Finn's Wake

Captain's Log--Final Entry

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:44:26 GMT

Well, it was worth a shot.

I have found that as my day job creates unexpected hills and valleys for me, I tend to value my actual writing time all the more. This means, less time for updates and far more time for Getting Stuff Done. But I haven't completely unplugged. Like all of this social networking, it's just morphed into the Next New Thing.

I'm very happy using FaceBook to keep friends and family in the loop. Fair warning, though: I'm not using it to see how high my friends list can go. Unless you tell me you're a fan of my work, or that you want to keep up with my writing, I will not add you. I tried that with MySpace and it got away from me and now I hate it. So, if we know each other, and you have a FaceBook account, you can find me here http://www.facebook.com/#/finnswake?ref=name and I'll add you to one of my appropriate lists.

Very recently, I also started a Twitter account. I got one because it works with FaceBook for status updates, and I can pile on as many fans and other folks as needed without impinging on my friends and family. Sometimes I may want to send different messages, you know? Anyway, my Twitter name is @FinnsWake.

And finally, if you're interested in keeping up with my writing and thoughts on same, there IS a blog to which I have been contributing, although it's not as personal in nature. It's http://www.clockworkstorybook.blogspot.com/ and you can also keep up with the rest of Clockwork Storybook. We've recently expanded our ranks and the new authors are also weighing in.

And that's that. See you over there, folks!

Finn's Wake 2-14-09

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:55:19 GMT

My, my, what a busy year 2009 has been! I no sooner got my feet back under me than I was taking off in a couple of different directions. Let me ‘splain. No, there is no time. I sum up.

I started a project two years ago, a museum for Vernon-born trombonist Jack Teagarden, the undisputed King of the Blues Trombone and one of the best trombone players of all time, period. I was working with a man named Joe Showler, who has spent forty years amassing a collection of Jack Teagarden information that is singular and unique: 78 lps, press clippings, magazines, reel-to-reel tape, video interviews, discographies, you name it. Rare, scarce, private, and just plain jaw-dropping. Much of what Joe gathered went into a two-hour documentary he made. By diligently going through major newspapers and copying adverts, Joe figured out where Teagarden was for 80% of his professional career.

Yeah. It’s THAT kind of a collection.

Here are some links you need to check out. Seriously. If you are into big band or swing music, and you’ve never heard of Teagarden, and most importantly, if you’re a Texan, you need to stop what you’re doing and get caught up.

The Wiki Entry for Jack Teagarden

A fan's Teagarden site with lots of goodies (who knew Geocities was still around?)

A YouTube video that perfectly demonstrates Jack's technical ability and great singing style

Something for my Geek Brethren: "The Sliphorn King of Polaroo" An Early Walter Lanz Cartoon featuring Jack "Jackson" Teagarden

Well, Joe wanted to bring it to Vernon, settle down, and turn it into a museum. It was a good idea for us, because we could pay out on the collection over time, and have the benefit of Joe’s expertise as a curator of the museum. We needed a building and some start-up cash, but it wasn’t not-doable. Unfortunately, our talks broke down when we needed to focus on the theater to keep it running. That massaging effort lasted for most of last year, as well. It wasn’t until last Christmas that Cathy suggested I get back on the museum project.

I got back in touch with Joe. He was excited to hear from me. Yes, he was still interested, he said, but there was a hitch: he’d been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and was given six months to live. The news rocked me back on my heels, as you can well imagine. It also changed the shape of the deal significantly. Medical treatments for cancer being what they are, there was no way he could leave Canada and that free health care system. Also, with him unable to look past six months, economically, the deal to buy his collection would have to change. And change it did.

I scrambled to get a building earmarked for the theater, even as I started looking for a private institution that would donate two hundred thousand dollars. That’s what the project needs, give or take fifty thousand. On the one hand, for the kind of museum that I’m talking about, that would pull curious folks in from the highway, that’s a pittance. On the other hand, it’s a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS, JACK! There’s not a way to make that number sound small.

Well, I wasn’t going to let any of it phase me. In one months’ time, I secured a building; got the owner to agree to patch it up so that it would be habitable; and got a promise from the hotel/motel committee for $50 thousand bucks (provided, for example I can get another group to donate). So far, so good. However, Joe was nervous. He wanted us to go to Canada and examine the collection, first-hand. Also, we all knew that it would be better if we got a piece of paper, some kind of letter of intent, between us, to cement the deal.

My mother-in-law found some super-cheap tickets to Toronto, and so it became a family trip; me, Cathy, Pat and Diane, and youngest brother Mike. All of us with a stake in this enterprise, be it a seat on the board of directors of the museum, or putting up something of an in-kind donation, or both.

Toronto is an amazing city; equal parts New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, and also with its own unique touches. We were all smitten with it and made individual promises to go back when we had more time and just check it out in detail. But there are a few things to know about Canada before someone goes. I thought you’d like to know the top five things to be aware of before you get on the plane.

#1: Know your Metric System

Not just your miles to kilometers conversions, but all of it. It’s confusing. For example, in Canada, when they say “Full Size Rental Car,” you have to remember that it’s a metric value. In this case, it’s roughly two-thirds of the value of a regular car. What would comfortably seat six people in America will barely seat four. I had to dislocate my right arm in order to get in the car. Fun! Since there were five of us, the three people in the back were most profoundly uncomfortable as we traipsed hither and thither across unfamiliar streets and highways. This leads me to tip number two.

#2: Try not to Drive in Toronto. Ever.

Oh, it’s not because the cars are on the wrong side of the street; they aren’t. Everything seems normal, in fact. That’s when they get you. There are major thoroughfares in Toronto that everyone knows about, like, for instance, Google Maps. These streets would seem to be a logical way to travel quickly to a certain destination. However, once you get on these streets, it’s nearly bloody impossible to get OFF the streets. There are posted signs stating no left or right turns from 9 in the morning until 5 at night. So, if you were supposed to go left at that narrow street that looked more like an alley than an avenue and you miss that turn, you won’t be able to turn left again until, oh, say, Greenland. There is a bus and a train system in place for Toronto. I suggest you use it.

#3: Bring cash. A suitcase full.

You may not know this, but as of sometime last year, your debit card (you know, the one that’s got a VISA logo on it, that’s supposed to completely mimic a credit card in every respect?) will no longer work in Canada. The reason? “You know, that identity theft and pirate fraud and stuff like that.” That’s a quote from one of the ladies at my bank, who was sympathetic to our plight, but completely unwilling to overturn federal law and make it so that we could get our money. That said, the one dollar coins (named “loonies because of the picture of a loon on the back) and the two dollar coins (named “toonies” because the one dollar coins were named loonies) were a source of endless fascination with all of us. I brought mine back. Cheap souvenir!

#4: Moose? What moose?

When you think of Canada, does not the moose pop instantly into our brains? It really doesn’t matter to me that the beaver is the national animal, just as I doubt that the average Germanic tourist cares one fig that the mockingbird is the state bird of Texas. When they come to Texas, they want to see cows and horses. When I go to Canada, I want to see Mounties and mooses, not necessarily in that order. However, Toronto, being so far east, was ridiculously bereft of moose. Not on t-shirts, nor glasses, nor on tooks, or anything else like that. We even ate at a place called the Loose Moose, thinking, if anyone is going to have a moose on a shirt, it’s a faux biker bar called the Loose Moose, right? Wrong. So, unless you’re heading to Western Canada, keep that moose talk out of your dealings with the natives.

#5: Why, yes, you DO have an accent

Everywhere we went; restaurants, the tallest tower in Canada, you name it, I’d be talking to the folks and let it slip that I’m from Texas, and they’d all grin, nod their head, and say, “Oh, yeah, I figured that out (pronounced “oot”) already.” Everyone was helpful in spite of our linguistic crutches. Eventually, I stopped trying to fool them and started saying “Howdy.” No point in hiding it if they are already on to us. Thankfully, Canadians seem to like Texans. I suspect that shared culture of beer drinking.

Paying attention to these five points will, I believe, greatly enhance your Canadian experience.

We were all excited about seeing Joe Showler’s collection. We are all fans of Teagarden to various degrees. This was akin to being a Marvel Comics fan in the 1960s and getting to go over to Jack Kirby’s house. When we finally got there, we were greeted by Joe, out on the porch having a smoke. Now, I’ve only seen Joe on video tape before, so seeing him like this, thin and moving slow, was a shock. He was jaundiced and clearly not feeling well. But he lit up when he saw us, and we got to meet his friends, John (who operates the excellent JazzOracle website) and Bob (who helped with the making of the documentary and remembered Pat and Diane from their trips to Vernon). We all tucked in and made small talk, and when Joe felt up to it, we got to see the collection.

How can I describe it? Picture a bookcase, seven feet high, three feet wide, and then fill it with two inch black binders. In these black binders, place photographs of Jack Teagarden and the band until it’s full. Then put them in chronological order from 1905 to 1964, label each binder, and there’s five thousand photographs, right there. His book collection was an impressive thing, about 400 books, all out of print, all on Jazz and the early days of the movies. Films? Yeah, five hundred of them. Everything from a commercial print of “The Birth of the Blues” to private home movies of Jack and his family. Color slides. Lobby cards. Playbills. Scrapbooks. Ticket stubs. Ads. Trade notices. Magazines. If it was Teagarden or Teagarden-related, it was all here. Eventually, we went downstairs into the record room and they played some 78s for us. Warm, rich tones, great sound, and wow, some really rare cuts, too. As play dates go, it was one of the best. Joe was happy to talk Teagarden with us. He showed me a peek at his unpublished book, a 900+ page kitchen-sink of a thing that goes from birth to death in a straightforward style. Incredible.

We left, thinking that what we had seen was pretty much Joe’s life over four decades. How impressive a thing for someone to collect to the point that there’s hardly anything left? Considering how many collectors I know, I felt a real kinship and affection for Joe. I got what he was doing.

The next day, we came back and talked business. John was onhand, as was his sister, Barb, and we discussed the arrangement of transferring the collection, the payment terms, and so forth. It was a painless meeting, since we all wanted the same thing. Joe was really not feeling well, and aside from his enthusiasm, wasn’t able to contribute much. The doctor had been by and was going to send him in for another treatment the next day. Despite that, Teagarden talk kept us there past a reasonable time, and another friend was onhand, Steve, and we played more 78s and talked old movies for about an hour while Joe collected himself. My father-in-law, Pat, has known Showler for quite some time, and they spent some time together just talking about stuff. Everyone else was content to entertain us, or let us tell them about our plans for the museum. We left, all of us, on a high note. This would happen. It was a lot of money to raise in a short amount of time, but it had to be this way.

