parts of the Net where you can get things without having money. I skanked a few movies (including Land of the Lost, which Brian was really excited to see!) and set up my iPod playlist for a day of unfettered film-flunky bliss!!! :D
I kicked-off by reading Issue #1 of Serinity: Better Days. If you're a Firefly fan, you know I was in heaven for the half an hour it took me to read it! (I'm saving the next 2 issues for later.)
Then I had me a Horror screening.
But I should set the scene a little...
When you're watching movies on an iPod, you're not really viewing the flick in the best circumstances. Movies are meant to be watched on a BIG screen, and the iPod (5th Generation) has a very, very small screen.
You can compensate somewhat with a badass sound setup. My li'l bro found this $20 or $30 setup with a serious bass speaker and 2 really good Left/Right speakers that plugs into a standard earphone jack. It's made by Creative, and it's worth 10 times what you'll pay for it. When I was watching movies in my room on my portable DVD player (which is, sadly, well deceased now) that great sound makes up for limited visuals. So since my portable DVD player died, I've been using the Creative speakers with my iPod to watch TV shows and movies.
But despite the amazing sound, you're still staring at this teeny, tiny screen.
So you create a mental atmosphere to turn a disadvantage into a bit of childish fun! :) I choose to imagine I live not-too-far from a drive-in movie theater. I imagine I can open my blinds, sit on my bed -- in the comfort of my room -- and see the image (tiny, because it's so far away from me) out my window. But I know the radio frequency for the screen that my window faces, so I can tune in my radio and get pristine sound! (If you haven't been to a drive-in theater in a decade or more, you might not know that when you buy your ticket you are also told what radio station your screen broadcasts on, so you can listen to the movie through your radio -- which is convenient if you go during the winter! No hassle with putting those old-school speakers in your car window when you'd rather have your window rolled up tightly!)
Now, I don't go too far with this little fantasy. I don't, like, possition my iPod right at the window and position my speakers next to where the radio is, or anything like that. It's just a minor mental device to get me in the right frame of mind.
Luckily, the drive-in theater gimmick works well for... um... lest's say "movies that you obtain in the backalleys of the Internet". ;) The sound on those flicks is actually reminiscent of the quality of audio you got back in the '70s with those old-school speakers I mentioned above. So instead of being annoyed by the poor sound quality, you can simply choose to enjoy the quaintness of this viewing experience.
So... spirit of child-like adventure in place, Monday I settled in to a minor Horror marathon. I watched The Unborn and followed it up with Dementia 13! It was fun! The Unborn surprised me a few times, and Dimentia 13 (a Cult of UHF podcast episode) was just as bad as I expected, and it was also much more interesting than I expected!!! :D
After that, I enjoyed a Comedy mini-marathon: Land of the Lost and Pink Panther 2. Both had me laughing out loud, so I would call that a win!
Then Tuesday I watched a Hayao Miyazaki classic, Castle in the Sky! IT WAS AWESOME!!! Although, if you've seen some Miyazaki, you know what a fun storyteller he is! :) From time to time, I get in an Anime mood, and I think the hot summer weather is doing that to me now. Miyazaki films feel like an event! They make you feel like you've just gone on this long, life-changing adventure! (The way summer movies are supposed to make you feel. At least, if you grew up in the '70s and '80s, lol.)
After Castle in the Sky I didn't feel like watching another movie -- why taint the experience with something that's bound to come up lacking by comparison?
So I listened to some OTR Horror. In particular, I listened to a couple of Arch Oboler episodes of Light Out and several episodes of a 1961 series Macabre. (If you're not familiar with OTR horror, follow those links to weeks and months of clever, free, wholesome Horror goodness!)
Then this morning (well... you know, this afternoon...), Wednesday. I woke up with a peculiar need.
Wanna hear about it?
It's not naughty, lol.
11 years ago, when The WB was still a fledgling network, they took a chance on what I thought was a BRILLIANT idea: Steven Spielberg and Harve Bennett produced this 13-chapter animated miniseries called Invasion America. (It was produced by Dreamworks' animation department, back before it became its own company, PDI.)
On Monday, June 8, 1998, the first 2 half-hour chapters aired in a single hour-long block. The WB promoted it like crazy, so when it finally aired, I was really excited to see it! :D Then the next night, Tuesday, June 9, 1998, The WB aired the next 2 installments in another hour-long block. Only, I didn't really get to watch these, for some reason I can't recall now.
Over the next 2 Tuesdays, Invasion America continued airing in 1-hour blocks, culminating in a 90-minute miniseries finale on Tuesday, July 7, 1998.
I don't remember the animation being all that amazing. And the story was compelling, but... you know... sort of disposable, as I recall.
But it had some heavy-weight stars doing the voice work, it was produced by the Close Encounters guy and the Star Trek (the movies, Khan through Final Frontier) guy, and it was Sci-Fi animation in Primetime!!! :D
A few years ago I bought a couple of $1-DVDs at Walmart (I had money back then) for this animated series I had never heard of called Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends that had a similar animation style to Invasion America, and had surprisingly good writing!
But I only got a few episodes into that series because it fired off this obsession to try to watch Invasion America again! (I own the DVDs; I'll watch them sometime.)
Back then, the closest I got was buying an out-of-print novelization of the first few episodes off Amazon.com.
But this morning...!!! This morning I stapped into my lightcycle and cruised thos questionable neighborhoods of Cyberspace AND I FOUND THE WHOLE MINISERIES!!! :D After converting it for my iPod, I can now sit down and watch all 13 episodes, beginning to end! :D
I don't know if I will get to tonight. The sun is going to start coming up soon, which means I need to get some sleep before my work week begins. But I'll bet I can put a decent-sized dent in the series before I hit the hay! :D
Oh, and while waiting for Invasion America to download, and then to convert, I enjoyed me another Horror-athon: The Happening and An American Haunting. I don't recommend either of them, but I love Netflix for allowing me to watch them for myself! :D
Next came another Comedy-athon: Mystery Science Theater 3000, experiment numbers K16: City on Fire and K17: Time of the Apes. (More questionably-gotten-gain, these are episodes from MST3K's VERY FIRST season, aired only on KTMA-TV in Minnesota and are only available via fan tapes recorded during their original airing and circulated via "Mysties" -- though Time of the Apes was rebroadcast and re-riff-ed in July, 1991 during the show's official 3rd season.)
I actually paused Time of the Apes to load Invasion America onto my iPod and write this blog entry. So I'll return to that now, and see how much Invasion America I can fit in before I crash.
By the way, if I've gotten your curiosity up, you can -- it turns out -- legitimately watch the whole series of Invasion America. (Had I figured this out earlier, I might have started off my day watching these online, lol. But it might not have been quite as interesting a blog entry.)
Something about summer... It means movies and Invasion America to me.
And this weekend has really felt like summer to me! Very groovy!!! :D
I hope you indulge some child-like summer impulses of your own!!!
:D
I mean, last weekend was relaxing, but this weekend was MORE than merely relaxing!!! I was able to engage in my favorite form of entertainment...
...well... one of them... ;P
I got to watch a ton of movies!
And I haven't come into any money recently. In fact, I'm so hard up for cash that I can't afford smoke. (I generally don't blog about smoking because it's a nasty habit and I don't encourage it. But, being an addict, I don't judge it, either, lol.) When I can't afford smokes, I am forced to resort to smoking pipe tobacco, which is, like, 500% cheaper. But it's, like, 50% less fulfilling to an cigarette addict, also. And tonight, I was rummaging around my room, thinking that months ago I remember putting a carton of smokes away when a pack fell out and disappeared somewhere. I remember thinking at the time that I could just leave it, in case I'm ever hard up. So I did.
And I have been hard-up all weekend.
So, like Bruce Willis's character in Last Boy Scout, I was thrilled to discover a stray pack of cigarettes!!!
Sad, but true. (Don't smoke, kids!)
But that also illustrates how sort of charmed my weekend has been!!!