We flew out on Tuesday and dropped into Texas right in front of the tornado stormfront that pushed across that evening. Instead of driving back to Vernon, we spent the night in Richardson with in-laws. The next morning, we started back. The sun was shining, and we’d done what we needed to do in Canada. All was right with the world.

We were about two hours outside of Vernon when Steve Ray, our partner in the movie theater and also on the board of directors for the museum, called. He’d been the only one not able to make it, and I assumed he wanted an update. “Hey,” he said, “where are you?”

“Two hours out. Why?”

“I’ve got some bad news.”

“Oh,” I said. Steve’s father in law had been in and out of the hospital recently. I braced myself.

“I just heard from Kurt Nauck that Joe Showler passed away Tuesday night.”

It was a punch in the nose. The kind of hit where your eyes start to water. I didn’t have anything to say. Steve knew he’d punched me, and he apologized for it. There was nothing either of us could do. I hung up and told the car the bad news. We all drove quietly for a while. Honestly, as bad as he had looked, I really thought he’d be around for a few more months. Long enough to take a trip down and see what our progress on the building was. Hell, I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t expect that.

John called me that night. After we commiserated for a minute, I apologized for not getting something going sooner. He told me he thought that Joe specifically hung on long enough for us to get our meeting done. Then, when he felt that he had his life’s work taken care of, he could let go.

Ironically, I had been talking to Weldon Adams about the project the night before. One of the great gifts that I got from my friendship with Weldon was a stronger moral center. Weldon is a very morally and ethically strong person, and I’ve tried to be more like him for that. When I first took on this project (yeah, like I know how to run a museum), I didn’t do it because I wanted to make money. I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a museum curator. I did it because it just seemed like the right thing to do. Joe wanted the collection to have a permanent home in Vernon. Frankly, that much Jack Teagarden stuff didn’t belong anywhere else.

Now I feel as though I’ve made a deathbed promise. Joe was willing to trust us with his life’s work. Now all I’ve got to do is get it here.

Those of you who are still interested in knowing some specifics, I need to raise $160,000—half of the collection’s worth, up front, in order to take possession of it, by June 30^th. The balance is due over the next six years. Packing and shipping of the archive is estimated at $15,000. So, I’m looking for $175,000 from private foundations in the area who support the arts, museums, and education and preservation of Texas history. Is it daunting? Yep. But I have to try. We’ve applied for 501c3 status, and we’ll get it with no problems, but that won’t be conferred until probably 5-6 months from now. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking. If any of you out there have suggestions, I’d love to hear them. Thanks for reading. Sorry about the length, but this just can’t be summed up in the “what are you doing now” box on FaceBook.

Mark

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Mark Finn is the creative director for the Violet Crown Radio Players and an award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar. His latest book, Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, is available at bookstores everywhere. To get the latest info, rants, and missives from Finn, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/finnswake.

Finn’s Blog is here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Or check out : http://www.thecimmerian.com

http://www.clockworkstorybook.net

http://www.revolutionsf.com

#1: Know your Metric System

#2: Try not to Drive in Toronto. Ever.

#3: Bring cash. A suitcase full.

#4: Moose? What moose?

#5: Why, yes, you DO have an accent

Paying attention to these five points will, I believe, greatly enhance your Canadian experience.

A Cavalcade of Failures

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:41:18 GMT

I don't even know where to begin.

My personal computer is dead. And I won't be able to get it fixed until AFTER Christmas. Don't know if I will be able to recover all of my files, don't know much of anything, really. But the hard drive is (I think) damaged, rendering most of the computer corrupt and inoperable.

We have worked so hard these last few weeks doing special shows and other things that I have made myself sick. Not eating right, or often enough, and very little sleep is EXACTLY what I used to do in Christmas Retail and sure enough, I did it here, too. Here, where I'm supposed to be taking it easy.

This whole month has felt like an epic struggle. I'm taking off on Monday and won't come back until Friday. The break will do me some good. We're also going to take it easy in January, get a little breather, there. But I can't keep this up. Me and Cathy have got to get healthy and stay healthy if we're going to see our long term plans come to fruition.

Going to bed, now. I've got a date with Nyquil. Tell everyone that I like I said "Merry Christmas."

Just got my third wind

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 02:37:03 GMT

Today was the big annual (for three years now) Christmas Parade in Vernon. The theme was "Christmas on the Western Trail," something that the developers in town are trying very hard to push as an identity for the town. So, we got a number of vintage cars, pick-ups, and tractors bedecked with lights and tinsel as well as some flatbed trailers and in a few cases, really great decorating jobs.

Cathy wants to do a float for the theater next year, with the theme of "A Christmas Story." I volunteered to be one of the Bumpus's hounds. This suggestion did not go over well. I was only trying to be helpful.

After the late excursion to Elezabeth's 21st birthday party (and boy, a thirty-nine year old amid a sea of twentysomethings is only made less pathetic by the fact that my wife was with me and it was a family event), and the early morning wake-up call to participate in the town's SHOP TIL YOU DROP promotion (and getting ZERO customers for the duration), I'm ready to call it a night. Too bad there's still another set of shows to run. I'm counting the days until I can bolt for Sweetwater and the family Christmas gathering. I'm looking forward to the recharge.

Facebook continues to delight and frustrate in equal amounts. I'm really enjoying the re-connection process, but I'm getting a little tired of all the E-Bric-a-brac that you can send people. Well, except for the Star Wars figures. And the pulp covers. And the pulp heroes. Those are cool. Maybe it's the Hello-Kitty-Cutsie-Crap that I don't want. I am a man. Well, a man-boy, but still...

I'm too old for this shite...

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:15:15 GMT

My niece, Elezabeth, on Cathy's side of the family, is 21 today. She's been planning her soiree for some time now, and it involves tents, a bonfire, jello-shots, and who all knows what else. She's been living with us in Vernon, and she has been invaluable in helping us run the theater. Oh, she also looks like a cross between Angelina Jolie and Rose McGowan. Yeah. Seriously.

She's from Dallas, has straight Wednesday Addams style hair, tattoos, and a lip ring. In Vernon, she couldn't be more exotic if she were a mermaid. I have been sharpening sticks to keep the local metal heads away, but it's no use. She now has all of them wrapped around her finger (and she is casually merciless about her Queen Bee status, to boot). All of the local boys turn into fatheads whenever she's around. As soon as she leaves their air space, they start punching each other on the arm and calling each other "fag" and "queer." It's very Napoleon Dynamite-ish.

I am proud of how she's matured over the last few years. Cathy is very close to her and also very protective, so it's been nice having, for all intents and purposes, a grown-up teenager in the house. Weird, too, because we don't have a disciplinary kind of relationship with her. We're the "cool" aunt and uncle because we don't come down on her when she gets new ink. She wants to eventually travel and live in Seattle, because of the coffee. We're trying to dole out the life skills one at a time, so as not to overwhelm her. I never thought I'd feel this way, but it's a lot of fun having her around.

Do you ever look at your life and shake your head and go, "Wow, I would never have guessed that I'd be HERE at this particular time in my life?"

Since a guantlet has been laid, so to speak...

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:18:54 GMT

Okay, here comes some short and sweet blather:

In the midst of a skull-splitting sinus headache, I watched A Christmas Story tonight and do you know what? That movie holds up. It's one of the coolest idylls ever put together, moreso because it is a patchwork of bits and pieces from Jean Shephard's brilliant articles and essays. His voice-over narration in the movie is the thing that really puts it over the top and turns the movie into art. It hits on so many truths and to me is a far more authentic picture of childhood than we've seen in a long time.

It also shows The Wonder Years up for the Punk-Upstarts that they always were. Peter Billingsly could kick Fred Savage's ass. He'd go down just like Scott Farkus.

Watching the movie helped me get over the lump in my throat. My brother-in-law's other dog, Nico, passed away today. He rescued the animal from an uncaring owner who was starving the animal. Mike did what he could to nurse the dog back to health, and for several months, the dog was happy and content and was well on his way to being socialized and trained. He was an argentinian dogo, or Argentenian Mastiff. They are commonly mistaken for Pit Bulls, but they are beautiful, loyal hunting dogs. Nico was kid-friendly and loved to play. For all of his intimidating bark and bluster, as soon as you walked up to him and he got a sniff of your hand, he turned into a big grinning idiot. Sweetheart of a dog. The breed used to hunt jaguars. This guy was made sick by a half-simple redneck, and despite many trips to the vet, never got better. I really liked that dog. He was a big sweetie.

An Update of Sorts

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:48:38 GMT

Something of an Update

I have given up on the possibility of ever getting this thing back on schedule again—apparently, even once a month taxes my faculties to their utmost. The truth is, some months, I’ve got nothing to report that doesn’t have anything to do with fixing projectors and popping popcorn. Maybe this is of some interest to you guys, but trust me, it gets old really quick.

Nevertheless, some things have been happening. I’ve been writing, and sending stories out, and collaborating with no fewer than three people now on various projects, and I’ve even been co-editing a fiction collection with a fellow Robert E. Howard-Head named Chris Gruber. We’re putting together a benefit book, the proceeds of which will go straight to the Robert E. Howard House for upkeep and other necessary repairs and improvements.

Most recently, I’ve been podcasting over at RevolutionSF.com. You can click on the audio tab and listen to our amateur efforts. Fair warning, though: it’s Geek-Talk. Listen at your own risk. Skype is a marvelous thing, I tell you what.

Living in a Small Town

I continue to adjust to this, and it’s hard, really hard sometimes, to bite my tongue or hold back large pieces of my personality, in the interest of “fitting in.” Sometimes, though, it pays off: I’ve been elected to serve on the board of directors for the Vernon Chamber of Commerce. What does this mean? Not sure, really, but I’m GONNA use it to try and push through a couple of campaigns aimed at the consumers and the retailers here in town.

It’s been suggested by many old friends who have known me for more than a decade that this is as “grown up” as they have ever seen me, and I think I would agree with that. Instead of insisting that I be accepted, Hulk T-shirt and all, I’m channeling those pushed back parts of my personality into becoming a community advocate for downtown revitalization. Of course, I know that my real motive for doing all of this is so that me and my wife can own a number of successful businesses in town—including a book store. See, it all gets back to doing what you love.