It started out with a friend from high school inviting me to breakfast when I got off work Monday. Good breakfast, great conversation, and a really cool "Friday night" for me!
Then I woke up, strapped on by cyberspace interface and went to those seedy parts of the Net where you can get things without having money. I skanked a few movies (including Land of the Lost, which Brian was really excited to see!) and set up my iPod playlist for a day of unfettered film-flunky bliss!!! :D
I kicked-off by reading Issue #1 of Serinity: Better Days. If you're a Firefly fan, you know I was in heaven for the half an hour it took me to read it! (I'm saving the next 2 issues for later.)
Then I had me a Horror screening.
But I should set the scene a little...
When you're watching movies on an iPod, you're not really viewing the flick in the best circumstances. Movies are meant to be watched on a BIG screen, and the iPod (5th Generation) has a very, very small screen.
You can compensate somewhat with a badass sound setup. My li'l bro found this $20 or $30 setup with a serious bass speaker and 2 really good Left/Right speakers that plugs into a standard earphone jack. It's made by Creative, and it's worth 10 times what you'll pay for it. When I was watching movies in my room on my portable DVD player (which is, sadly, well deceased now) that great sound makes up for limited visuals. So since my portable DVD player died, I've been using the Creative speakers with my iPod to watch TV shows and movies.
But despite the amazing sound, you're still staring at this teeny, tiny screen.
So you create a mental atmosphere to turn a disadvantage into a bit of childish fun! :) I choose to imagine I live not-too-far from a drive-in movie theater. I imagine I can open my blinds, sit on my bed -- in the comfort of my room -- and see the image (tiny, because it's so far away from me) out my window. But I know the radio frequency for the screen that my window faces, so I can tune in my radio and get pristine sound! (If you haven't been to a drive-in theater in a decade or more, you might not know that when you buy your ticket you are also told what radio station your screen broadcasts on, so you can listen to the movie through your radio -- which is convenient if you go during the winter! No hassle with putting those old-school speakers in your car window when you'd rather have your window rolled up tightly!)
Now, I don't go too far with this little fantasy. I don't, like, possition my iPod right at the window and position my speakers next to where the radio is, or anything like that. It's just a minor mental device to get me in the right frame of mind.
Luckily, the drive-in theater gimmick works well for... um... lest's say "movies that you obtain in the backalleys of the Internet". ;) The sound on those flicks is actually reminiscent of the quality of audio you got back in the '70s with those old-school speakers I mentioned above. So instead of being annoyed by the poor sound quality, you can simply choose to enjoy the quaintness of this viewing experience.
So... spirit of child-like adventure in place, Monday I settled in to a minor Horror marathon. I watched The Unborn and followed it up with Dementia 13! It was fun! The Unborn surprised me a few times, and Dimentia 13 (a Cult of UHF podcast episode) was just as bad as I expected, and it was also much more interesting than I expected!!! :D
After that, I enjoyed a Comedy mini-marathon: Land of the Lost and Pink Panther 2. Both had me laughing out loud, so I would call that a win!
Then Tuesday I watched a Hayao Miyazaki classic, Castle in the Sky! IT WAS AWESOME!!! Although, if you've seen some Miyazaki, you know what a fun storyteller he is! :) From time to time, I get in an Anime mood, and I think the hot summer weather is doing that to me now. Miyazaki films feel like an event! They make you feel like you've just gone on this long, life-changing adventure! (The way summer movies are supposed to make you feel. At least, if you grew up in the '70s and '80s, lol.)
After Castle in the Sky I didn't feel like watching another movie -- why taint the experience with something that's bound to come up lacking by comparison?
So I listened to some OTR Horror. In particular, I listened to a couple of Arch Oboler episodes of Light Out and several episodes of a 1961 series Macabre. (If you're not familiar with OTR horror, follow those links to weeks and months of clever, free, wholesome Horror goodness!)
Then this morning (well... you know, this afternoon...), Wednesday. I woke up with a peculiar need.
Wanna hear about it?
It's not naughty, lol.