I like living here. It’s got its drawbacks, to be sure. But nowhere else could I become so politically involved so fast and be able to make changes that can be seen and felt by all. My voice (and Cathy’s voice) can be heard. That’s very attractive to me. However, there are some quirks that come from small town lifestyles in Texas and I find them slowly overtaking me.

For example, no one says “I went to Wal-Mart today.” They say, “I went to the Wal-Mart.” Everything is singular and emphatic. After all, there’s only one Wal-Mart. Why be vague and confusing? You went to the Wal-Mart. This applies to any business, from fast food (the McDonalds) to state institutions (the T.Y.C.). It’s a tiny verbal crutch, so insignificant that I dare not try to correct it, lest I be accused of putting on airs.

Something else has happened to me; nomenclaturally speaking, I’ve gone back to the Middle Ages, when a man’s profession was part of his name, e.g. John the Baker or Roger the Shrubber. I am now known as “Mark at the Plaza.” It’s okay, I suppose, because we’ve got “Jimmy at the Paper” and “Jerry Lou at the hardware store” and even “Jeff at the Sherriff’s department.” This is apparently necessary, since there could be more than one Jeff and Jimmy in town. Why, I know two women with the exact same first and last name (who aren’t related, by the way) and I have to constantly say “Sue Ann at the bank” or “Sue Ann the realtor” to differentiate them. Personally, I’d rather be known as Mark OF the Plaza, or Mark du Plaza, but that’s just not going to happen because that would be French and just what do you have against Freedom, anyway?

I’m Starting to Hate the Internets

This is ironic that I’m complaining about the very mechanism that allows me to do it; not quite as ironic as Wired Magazines’ 15^th annual “print is dead” issue, but close. I really don’t know what the purpose of the Internet is anymore. I know that, ostensibly, it allows for a fast and seamless exchange of information to large groups of people for a number of reasons. But I wonder: is any of the information any good?

Take Wikipedia, for example. It seems like such a great idea; a community-created encyclopedia that can be updated instantly by as many experts as care to do so. Furthermore, since it’s open ended, it would have entries that could conceivably be more relevant because of their immediacy. Great model. But the problem is, you can’t create or edit an entry nilly-willy, because there are people who fact-check you, and in some cases, flat-out undo what you change if they don’t agree with it. Some folks have taken to guarding certain entries against vandalism or well-meaning people, because they constantly include biased information, speculation, or things irrelevant to the topic at hand. Allegedly. Other folks just like messing with the online experiment. Even if you don’t have a watchdog on, say, an entry for a particular author. How, then, can you be sure you’re getting accurate information?

You can’t. The Internet is anonymous and in being so, invites everyone to wallow in their id. No reprisals means that the most common, most base behavior is routine, and in fact, many people go online for the specific intent to disrupt and cause mayhem. Anyone can post anything, and it doesn’t have to be true for it to resonate to other people. In fact, I think it does more harm when there’s a mass of inaccurate information at our fingertips that we, by default, merely skim (because no one save for Generation Y likes to read from their computer screen). I think this mass of badly organized, badly written, wrong-headed bunch of opinions is actually making us dumber.

Granted, I am still participating in social networking—right now, on FaceBook, though I still prefer the book-nerdery that is GoodReads. But these social networks are out to make a buck just like everyone else. Pop-up ads, banners that flash like an epileptic’s nightmare, and all the rest of it is just another head on the media hydra that needs me to consume like a Conehead.

So, what’s the answer? I don’t know. I still enjoy reading my friend’s blogs. I appreciate the daily effort that goes into it. I like re-connecting with old friends. By necessity, I do my geek shopping online, since I have no other close alternative. What’s my problem? I think it’s because, prior to leaving Austin, I didn’t have to rely on the Interwebs so much. I got daily stimuli from my friends and colleagues, so there was no need to hit the message boards to find out information about stuff that mattered to me. And the message boards...

Talk about a level playing field. You don’t have the luxury of only talking to people in your peer group, nosiree. You get the leet-speeking youth, the curmudgeonly older folks, the potheads, the overly-sensitive people that take great offense to, well, everything, and the hard talking, hard typing hardcore people with cynicism, sarcasm, and little smiley face emotes to let you know when you’ve been told off. There isn’t a thread online that isn’t going to spin out of control at some point or another and turn into a slap fight. It’s inevitable. And for what?

Is winning a fight online even a fight? Can you savor a virtual victory? Do you get more hit points? I don’t know, either. All I know is this: Right now, someone is typing something, badly, and wrong, about something that I care about, in a blog or on their website or on a publically-accessible message board. Whether or not I engage this chucklehead is proportionate to the bad and wrong with how much I care. Meaning, if someone mislabels an episode of Star Trek, I probably won’t notice, but if they botch a detail of Robert E. Howard’s biography, my wrath will know no bounds. I suppose in the end, we’ll have to take the good with the bad.

Merry Christmas, everyone! May all of your fruitcakes be rum-soaked!

An Overdue (and Undercooked) Update

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:35:47 GMT

Lots of pots on the old stove, as they say. I’m working hard at the theater and when I’m not doing that, I’m writing stuff! Yeah, as in, stuff to read. Like, I mean fiction and things. I know, it’s been a long while, and I’m overdue. I’m trying to balance that out with some non-fiction I’m working on; some essays, an introduction or two, a radio script (hello!) and a book review. But I have to tell you, I’m having a lot of fun writing the made-up stuff. It’s been grand to stretch those muscles out and give them a whirl.

August was a busy month. On the Robert E. Howard front, a discussion-turned-argument became an all-out slapfight, and I was right in the middle of it. One of the perennial debates in Howard Studies was the role and importance of L. Sprague de Camp in popularizing Conan and making him a household name. When it came up again, for the umpteenth time, it spilled over into two different yahoo groups and prompted one of scholars to throw up a series of articles on the REHupa blog called The de Camp Controversy. This led to a comment thread at Conan.com of the same name ...and with it came a continuation of the fight from the yahoo groups.

Well, I was right there in the thick of it, and I contributed a blog post on the REHupa site, and I was prepared to let it play out on its own. Then I got wind of the upcoming Underwood Miller book, “And Their Memory Was a Bitter Tree.” Specifically, I got to see excerpts from the intro by Arnie Fenner. And I ended up writing a fatwa to him, and this started a nice little slap fight all by itself. Fenner actually replied to me, and I was challenged by another de Camp defender, and it all played out in cyberspace like these things tend to do. The only good thing about blogs is that he who writes them gets the final word. You can read additional replies from Fenner and comments from the fans here, too. In the end, I feel like claiming the victory for my side, even as the book will come out, no doubt, with the introduction intact.

You might ask me why on Earth I would bother? Why on Earth I would care about something that seems so insignificant. Why make a stink, throw punches, and create a to-do about something like this? Well, aside from the reasons stated in my blog entries (which are, I feel, pretty valid), and aside from the notion that Howard was a Texas writer—THE most popular Texas writer if we look at the combined total sales of Conan through the years—and as such, he deserves better, there’s an answer that has everything to do with Howard being my raison d’être as a writer.

See, when I found REH—Conan, at that—I was twelve years old, angry at the world, and trying to figure myself out. Between the voice changing, the divorce and remarrying of both my parents, and the sudden surge of hostility (testosterone, ladies), I was lost. But when I found these stories that this guy had written, there was something about the way in which they were written that made me pay attention to them. The writing, I mean. Yes, I was taken to other places by the writing. But I was also able to step back, or at least I tried to, and look at how he put those words together so that they would snap and crackle in your brain. I read them aloud, trying to unlock the secret of the magic trick. I started writing, trying to duplicate the tricks, even as I didn’t fully understand how they worked.

In the re-reading of Conan through my teen-age years (and also in finding Howard’s other characters, like Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane), I came to some truths about the world. Some of those truths were cynical in nature: not everyone gets to be the hero, even if they think they are. After all of this time, I honestly don’t know if I have a dark streak in me and that’s what I like about Robert E. Howard, or I have a dark streak in me because I read Robert E. Howard. It’s a knot I can’t really undo.

But in all of that philosophical inquiry, and that sifting through sentences to find the gems that shine long after you’ve closed the book, and in digging up all of this information about REH and thinking about how he lived in the time and place that he lived, I found that I had put him in front of me like a carrot. Howard’s work is, to me, a kind of gold standard. It’s a measuring stick by which I can examine my own progress as a writer. I’ve read most of Howard’s stories and a decent chunk of his poems, and I always read them twice. Once for the sheer joy of being taken on a ride, and once to see how that ride was accomplished.

This is something that all writers do, I think. We take writing apart and examine it and try to understand how and why someone used the word that they did. Sometimes we try to imagine how someone could have written such a thing. Other times, we think we’ll never be as good as the sentence we’re marveling over. Most of the time, we’re trying to strip-mine the writing to extract whatever usable resources we can. But Howard doesn’t give up his gold so easily. Oh, we can see it, sure, but taking it for our selves, that’s another story.

Howard was a ferociously clever writer; he was crafty, inventive, a proficient bullshitter, and the best kind of mercenary wordsmith. He seldom gilded his lilies, used only the words he needed to use, and did so with a surgeon’s precision. What’s more, he did it intuitively, off the cuff, and frequently on the fly. Not all of his stories were written that way. Some took him multiple drafts. Sometimes, he stopped in the middle of a story, having lost the muse. Other times, he finished a tale in a single draft, and it was perfect. It was an artistic way to do things, even as he himself examined his markets and tried to create stories that would sell to them. This is how we got Conan, by the way, and in some ways, it was his best and worst work all at the same time.

All of that aside, I have found over the years that I have increasingly low tolerance for the people (and there are a shitload of them) who make a habit of repeating what they have heard, rather than talking about what they know. While I can’t fix this in everyone, I can do my level best to correct it regarding Robert E. Howard. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t mad with genius. He didn’t have an “unnaturally close” relationship with his mother. And none of the above means shit for shinola regarding his writing. His body of work, all of it, the funny stuff and the serious stuff, the humor and the horror, the realistic and the fantastic—all of it—was a part of Howard. Not his mother, not his father (especially not his father), not his situation, none of it. He was fiercely individualistic about himself, and for a man who had little control over his personal situation, he kept a tight grip on his writing career.

So when people like de Camp, Fenner, and all of the others, start talking about Howard like they know what made him tick—when in fact, they know less than that, since they have not examined closely the substance of his life or his art, it makes me want to punch something. It’s frustrating that most people are informed about Howard by a guy who was as far removed from Robert E. Howard himself in temperament and personality as Bozo the Clown was to William S. Burroughs. It’s retarded (not lame, but rather, slow and backwards) to think that de Camp’s insights, such as they were, had any basis in fact, since he got most of his information from the town gossip.

Bear in mind that I’m not saying I’m the only person who “gets” Howard, or that I’m the only one qualified to speak about him, but I know this much: the people who call Conan an overgrown juvenile delinquent haven’t read Conan at all, or if they have, it was a skim rather than a read. I know that the people who judge Howard the man by the twenty one Conan stories he wrote (not even one tenth of his total fiction output) might as well judge Ambrose Bierce by the story “An Occurrence At Owl Creek” and nothing else, which makes absolutely no sense, either. And I know that no one wants to discuss the real flaws in Howard, nor the real tragedies in his life, because they aren’t as sensational as the town gossip. I know well the “Liberty Valence” sentiment that states, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The people that do that to Howard do more harm than good. I’m not asking anyone to see what I see; I’m just asking people to see for themselves.

I’m almost 38 years old now, and that number doesn’t seem so terrible until I realize that I’m eight years older than Howard ever was, and that he had written a lifetime’s worth of stories and poems in just twelve short years. At this point in my career, I’ve inextricably tied myself to Howard as someone who knows something about him, and can speak with some authority about him and his work. So, I will continue to defend Howard in print, for the simple reason that he can’t do it himself. My goal will be for him to one day be recognized for the genius he was, with no conditional qualifiers attached.

The Gang’s All Here

After the second Clockwork Storybook Retreat this year, it was decided that we would get the band back together. Not to go on tour, but rather to help each other out with our solo projects. So, while not jamming together, we ARE jamming. You can check out the remodeled Fabletown boards, now that the five of us are represented. Old Clockwork Storybook fans, you’ll get a kick out of the story I’ve posted in my section. It’s right up your alley. Check out www.clockworkstorybook.net (and no, the old animation isn’t up and running...yet).

Other Stuff

I won’t be attending World Fantasy this year, because of the exorbitant cost of flying to Canada. However, next year’s WFC is in San Jose, and so I will be doing that. I’m also making plans to be at San Diego next year, and I’ve got a trip to NYC on the books. In addition, I’m trying to expand my regional convention appearances next year. We’ll see how it all goes. Now what I really need is some sales to help offset those costs. I’ve got projects and proposals out, and I’m waiting on a short story to come back from where I sent it so that I can send it back out again. You know the drill.

It’s been good to start that writing process again. It’s helping to distract me from the massive falling off of our theater business due to high school football. We’re not out of the woods yet. If we can last one more year of this, we’ll be all right. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for us, and if you want to come up to see a movie, email me ahead of time so that we can have something good to show you.

Thanks for reading, for your support, and for your love.

Mark

A Small but Concentrated Update

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:08:59 GMT

In the Middle of a God-Awful Summer

Heat! Tornados! Ridiculous gas prices! How’s your summer been? We’ve been coping as best as we can; after all, this year’s crop of Summer movies have been pretty faboo, and despite the lackluster turnout (nationwide, not just with us), we remain optimistic.

I’ve been busy, setting up my office in the Plaza, along with my library, and also my private work space. Moving all of my books into the new library has been an easy chore, because every time I open a box up, it’s Christmas all over again. I’m still trying to get the office set up, which will allow me to transfer ALL of the Plaza Business over to the theater, and will frankly empty my personal office. I’m de-cluttering, re-organizing, and not surprisingly, my writing has picked up.

I’ve done some Robert E. Howard-based writing (book intros, prep work on two different articles), and I’ve done some fiction writing! I’ve got a couple of short stories based on a character that I really love. They are fast and fun for me to write, and they really crack me up. They shouldn’t, I know, but there you have it. I’m the funniest person I know. I’m still waiting for news about a reprint of Blood & Thunder from Del Rey. And, because I still have time left over for sleep and food, I’m co-editing a fiction book with a buddy of mine from REHupa, a benefit book that will raise money for Project Pride, the organization that takes care of the Robert E. Howard house in Cross Plains, Texas.

If I saw you at this year’s Robert E. Howard Days, thank you for attending during the year that I was the Guest of Honor (the youngest ever, in fact). That was a fun gig, and I really enjoyed reading and performing and in general hobnobbing with everyone at length.

In the Upcoming Appearances Department, you can find me in Austin this August 15-17 at ArmadilloCon 30. Count on me for some general tomfoolery there. Unfortunately, unless some sort of fuel-related miracle happens, I will not be attending World Fantasy this year. Flying to Canada is just too darned expensive, as much as I’d like to go.

And for those of you who can’t get enough of my rambling screeds, I was recently interviewed by the gang at Major Spoilers for their regular podcast. You can find it here, and my bit starts about 30 minutes into the show.

As Wowio collapses under the weight of its new owners and me and the Clockwork Storybook gang have pulled our old material off of the site, I am considering some self-publishing of my own. A variety of projects suggest themselves, from the second, long-overdue Sam Bowen volume to a script book for the Sailor Steve Costigan Radio Plays and all points in between. I am really not a fan of Lulu.com, but I may not have much of a choice. I’d rather make ten dollars on the books than nothing, but I really liked Wowio’s business model. We’ll see what else comes up, and I’ll let you know what I’ve decided. Any requests, as long as I’m contemplating this stuff?

That’s the news, in brief. I’ve got more to say, but I think instead of writing a small piece within a larger email, I’ll blog a larger piece separately. Stay tuned, and thanks for your interest.

___________________________________________________________________

Finn is Blogging now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/finnswake/

Finn Also Blogs REH-related stuff at the Cimmerian: http://www.thecimmerian.com

Finally, you can go and check out the Vernon Plaza website: http://www.vernonplaza.com

Some Thoughts, Random and Otherwise

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:09:04 GMT

Charlton Heston passed away the other day, and because of my affection for Planet of the Apes, folks want to know how I’m taking it. Well, he wasn’t my uncle or anything like that, so I am taking it the same way I take any celebrity death whose work had an impact on me: with bittersweet remembrance. I’m always sorry that they have died, but I am always pleased and grateful that their work will remain—and isn’t that part of the engine that drives all creative people?

I am grateful that many of the corporate-owned news sources have chosen to emphasize Heston’s acting career and not kick him for his late-in-life politics. I, too, said some stuff about Heston on RevolutionSF, but it bears repeating here: Now is NOT the time to remember Charlton Heston for his political beliefs. Such things should be buried, as with Caesar, along with their bones. The only thing that matters, in the end, was the work.

Was he good at his job? The answer is yes. Hell, yes. Heston was never a macho character, but he was always a man. Consider the movie he's most closely associated with: Planet of the Apes. Taylor is an iconoclast, railing against the very society that sent him into space. Had they not "blew it all up," as in the movie, and a new, Utopian society had greeted the astronauts on their return, Taylor would have undoubtedly looked around, found something else not to like about civilization, and gone to live in the mountains. Heston informed masculinity and the role of same in so many of his movies, whether he was the leader of men, or just trying to get along from day to day. One of the best scenes in Soylent Green is when he and his buddy manage to scrounge enough real food to eat a meal.

Gusto, vigor, vitality, and even vulnerable, but never weak. Heston was one of the greats, in the same "man's man" category as Steve McQueen and John Wayne. For a generation of latchkey kids, fixing our own afternoon snacks and gleaning what we could of the world from a mixture of Mad magazine and cable television, those images of manhood imprinted upon us, unchecked, as a seminal influence. We received no real guidance save a nod of approval from Dad, when he was home, or an uncle, when he was around, whenever Heston, McQueen, or Wayne came up in a conversation.

We learned from Moses. We "got it" from Taylor. It made more sense, and in some ways, was more dependable, than dealing with the adults in our lives. They wouldn't have understood anyways; they thought a planet of intelligent apes was the apex of stupidity. I loved Charlton Heston. I didn't care about his politics. I excused them, the same way that you excused your grandfather for dropping N-bombs at Thanksgiving. He was from a different time and place. You ignored that, because there were other things about him that were of much greater value to you.

That stunt that Michael Moore pulled on him during his Bowling for Columbine movie really irritated me. It was akin to hiding your grandfather's cane and then telling him that those kids were back on his lawn, stealing his pecans. It wasn't funny. And in the end, it doesn't matter. Heston's work will long survive him. He vaults up into the canon, if he hadn't already done so years before.

Today's latchkey kids are watching ambiguous anime and Will & Grace marathons, instead of all five Planet of the Apes movies back to back. They don't watch The Ten Commandments every single year. They've never seen Ben Hur. Without Heston to guide these fey little troglodytes, I weep for the future generation.

Godspeed, Charlton Heston. Tell the Duke howdy for us, will you? You will not be forgotten.

It took a while for this to shake itself out, but there is a model emerging for creative people to make money online without charges of piracy or the threat of lawsuit from large, corporate fatcats. Have any of you heard of www.wowio.com? It’s a website that gives you, the end user, free downloadable content in the form of books and comics. But at the same time, it pays the creators for every single download. Of course, it’s sponsored with advertising, the great American grist for the mill. It’s a pretty sweet deal. Best of all: no one gets to see me naked.

Why bring it up? Because I’m starting to list some of my old projects on Wowio. Back in January, I listed Gods New and Used, and now I’ve got Year of the Hare, the first Sam Bowen book, up for grabs. Free. You got it. Just go click on it. You get a free E-book and I get some money. Everyone wins. You can find many of the projects by Clockwork Storybook, as well as new stuff from us. If Year of the Hare does as well as Gods New and Used did, I’ll put the second book, Bowen’s Bluff, up as well. That’ll be all of the Sam Bowen stories I did for Clockwork Storybook. I’ve also got a story collection, Empty Hearts, that can be listed, as well. Let’s see how these do, first.

Cathy and I had to go to the big city of Wichita Falls a couple of weeks ago, and I decided that I did not want to share her joy of Target with her. So she dropped me off at the crappy mall, wherein I could wander through the crappy Books-A-Million store, and pine for BookPeople in Austin. Well, I got so mad at the B-A-M that I decided to take a quick stroll through the mall and get a soda. Instead, I found myself enticed into a chair massage by a woman who spoke no real English; she only repeated the last word that I said to her, over and over again. I thought at the time that a twenty minute chair massage would be just the thing. However, the little Asian woman that goaded me into it wasn’t going to be much help. She actually laid me down on a table and tried her best to loosen me up, which was fine, for the most part. It was a lot like watching a pygmy lift an elephant.