11 years ago, when The WB was still a fledgling network, they took a chance on what I thought was a BRILLIANT idea: Steven Spielberg and Harve Bennett produced this 13-chapter animated miniseries called Invasion America. (It was produced by Dreamworks' animation department, back before it became its own company, PDI.)
On Monday, June 8, 1998, the first 2 half-hour chapters aired in a single hour-long block. The WB promoted it like crazy, so when it finally aired, I was really excited to see it! :D Then the next night, Tuesday, June 9, 1998, The WB aired the next 2 installments in another hour-long block. Only, I didn't really get to watch these, for some reason I can't recall now.
Over the next 2 Tuesdays, Invasion America continued airing in 1-hour blocks, culminating in a 90-minute miniseries finale on Tuesday, July 7, 1998.
I don't remember the animation being all that amazing. And the story was compelling, but... you know... sort of disposable, as I recall.
But it had some heavy-weight stars doing the voice work, it was produced by the Close Encounters guy and the Star Trek (the movies, Khan through Final Frontier) guy, and it was Sci-Fi animation in Primetime!!! :D
A few years ago I bought a couple of $1-DVDs at Walmart (I had money back then) for this animated series I had never heard of called Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends that had a similar animation style to Invasion America, and had surprisingly good writing!
But I only got a few episodes into that series because it fired off this obsession to try to watch Invasion America again! (I own the DVDs; I'll watch them sometime.)
Back then, the closest I got was buying an out-of-print novelization of the first few episodes off Amazon.com.
But this morning...!!! This morning I stapped into my lightcycle and cruised thos questionable neighborhoods of Cyberspace AND I FOUND THE WHOLE MINISERIES!!! :D After converting it for my iPod, I can now sit down and watch all 13 episodes, beginning to end! :D
I don't know if I will get to tonight. The sun is going to start coming up soon, which means I need to get some sleep before my work week begins. But I'll bet I can put a decent-sized dent in the series before I hit the hay! :D
Oh, and while waiting for Invasion America to download, and then to convert, I enjoyed me another Horror-athon: The Happening and An American Haunting. I don't recommend either of them, but I love Netflix for allowing me to watch them for myself! :D
Next came another Comedy-athon: Mystery Science Theater 3000, experiment numbers K16: City on Fire and K17: Time of the Apes. (More questionably-gotten-gain, these are episodes from MST3K's VERY FIRST season, aired only on KTMA-TV in Minnesota and are only available via fan tapes recorded during their original airing and circulated via "Mysties" -- though Time of the Apes was rebroadcast and re-riff-ed in July, 1991 during the show's official 3rd season.)
I actually paused Time of the Apes to load Invasion America onto my iPod and write this blog entry. So I'll return to that now, and see how much Invasion America I can fit in before I crash.
By the way, if I've gotten your curiosity up, you can -- it turns out -- legitimately watch the whole series of Invasion America. (Had I figured this out earlier, I might have started off my day watching these online, lol. But it might not have been quite as interesting a blog entry.)
Something about summer... It means movies and Invasion America to me.
And this weekend has really felt like summer to me! Very groovy!!! :D
I hope you indulge some child-like summer impulses of your own!!!
:D
Saturday, June 06, 2009
The Energy Never Dies!!! :D
I'm supposed to be working now, but I had to drop in to say that THE BLACK EYED PEAS FRAKKIN' ROCK!!!
:D
I actually started paying attention to them back in 2004 (if I remember correctly) with either the song "Let's Get Retarded" (not the sanitized-for-folks-who-don't-have-a-sense-of-humor version "Let's Get It Started"!) OR "Where Is The Love". I don't recall which song really got my attention, but one of them did and I snagged a copy of Elephunk AND FELL IN LOVE!!!
These cats are AMAZING! The tone of their music is a perfect reflection of my life philosophy: Have fun, there's deep and important stuff out there and it should be a part of our everyday life, and we should be having ridiculous amounts of fun at the same time! I mean, on the same album they have the astoundingly fun, cool songs "Let's Get Retarded" and "Smells Like Funk", and then the cap the album off with astoundingly moving (and important, in my opinion) couplet of songs "Anxiety" and "Where Is The Love"!!!