Then the man who ran the place told me, in better English, to get in the chair, which I did. What happened next can only be described as making War Reparations to Viet Nam: I let him beat the crap out of me. At the time, it felt pretty good; I don’t mind deep tissue stuff. But what this guy did was akin to a war crime. There was a time when he just kept hitting me and hitting me, and he wouldn’t stop. A couple of times, I told him “That hurts.” But he kept right on going. After my time was up, felt loose and invigorated, but that was mostly the endorphins.

The next day, my neck and spine were ridiculously sore. How hard had this guy worked me over, anyway? There were no bruises; it was like the old Oranges in a Towel insurance scam. It was impossible to figure out what he’d done. On the next day, the pain had gravitated to the back of my skull, and by Saturday, all of those muscles which had required muscle relaxers to unlock proceeded to seize up on me with the intent of crushing my skull.

Well, now I’m back on the muscle relaxers, trying to get my head and neck unknotted. And to the people of Viet Nam, I am very sorry for whatever it was that brought this terrible Touch of Death upon me.

How’m I doing?

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:47:45 GMT

First off, thank you to everyone who sent me good wishes, shared personal anecdotes, or just empathized with my situation. I really appreciated what all of you had to say, and it helped a lot. Really!

The corner I turned back in January is now behind me, and I’m doing way, way better—in fact, this is the best I’ve felt since moving to Vernon. I’m getting a handle on the town, and I’m no longer seeing it through rose-colored glasses, but rather with more realistic expectations. You’d think that the drop in enthusiasm would be detrimental to me, but unfortunately, I seem to thrive on the slightly negative. Who knew?

Nevertheless, things are looking up. I am finding my joy and my bliss where I can, and trying not to think too hard about the other stuff that I can’t fix. At least, not by myself.

Last year, we went to the Kipling Home and inducted a new member. This year, we drove to the Hill Country and added no one. But it was a great, week-long writing vacation, nestled high in the hills in a hunting lodge (they had a hard-on for deer) that overlooked Pipe Creek Ranch. Very nice, indeed. And it was just cold enough to justify building a fire in the great hall of the lodge just about every night and most of the days, too. This led to everyone taking at least a half-day to nap in front of the fire, snuffling into the crooks of our arms like hibernating bears.

Of course, re-connecting with everyone was a highlight—these are four of the smartest, most diverse, and brutally clever guys I know. They are perfect to workshop with, because they will look you in the eye and tell you they hated your story, and then explain to you why it doesn’t work and how you’re a much better writer than that, and they expect better from you. And then after they’ve clubbed your story down like a baby seal, everyone pops a beer and starts talking about the Legion of Super Heroes, and we’re all buddies again. Nice. Actually, invaluable for a writer, I don’t care how successful you are. I’d give my eye teeth to get Gaiman in a workshop. Just once. But I digress.

I took Willingham’s cue this year and decided to write a story a day. I had a back-up of ideas that I wanted to flesh out, and it was taking its toll on me. In the end, I produced four short stories (with two of them being eminently sellable if my partners’ reactions have a shred of merit), and I finished some polish work on a longer piece, and also got some writing done on a long-extant collaboration. Not quite a story a day, but certainly enough smaller projects to qualify as a rousing success.

However, Friday night was an exercise for all of us. We have started what may charitably be deemed “a Dumb-Ass Challenge.” It’s also a writing exercise, but it was initially a gauntlet of cleverness thrown down. Every one of us had to include some, if not all, of the specific ‘things’ that each person suggested. For example, I suggested that everyone’s story include “one excellent swordfight.” Another suggestion was that the story should include a cow skeleton (drawing from our environment). Matt thought he could throw us with the suggestion of a gruesome death involving pepper. Another in-joke, the inclusion of an upside down chicken. Okay, these were all whimsical, but doable. Then Willingham threw in the coup-de-grace, by invoking some old Clockwork Storybook mojo: the inclusion of Mike Bretz, in legend or deed.

And that was the final ingredient in the alchemy. See, we’d made this into a contest: whoever used the most suggestions and wrote the best story (by a vote of all the others) would get to pick their choice of restaurant the next night, and everyone else would pick up the tab. Naturally, all of us picked up the gauntlet of using all five dumb-ass things in our stories, so it would inevitably come down to who could pull it off with the most aplomb.

I knew everyone would have at least an entertaining story. I knew I’d be dazzled by at least one other tale. I also knew that I had put in a solid effort and had an excellent chance of pulling it off. I could take this prize. I thought about this as I cooked dinner (it was my turn that night), and everyone was subdued as we ate my dense shepherd’s pie. The tension was thick in the air as the dishes were cleared and Willingham took a final few moments to polish his story. Chris and Matt smoked. Bill Williams paced.

Finally, Willingham was done. We cut cards to see who’d go first. Matt, who had no confidence in his story (because he’s a doofus), traded his pole position with Bill Williams in the last slot, because he wanted to go first and get it over with. We were seconds from starting the reading when Willingham said, “You know, we could make this a drinking game...”

That broke the tension. We all leapt up and ran for booze. Rules were quickly established: one drink for each mention of the suggestion in everyone’s story. And then Chris added, “And two drinks for each ‘Boop.’”

Sidebar: “the Boop.”

This was a noise we used to make, back in the old days, to denote a new passage or the passage of time. Commonly denoted with number signs or asterisks in a manuscript, for out-loud readings, the “boop” (in a high-pitched tone, like a pong sound effect) became a staple of the readings and was quickly re-adopted at our get-together last year.

Matt and I cheered Chris’ suggestion, and I heard Bill Williams say, “Oh, God,” and I wondered what was wrong. Then he started reading. To say his story was a little “boop-heavy” would be an understatement. He wrote about a chase that took weeks, punctuated with little incidents. In a short story. By the time he’d finished his tale, most of us were getting refills. But it did help to lighten the mood considerably.

Everyone’s story was great. That sounds like a cop-out, but seriously, when we voted, it was a five-way tie, and no one voted for their own story. Even Chris’ story, which was so full of “can’t publish this anywhere,” was perhaps the most enjoyable read of the night for his trip down memory lane with Timmy Gromp.

In any case, the retreat was wonderful for me. I got some peace and quiet, got to put my head in a creative frame of mind, and got several stories out of the trip—stories I fully intend to shop around. Seeing everyone again was terrific, of course, and we have found that seven days is the perfect amount of time before we start barking at each other and actually meaning it.

Let’s see, what’s on the near-horizon? I’ve been named the Guest of Honor at this year’s Robert E. Howard Days Festival in Cross Plains, Texas, June 13-14. I’m looking forward to that with great anticipation. I’m also a guest at ArmadilloCon, August 15-17. Outside of that, I’m going to enjoy the upcoming glut of Summer movies, promote the bejeezus out of them in Vernon, and keep writing daily. That’s the real goal, there. Write something daily.

Something else is happening right now: we have made the first salvo of purchases for my library, which will be adjacent to my office at the theater. This is a huge, huge deal; many of my books have been trapped in boxes for almost ten years. I’ve never had the space to get them all out and organize them and alphabetize them and love them and dust them and call them George. Until now. After the library is assembled, my office will be finished out, and then I will have two distinct areas to do my work—my home office, for things like Finn’s Wakes and stories and graphics—and the business office for movies, bookings, special events, and related hoo ha. Everything should be in its place by May.

This is even better, since it will give me the much needed separation between work and play. Living above the business makes it hard to do that, and this will really help to balance my brain out. Once all of that is up and looking swell, I’ll inundate you with pictures of the theater, the office, and the library—especially the library. If only to gloat.

Oddly enough, the retreat was framed, as it were, by the deaths of three notable people: William F. Buckley, E. Gary Gygax, and Dave Stevens. We learned of Buckley’s death just prior to going into the wilderness; Chris brought us the news of Gygax while we were in country, and I caught the Dave Stevens news on my first night back in Vernon. I’ve been slightly melancholy about all three of these people, for different reasons.

Buckley was an intellectual, and he wasn’t afraid to talk to people as if they were of the same mind as he. I always found him to be a fascinating speaker, one who spoke intelligently and sincerely whether you agreed with him or not. Excepting his feud with Gore Vidal (and why NOT feud with Gore Vidal, really), Buckley kept his discourse at a level where he felt everyone else’s ought to be; he never seemed to think that we as a nation were getting dumber. I don’t know if one can say that about his many detractors. And setting all pretense of politics aside, we need smart people in this country now, more than ever.

It was my step-father that brought Dungeons & Dragons home to me for the first time. He’d heard about it, and was determined that we’d all have a family night and play it together. Well, we never got much farther than down a long hallway when something in the rules vexed him and he stopped the game to read some more. A couple of months later, I opened the softcover book for myself and, well, that was that. Here was a game that you could play by simply imagining what was going on—or in my case, you could create the action and write it down and thus inflict it on your friends whom you’d coaxed into playing. Gotta love that! But it wasn’t until a couple of years later, in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, that I stumbled across Gygax’s recommended reading list; the books that Gygax read and infused into AD&D and that he hoped would stimulate other dungeon masters with new ideas. In short, Gygax gave me Lovecraft, Zelazny, and Fritz Lieber. He also taught me how to play.

Maybe the coolest thing about the Rocketeer was that it was a mashup before there was such a term. Back in the 80s, we called them homages or sometimes, pastiches, depending on what was being discussed. But there was nothing else like the Rocketeer. It was 30’s-pulp-porn for us sickos who wished we were old enough to get that pop culture the first time around. I mean, really: a guy at an airfield finds a rocket pack and decides to use it in the airshow—while the Nazis are looking for it, too—and the inventor of the pack, Doc Savage, sends his two men out to retrieve it—but Cliff has other problems, like Bettie’s insistence in furthering her modeling career as a pin-up girl—and then there’s the Rondo Hatton nod, and the experimental planes...oh, it’s just so GOOD! I got to meet Dave Stevens years and years ago, and he was nice, funny, gracious, and humble. I think it’s because he knew that, while he was certainly the creator of the Rocketeer, he didn’t invent the world. It was always there, in the landscape of his mind, and he just played with it until he got the story that he wanted to tell. To date, the Rocketeer is one of my all-time favorite comic book projects for no other reason than its subject matter. It was lightning in a bottle, and anyone else doing adventure stories in the 1930s will always invite a comparison, whether they are looking for it, or not. There was one other thing that Dave Stevens did for me. He re-kindled my love for the golden age of aviation. This gave me and my dad something to talk about, for hours on end. I had those connections too, in my own life. It just took the Rocketeer to show them to me. So, thank you, Dave, for everything, and by all means, if you see my dad, let him that the Gee Bee out for a spin, will you? He always wanted to fly one.

The Biggest Finn's Wake Update ever

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:45:49 GMT

Happy 2008!

Well, this is nice, isn’t it? Been a while since we’ve chatted. I’m thinking that it’s been far too long, and I really don’t know what to say. Wait, check that, I really do know what to say. Let me start at the beginning. This may well be the longest Finn’s Wake I ever wrote.

The General State of Things

First of all, a number of you have been wondering (a) what I’m working on now, and (b) why I don’t write more updates. The truth of the matter is that I have been in a state of crippling depression for much of the last year. It came about from a number of sources, but in a nutshell, it went down like this: I went from being well-connected in a major urban city with relatively minor responsibilities and a heavy creative output to being not-connected in a ridiculously small town with huge responsibilities and virtually no creative endeavors to speak of.

I feel gimpy even talking about the word “depression.” For a long time I didn’t even want to admit it to myself. I’ve never dealt with depression before (my teenage years don’t count; and anyway, I blame Pink Floyd). Not like this. Some days, I didn’t want to move. Some days, all I could do was eat. It was scary. But I still wasn’t talking about it. It felt like a weakness. And the absolute last thing I wanted to do was end up on medication.

Don’t get me wrong: I wanted to do this. I thought that it would be a small matter to just step into the role of theater owner and go to town. Oh, hell, was I wrong. I was so very wrong. The number of things that I didn’t know were legion. My learning curve, especially since we hit the ground running, was steeper than the stretch of Route 66 that did James Dean in. I wasn’t necessarily thrown to the wolves, but it sure felt like it. I had a concentrated knot in my stomach from Mid-March, when we first re-opened, to the first week in December. It’s been that bad.

Again, let me stress, this town is lovely. And we’ve made many great friends here, too; genuine people, who care and offer a helping hand, and listen to our troubles and in general bend over backwards to help us out. We know some folks, too; some of the local movers and shakers. We attend the city council meetings. It’s a big deal. Folks want to know what we think. This is, of course, diametrically opposite to Austin, where the city council doesn’t give a fig what the citizens are on about. But in the end, it’s not Austin, is it? The culture shock was significant. Not having a bookstore that’s five minutes away (try an hour) is debilitating to someone like myself.

Add to that the challenges of trying to massage a business that has been down on the canvas twice already, and that pretty much ate up all of my free time. Cathy and I ate and slept the theater. We didn’t get away very often, and when we both did, we didn’t go very far. I had a couple of sabbaticals this year, but I found that within forty-eight hours of coming back, I was knotted up in my stomach again and unable to write.

That’s what shocked me the most this year. I was able to make myself sit down and write non-fiction; essays, reviews, introductions, etc. But fiction writing eluded me. I couldn’t get more than a page done at a time, and when I got up, I found that I couldn’t hold the story in my head. This “holding” skill is critical for writers; it’s why so many of us walk around with that gobsmacked look on our face all the time. It’s why our long-suffering wives choose strange times to discuss household chores and other mundane affairs with us—they are waiting until that far-off look in our eye winks out for a moment before rushing in with everything they’ve been holding back for two days.

I discovered that I was incapable of writing fiction while I was thinking about the theater. And since I lived above the theater, and since every single day brought a different responsibility to us regarding the theater, I was spending every day thinking about the theater, our financial situation, marketing, and literally nothing else. This, more than anything else, has been sheer agony for me.

The good news is this: I’m getting over it. My mother, the Jedi Knight, has done some work with me, and I’m now making some space for myself. The theater has become a rote endeavor (and I’ve learned as much as I have been able to absorb at this time), and it’s freed up my brain to work on other things. Life is again returning to the sleepy village. What this means is that fiction writing is close at hand—thank God. I’m adjusting, slowly adjusting, to the ridiculous and total life-change we undertook, and in retrospect, it’s surprising and goofy that it took me until a couple of months ago to realize that I was depressed. Doofus.

The Vernon Plaza Theater

I told you all of that to tell you this: we’ve made it one year! The theater is alive, and it’s viable, and it’s more or less well. We’re bringing in a couple of new innovations this year, and we’re still not in the black yet, but hey, it’s our first year. Now that I’m getting used to the idea of not being in the black, I’m relaxing my grip on my own spleen and concentrating on not going more in the red.

We’ve got some great things planned for this year. I’m going to try and do something that, as far as I know, no other independent movie theater has ever done. I’m getting paperwork together and doing some calculating so that we can create a little island whereupon movie-goers, upon exiting the Iron Man movie, will be confronted with three or four Iron Man trade paperbacks, a couple of action figures, Pez, and the like. This would apply to all of the big summer movies; trading cards, official souvenir magazines, etc. If it works, and I find that I can build a clientele out here for such geekery, well, I think you can figure out what comes next.

Also on our immediate horizon is a digital projector. This is mission critical in our arsenal of cool, and will allow us to do a lot more stuff in a more flexible manner; things like birthday parties (and the kids can play Halo on the big screen), college football games, stuff like that. Again, there’s nothing like it in the area, so we have a decided advantage on our competition.

In the near future, I’m going to post some pics on the website and you can all get a virtual tour of the place. In the meantime, just know that we’re doing all right, and the place is slowly but surely catching on with the folks in town again. We snag 2-5 new folks a week. It’s getting better; it really is!

So, What ARE You Working On?

Well, I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire right now: I just sent a proposal in to Del Rey for an expanded hardcover edition of Blood & Thunder. We’ll see how that flies. I’ve also been asked to adapt a movie script for comics. More on that later. Finally, I’m working on a couple of short stories with fellow Texas writer Scott Cupp. After that, I’m going to decide which novel I want to work on and pursue.

In the meantime, for those of you who are curious about such things, I’ve got my out-of-print collection Gods New & Used available for download on www.wowio.com, as do the other members of Clockwork Storybook. I’ll be adding more stuff from the old CWSB site in the coming weeks, but for now, you can get Gods New & Used for free—and I get paid for it! Truth!

Also, this year, I really want to get back to doing radio drama, both writing and performing. I’ve got some scripts that are all mapped out and need to be written, and I’ve got a couple of outstanding obligations to uphold. If I get through with those, maybe I can start on my one-man show idea. We’ll see.

Currently, I’m still doing articles for Dark Horse Comics for their Conan trade paperbacks, which is a lot of fun. I was recently name-checked in the Best of Robert E. Howard, volume 1 introduction regarding the boxing fiction of REH. Also big fun. I still contribute as time permits to www.revolutionsf.com, and you really should swing by every so often to check it out. That I make no money from this writing, yet still try to do things for them, should be telling.

World Fantasy Awards

Some of you knew that I was nominated for a World Fantasy award for the REH biography. Well, I didn’t win it. There was, in retrospect, no way in hell that I was going to win it. Here’s why. I was nominated in the Special Award: Professional category. Now, those two awards at the end of the nominations list: Special Award, Professional, and Special Award, Non-Professional, are intended to recognize folks who don’t fit into any of the other categories. In particular, Special Award, Professional was designed to honor publishers, editors, copyeditors, booksellers—heck, ANYONE not a writer of fantasy who contributed in some meaningful way that year. It was never supposed to be for non-fiction books. It’s just that, when non-fiction books are written onto the ballot, they end up there, having nowhere else to go.

So, in a year when Ellen Asher lost her job at the SF Book Club, after years of printing and reprinting everyone good in the field, and moreover her whole staff was let go without so much as a by-your-leave, you can see how there was NO WAY in hell that I was going to take home a statue, when the award was a far more perfect way to honor her thankless contribution to the field.

Is it fair? To Ellen, sure. It’s very fair, and she deserved to get the award. But what about to me and the other guy whose book garnered enough votes to make the top five? It doesn’t seem that fair, not really. But had I won instead, the industry would be calling it a travesty, because Ellen should have won it. Am I upset about it? Sort of, but not because I didn’t win. Rather, because there have been a number of good non-fiction books in the past few years that received no recognition, simply because of a lack of categorization. The judges for each year’s World Fantasy awards keep their own council on these matters, but basically, if the five of them decide to award a statue to someone, then their name is automatically added to the list, and no matter what the popular vote says, it’s going to go to who the judges want. That’s the attraction of a juried award. And Special Award: Professional is the very place to give such recognition.

The thing is this, though: if the judges have the chance to right a wrong, or acknowledge an oversight, as in the case of Ellen Asher, then they are going to do it. Again, that’s what the category is for. Anyway, I had a pretty good idea that I was on the outs. Having spoken to my fellow nominees, they all agreed that Ellen was going to get it. And every time I saw a judge, I watched a slight shadow pass across their eyes. No guilt, per se, but rather a shield of neutrality that they consciously put on so as not to give anything away.

The only part of this that doesn’t work is when you take something like a biography written (and let’s use the excellent James Tiptree, Jr. biography instead, since it was a book that also needed to be written and was nominated in similar categories last year), and compare it to what an editor does with a book line. That’s apples and oranges, and it creates a disparity within the category, since there is no way to really reconcile the two. In the end, of course, it’s the judges’ call, anyway. But wouldn’t it be great if they didn’t have to make such a call? Then a critical studies book AND a deserving editor could be recognized in the span of a year, and no one would kick about it.

In the end, I wrote an open letter to the WFC administration board asking that they add a non-fiction category, and was politely rebuffed. This is not over. Again, I’m not angry about it, but I really think that there’s an oversight here that could be easily and quickly addressed.

You Know What Tomorrow Is...

That’s right, it’s Elvis’ Birthday! And may I pass along my most sincere wishes for a happy and prosperous new year. Go forth and find your favorite Elvis movie, or just cue up one of his many fine albums. Shake a hip, eat a peanut butter and banana sammich, or shoot out a television set. It’s YOUR day tomorrow, so make the most of it. Me, I’ll be making my usual promises to the King and watching Viva Las Vegas.

Boy, that Anne-Margaret, she sure was something, wasn’t she?

Y’all be good, now.

Mark

An Open Letter to the Administrators of the World Fantasy Award

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:20:19 GMT

Dear Administrators:

Having participated in several World Fantasy conventions as a professional, up to and including having been nominated for the award itself, I would like to offer a few formal suggestions that I feel would be of great benefit to the award itself. It is my understanding that these suggestions have all been brought to the attention of the administrators before, but I still feel compelled to mention them again, as these are topics that seem to come up every year.