THAT, my friends, is a DEEP-ASS ALBUM!!!
BEP music celebrates life in the most irreverent, jubilant way at the same time it strives to broaden human consciousness!!! And granted, there's plenty of music that seems to be trying to wake us up to important issues, but no one else (except, perhaps, System of a Down) can make you want to change the world at the same time they have you laughing and dancing yourself silly!
BEP is just the most metaphysical musical experience since church-camp sing-a-longs when I was a kid! :P
And they've done it AGAIN!!!
With The Energy Never Dies (or The E.N.D.) Black Eyed Peas have friggin' topped themselves!!! This may be the greatest badn EVER! I kid you not!
I'm trying to listen to the whole album, but I can't get past the first 5 songs, lol! I just keep jumping back to the beginning of the album and listening from the start again. In particular, "Boom Boom Pow", "Rock That Body", "Meet Me Halfway" and "I've Got A Feeling" may be the greatest songs ever written. I'm certain "Meet Me Halfway" and "I've Got A Feeling" are, for sure! Right up there with "Let's Get Retarded" and "Anxiety" and "The Apl Song"!
And I've just spent... well... let's say "too much time" just now reading about BEP's background and its members, and I still just can't get enough information. The music is so compelling, so important and yet so fun, that the individuals behind the music must be truly magical beings! I mean, it's one thing to be spiritually and intellectually enlightened, but to be enlightened AND be fun and irreverent?!! THAT is nearing Godhood!
Okay, I really, really should be working, so I'm signing off for now.
Check out the Peas yourself, when you have a couple of minutes!
:D
I actually started paying attention to them back in 2004 (if I remember correctly) with either the song "Let's Get Retarded" (not the sanitized-for-folks-who-don't-have-a-sense-of-humor version "Let's Get It Started"!) OR "Where Is The Love". I don't recall which song really got my attention, but one of them did and I snagged a copy of Elephunk AND FELL IN LOVE!!!
These cats are AMAZING! The tone of their music is a perfect reflection of my life philosophy: Have fun, there's deep and important stuff out there and it should be a part of our everyday life, and we should be having ridiculous amounts of fun at the same time! I mean, on the same album they have the astoundingly fun, cool songs "Let's Get Retarded" and "Smells Like Funk", and then the cap the album off with astoundingly moving (and important, in my opinion) couplet of songs "Anxiety" and "Where Is The Love"!!!
THAT, my friends, is a DEEP-ASS ALBUM!!!
BEP music celebrates life in the most irreverent, jubilant way at the same time it strives to broaden human consciousness!!! And granted, there's plenty of music that seems to be trying to wake us up to important issues, but no one else (except, perhaps, System of a Down) can make you want to change the world at the same time they have you laughing and dancing yourself silly!
BEP is just the most metaphysical musical experience since church-camp sing-a-longs when I was a kid! :P
And they've done it AGAIN!!!
With The Energy Never Dies (or The E.N.D.) Black Eyed Peas have friggin' topped themselves!!! This may be the greatest badn EVER! I kid you not!
I'm trying to listen to the whole album, but I can't get past the first 5 songs, lol! I just keep jumping back to the beginning of the album and listening from the start again. In particular, "Boom Boom Pow", "Rock That Body", "Meet Me Halfway" and "I've Got A Feeling" may be the greatest songs ever written. I'm certain "Meet Me Halfway" and "I've Got A Feeling" are, for sure! Right up there with "Let's Get Retarded" and "Anxiety" and "The Apl Song"!
And I've just spent... well... let's say "too much time" just now reading about BEP's background and its members, and I still just can't get enough information. The music is so compelling, so important and yet so fun, that the individuals behind the music must be truly magical beings! I mean, it's one thing to be spiritually and intellectually enlightened, but to be enlightened AND be fun and irreverent?!! THAT is nearing Godhood!
Okay, I really, really should be working, so I'm signing off for now.
Check out the Peas yourself, when you have a couple of minutes!
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