Guy Gavriel Kay said in his excellent Toastmaster speech that one of the things the World Fantasy Award does best is that it focuses on widening the reach of the genre. It’s in that spirit that I would like to recommend a new category, for Best Young Adult novel. There is an obvious and tangible overlapping of talent, interest, and subject matter regarding the Young Adult and Adult fantasy markets, and that line was forever blurred during the Harry Potter years. By creating a Young Adult novel category, the World Fantasy Award can take ownership of that acknowledgement; consider that no other major sf/f award currently honors YA authors.

Another area that adds to the credibility and legitimacy of the industry is that of non-fiction studies. Whether they are biographies, essay collections, or scholarly works from academic presses, there are more than enough books ABOUT the crafting of fantasy and its authors that merit their own World Fantasy award category, as well. Adding a Best Non-Fiction category not only abets the study of fantasy as its own serious endeavor, but it completely de-clutters the Special Award: Professional category, leaving it free to honor and acknowledge the professionals in the field who don’t normally receive recognition: Editors, retailers, copyeditors, publishers, and so on. Every year, non-fiction books are nominated in that category, for no other reason than they don’t have a category of their own. A Best Non-Fiction award solves that problem handily.

And speaking of the Special Award, I would like to recommend that both special awards be re-named to honor someone in the industry. The Special Award: Professional could honor a writer or editor who is no longer with us, and the Special Award: Non-Professional could likewise reflect a particularly influential fan or similar. Re-naming these two awards would make them more sound more professional and less “generic.”

I am sure there are other factors to consider when adding categories to the awards ballot beyond “it’s a really nifty idea,” but I sincerely hope the committee will consider these suggestions as both positive and constructive feedback and at least discuss them the next time they are able to do so. It may be too late for the 2008 awards, but surely one or more of these suggestions could be implemented for 2009? In any case, thank you for your time and attention.

Most sincerely,

Mark Finn

World Fantasy Convention Bound

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:45:25 GMT

Despite formidable odds and some overwhelming pressures of the fiscal/filial variety, I have paid for my membership to WFC this year, confirmed my hotel, bought airline tickets, and even managed to squeeze on a panel. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am NOT to be trifled with.

A more full and robust report is coming.

A bite in the ass month

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:40:25 GMT

It's been tough, this past month. Lots of Theater-Related things happened that put us on the defensive, and really shook the foundations of our lives here in Vernon. Suffice to say, we're okay. For now. But it wasn't easy. It wasn't pretty. And we're still not out of the woods, yet.

But one thing that is certain: I would NOT have been able to make it without you guys, my friends. Maybe you did something to cheer me up; maybe you didn't. But you all contributed in some way to keeping me afloat. So, thank you.

Thanks to SarahM for forcing me to join yet another social network, but since it's all about books, it kinda doesn't count, and

Thanks to Peggy for linking me up on Said Social Network with an author's page, some friends, and a crapload of books.

Thanks to Jenna for calling and letting me do a fifteen minute monologue on modern teenagers. You laughed, and you made my day.

Thanks to Rick for calling and giving me a dose of guy-talk.

Thanks to Lucas for being my big brother when I really needed it.

Thanks to James for always being a positive influence on me, as well as giving me a chance to wax intellectual about Conan and Solomon Kane.

Thanks to Chris for the good news about Blood & Thunder. I sold some books! Yeah!

Thanks to Beth and Weldon for, well, all of the support and encouragement, as well as passing along the REH news. It was quite the spirit-lifter.

Thanks to Rusty for the surprise shout-out in The Best of Robert E. Howard: Volume 1 introduction. I got credited (along with Chris Gruber) with the revival of attention to Howard's funny boxing stories.

Thanks to Brad for the recognition regarding Austin Books' success. I love the whole Bankston family like my own.

There were other incidents, some small, some large, and some really random. But they all kept me going, and kept my chin up. It has been said that we are judged by the company that we keep. If that is the case, than I am one of the most fortunate men on the planet.

I'm probably not the first one to notice this...

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:32:29 GMT

But just on the off-chance that someone ever decides to do a Robert Heinlein bio-pic...

Would they look any further than to David Thewlis for the lead role?

Talk about "Separated at birth," eh? Ah, well, we can all dare to dream...

Not a Leg Lamp, but Still a Major Award

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:10:00 GMT

At the behest of several folks, I decided to do a trip recap of my recent sojourn to ArmadilloCon, by way of the Greyhound Bus system. This was, of course, a major mistake, and one that I won’t repeat again, may God strike me dead if I’m lying.

I took the bus because it was the cheapest way to get to Austin (Cathy needed to stay in Vernon because of Summer’s Last Blast, and thus needed the car). If we were doing a straight shot from V-town to A-town, it’s six and a half hours, give or take thirty minutes if you’re a small bladder person or a road camel. By bus, it would take eight and a half hours. Sure, it’s for the stops in the route, but see, there’s not a direct route from V-town to A-town by bus. And so, I had to make a stopover in Dallas.

According to Hank Hill, Dallas is full of “crack-heads and debutantes,” and I will certainly bow to his superior wisdom on the subject. But the Dallas bus stop is full of very poor people trying very hard to get somewhere else. For some people, they are going to a new job. Others are bringing their children to a new city to start over. Everyone has a story on the bus. There’s also some freaked-out meth-headed sub-mutants, too, but they usually find each other quick enough. Crazy attracts crazy, don’t you know.

Only this time, I ended up sitting next to a sweet old man, one of those guys who was a regular Joe and who lived a regular life. He had been traveling; visiting his grown children and grandchildren, and now he was on his way back to his hometown and his wife. They had been married for sixty two years. He’d served in World War II, in the infantry, and their platoon was proficient in beach landings. Yeah. One of those guys. He came home, settled down, and got married three months after getting out of the service. He landed a job as a trucker, bought a house, and drove that truck for thirty six years until he retired. He got two and three week vacations every year, so he and the family loaded up the car and hit the road, like we knew we were all supposed to do. They saw all of the major sites, and after he retired and they bought a RV, a lot of the minor sites, all over the country.

His wife didn’t make this trip. She was in hospice care. She had major Alzheimer’s. Dementia. She didn’t know who anyone was anymore. They were waiting for her to die. He got tears in his eyes when he told me this. He didn’t know what he was going to do. So, to keep him from thinking about his dying wife, we talked about everything under the sun. I told him about me and Cathy, what we were doing, and where we were going. He told me all about his grown children and even the granddaughter that had just high-tailed it to Alaska, because it sounded like fun.

We parted company in Austin, but I thought about this man a lot. Counting his three grown children, their four grown children, and two or three of THEIR children, he was directly responsible for the lives of ten people, all of whom, by his account, are model citizens, good, family-oriented people, with strong roots in the community and good jobs. Incredible. And I wondered, as I said good-bye to him, how long his wife would have to live, and how long he would go on without her before he, too, joined her. Sixty two years.

I never even got his name.

ArmadilloCon has blossomed in the last six years into my favorite convention; it’s the perfect mix of socializing and networking, and it’s kept its reputation as a literary SF con without going the way of the snooty elitist. How else do you explain a series of Gorilla panels, each one better attended than the last, for the last four years? Exactly.

This year was a kind of homecoming for me. A chance to visit Austin and friends, sure, but also a chance to relax a little bit. Last year’s appearance at ArmadilloCon included doing emergency toastmaster duties, as well as a VCRP performance of King Kong on Saturday night, in addition to any panels I might be on. It was during our move to Vernon, as well, and I had, literally, no idea what the future would hold for us.

Coming back a year later, I was in “promote the movie theater” mode, since everyone had seen the article Rick Klaw had written about the Vernon Plaza a few weeks ago. And talk about it, I did. A great many friends and well-wishers wanted to know all about what we were doing, how it was going, etc. I told them the truth: great, but we’re still learning.

All of the panels this year were great; exceptionally entertaining and well-programmed. The whole con, in fact, ran like a top. This was, of course, the same group that put together and ran the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, last year. So, this show, according to most of con-staff, was a breeze.

Highlights included:

1. Hanging with Chris Roberson’s Bunch-o-Drunks (you know who you are)

2. Hitting it off with the dark-haired, buxom, big-eyed waitress on Friday morning and getting, in return, a hotel restaurant breakfast that for once in my life was the equal to the price I paid for it. She gave me eleven strips of bacon, I swear to god.

3. Getting to meet my good friend Peggy’s cousin, who acted just like Peggy in really amusing ways.

4. The RevSF panel, which was not only well-attended, but really interesting to see how many of us could fit into a room.

5. Our subsequent trip to Dog Almighty (a hot dog restaurant in Austin). I got Corn Dogs. They were awesome.

6. Listening to con-chair pimp her dead dad to sell stuff at the charity auction. I felt like a ghoul (in a late night horror show TV host sort of way). It was her father’s No-Kill animal shelter that we were trying to raise money for.

7. On the Lost panel, listening to one of the other panelists insist that there has to be a logical explanation of what’s up with the island. Me, Aaron DeOrive, and Jess Nevins got it right: it’s either Purgatory, or it’s quantum physics at play—and the two don’t necessarily cancel each other out. Our fellow panelist thought we were all wrong, and that logic and hard science would rule the day. I almost told him to stop watching the show now, because he was going to explode when he finds out it doesn’t make sense, but I kept mum.

8. When the Barbarella-Burlesque-Dancers showed up at the RevolutionSF party, and (of course) sucked all of the manly attention out of the room, it was the height of gratifying to have one of the dancers point a finger at me and sashay over, saying, “Don’t I know you?” The three geeks I was talking to were mightily impressed, don’tcha know.

9. The Liar’s Panel, which ended up being “just my thing,” despite never having done it before. I had a great wingman in Jess Nevins, and a fabulous leader in Jay Lake, but in the end, it was all about delivery. And I can deadpan it, I tell you what. This is like the convention-goers version of “the Aristocrats” joke; how Out-There-Where-The-Buses-Don’t-Run can you get? Pretty far, it would seem. The audience loved it.

10. Panel Crashing with Jess Nevins. There were several panels which we rightly thought we should have been on, so we took it upon ourselves to sit in the front row of these panels and either heckle our friends or stimulate the conversation. No one really seemed to mind, either.

One of the things that everyone was talking about was the fact that the World Fantasy Awards hadn’t been announced yet. Usually, they hit right around ArmadilloCon every year, but for some reason, were running a wee-bit late. There were a number of folks onhand, myself included, who were waiting on those nominations with baited breath. Many of us, in fact, decided we weren’t going to talk about it. That’ll show ‘em. Yeah!

But after I left the con, I found out early (whoops!) that I had been nominated for Special Award: Professional for Blood & Thunder. This is huge. And an honor. And very, very cool. And huge. This year, the categories are all strong, filled with folks who deserve to win, along with friends and acquaintances I’ve known for a while (who also deserve to win), and I don’t begrudge anyone in my category. We’ll see how it all shakes out. The Awards are given out during the WFC, in the first week of November, in Sarasota Springs, New York. Wish me luck, folks. I’m going to need it.

ArmadilloCon et. al.

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 20:35:18 GMT

It’s been a while since the last update, and while there’s some neat stuff going on with regards to the Vernon Plaza Theater, it’s just business as usual on the other side of that. I’m struggling with a writing schedule, after spending almost 10 months without one. But I am working on things as my time allows. In fact, I’ll be reading one of those things at ArmadilloCon this weekend. Here’s my schedule, for those of you in attendance:

Sa1000De Expect Unexpected Evil

Sat 10:00 AM-11:00 AM DeWitt

Carl*, Gould, Kimbriel, Klages, Utley, Sturges, Finn

Sometimes our antagonists aren't always who they

appear to be. What are some of the most unusual

antagonists in literature and what tools did the

author use to make them that way?

Sa1200De Revolution SF

Sat Noon-1:00 PM DeWitt

Klaw*, Finn, Bey, Wilson, Blaschke, Porter

Being an editor for a small SF site can be

challenging.

Sa1500R Charity Auction

Sat 3:00 PM-5:00 PM Robertson

Finn*, Babcock

Last year we made a record amount of money for our

charity. Come by this year and help us spread the geek

love to the world!

Sa2200Dz What is the island?

Sat 10:00 PM-11:00 PM de Zavala

Babcock*, Davis, Levine, Nevins, Finn, Orive

For fans of Lost, this gives you a chance to discuss

the  show with other fans and professionals and hear

their  thoughts on what happened, will happen and

won't happen.

Su1000De Liar's Panel: Hard Science

Sun 10:00 AM-11:00 AM DeWitt

Lake*, Finn, Archer, McHugh, Nevins

Panelists attempt to come up with the most outrageous

claims about hard science in writing, films and

television.

Su1330R Reading

Sun 1:30 PM-2:00 PM Robertson

Mark Finn

Note that the reading is on Sunday, which is great for you, as there will be not much else going on, and shitty for me, in that I will most likely be hung over and hoarse. But if you haven’t attended a Finn reading, you need to do so, because I’m really really good at it.

Hope to see you there!

Harry Potter 7 and so forth

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:47:50 GMT

For those of you who have read the book already, I've got an article up about it right here on RevolutionSF.com, and YES, for the Love of God, it contains Spoilers out the wazoo.

Don't click it if you haven't read it. Seriously.

Spoilers.

Lots of them.

Some thoughts on the Fifth Harry Potter Movie

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:53:20 GMT

Do I really need to give you spoiler warnings? I mean, you're reading the books already, right? Right?! If you aren't, just skip this whole thing and get back to me when you're caught up.

Okay, now.

For the rest of us...

This being the fifth movie of seven, I found it to be as exciting and interesting as the fourth movie, wherein we are forced to jettison all of the sub-plots, side trips, and tangents, as well as the world-building bits of business, to concentrate on the Main Plot of good versus evil. Is that bad? No, not really. But watching Four and Five so soon after reading Four and Five really drives home how much condensing and tightening the filmmakers are doing to get this book series on the screen.

One of the things that interests me is how the movies have informed my re-reading of the books--Gary Oldman, for example, filling in handily for whomever I originally saw as Sirius Black, and with the re-reading of book five, I was expecting some great scenery chewing between him and Alan Rickman in THIS film, but apparently, there just wasn't time. Seems like there was a lot of those types of scenes excised in the interests of time. And the movie is over 2 hours long, at that. Draco gets two scenes, and for god's sake, don't blink or you'll miss them. Actually, what did work well was the montage scene, wherein we get a lot of info in short order. Unfortunately, doing it that way cuts short the first MacGonagal/Umbrage fight. In fact, it doesn't really happen. Not like in the books. Sigh.

By the way, Gary Oldman pulls off one of the best winks in the history of the universe. His eye doesn't even close! Watch for it. It's breathtaking. And may I just say that I have a new wizard crush: Tonks is a RoboBabe, and I'll fight anyone who says different. Helena Bonham Carter is note-perfect as Bellatrix, and really, did anyone think she wouldn't pull it off? Please.

All that aside, there's a shoe waiting to drop that never quite does so. I can't imagine how they will make that mess of Book Six into a film. Flashbacks are SOOOO entertaining, after all. At least this movie begins with a dementor attack and ends with a big honking wizard duel. Overall, this movie (and the last one) more than anything accomplish the goal of acting as highlight reels for the books, and don't quite stand on their own two feet as films. The only thing that saves them is the fact that everyone on the planet knows they are chapters in a seven part story that WILL (hopefully) make sense when it's all said and done. If the filmmakers are smart, they will film six and seven back to back and release them nine months apart.

Maybe I'm just antsy waiting for the seventh and final book.

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:57:37 GMT

In preparation for the seventh Harry Potter book, I’ve taken in upon myself to re-read the other six. This is the first time that I’ve done so since each book was released (well, to be fair, I jumped onto the HP bandwagon just prior to book four). It’s been very interesting to re-read the stories, after the films have come out, and knowing in hindsight what I do of the story.

What follows are my thoughts on each of the books, followed by a ranking of 1 to 6, in the order that I liked them from best to worst. I can’t conceive that some of you out there haven’t seen the movies nor read the books, so I’m going to do the LJ-cut thingie.

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone

In some ways, this is both the best and the worst of the books. It’s the best book because of how simply the character of Harry is introduced. He engenders our immediate sympathy; after all, if the Brits can’t write Dickensian tragedy, then who can? I mean, he’s living in a cupboard under some stairs, for Pete’s sake. There’s something almost unreal about his condition. But, then we find out that so far as this book is concerned, the wizards are the good guys and the normal people are the poop-heads. At least, Harry’s family is.

As an introduction to the world goes, it’s pretty good, but it lacks most of the detail in the later books. It’s also just a bit of a wish-fulfillment story in that pretty much everything good happens to Harry, which is a marked contrast to what comes later. But I didn’t mind it so much, since it’s also the quickest read of the six. It was just hard to dial back all of my expectations and just be happy that Harry could really ride a broom. Rank: 5

Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets

The second Harry Potter book fulfills the promise that the first one failed on. We get to see more of the magical world, not only in the background, but right up in the plot, too. Of course, Tom Riddle is the start of the uber-plot, in earnest, since he figures so prominently in the other books. It’s nice to see it up in this one like Chekov’s gun, and decidedly so.

Also of interest is the heir of slytherin’s machine of destruction, and how cleverly that is executed in the story. I sorta saw it coming, but I didn’t quite see HOW it was all being done. She did a good job with this book. The ending, and how Harry escapes death, are particularly contrived, but it’s still pretty neat, all the same. Rank: 2

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban

Ah, the last of the light-hearted and fun books! Harry and Ron and Hermione continue to romp and frolic, while dark forces are whirling all around. This one is particularly strong in the “British Boys Adventure Fiction” camp—meaning, the real plot involves the kids trying to figure out what the adults are up to without getting caught sneaking about after curfew.

This is my favorite of the books, and also my favorite of the movies. There’s a great sense of fun and action and danger. This is also the last time we’ll see everyone happy before all of the big bad stuff shows up and forces everyone to grow the hell up. Rank: 1

Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire

In what has to be the most complicated of plots to date, we go literally the length of the book before we discover the particulars of How and Why Harry ended up competing in the Tri-Wizard tournament. Mad Eye Moody is a great Dark Arts teacher, demonstrating for us how the icky curses work. We’ll need that later, Alaster, thanks very much. It’s also in this book that Malfoy goes from being Harry’s boyhood rival to being that kid who is evil just for the sake of being evil. It’s like he’s just there at Hogwarts to screw with the Gryffendors. But, two books later, we’ll almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

I don’t mind that this book and the others after it are so thick. It’s only to be expected. After all, this is the series’ version of Act 3, scene 2 of Hamlet—meaning, everyone comes back, all of the bad guys are revealed, and what’s more, they know who all of the good guys are, too. I only jokingly said that this was a Hamlet moment, but considering what happens in Book Five, that’s not too far off the mark, in a “Hawk from a handsaw” kind of way. There’s still a lot of brilliant young wizard stuff happening to keep things from being too down. Rank: 4

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix

Even though this is the second book in a row without Quidditch, even though Harry is acting more and more like a prat all throughout the book, and even though Harry loses Sirius to Bellatrix, this is one of my favorite books in the series. Sure, there’s a bunch of bad things happening, but there’s also some really brilliant stuff going on, such as Dumbledore’s Army, the Fabulous exit of Fred and George Weasley, the Occlumancy lessons, and oh, man, we at long last get to see the wizards dueling with each other in earnest. That was worth the price of admission, right there. Curses blocked, counter-curses thrown, and our heroes end up holding their own in a really believable fashion. They don’t win, of course, but they do get some licks in. Nice.

Rowling, over the course of books four and five, does a great job of showing the emergence of puberty in her characters without any of the ham-fisted (or frankly uncomfortable methods); at no point is the word “body” mentioned during any of Harry’s navel-gazing. He does, however, act exactly like a boy with testosterone running unchecked through his system. Been there, done that, acted just like him once or twice in my life. And in what has to be the best turn of all, we get to see Harry from Snape’s POV, and we find out that not only does Snape have a pretty good reason for hating Harry, but we feel kinda sorry for him, at that. Awesome. It’s too bad that Harry’s dislike of Snape overcomes that pang of empathy he felt. Things might end up very different, otherwise. From a story standpoint, I love the idea of yanking Sirius away from Harry at the time when he most needs a male figure to help him navigate the transition of going from boy to man. Lots of darkness and scary things going on, but overall a great read for the sheer struggle everyone has to endure. Rank: 3

Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince

This book frustrated me. When it wasn’t teen-angst romance, it was a huge info-dump. Yeah, I get it, we need to know how to best defeat the bad guy. I just kinda wish it had been done a little more cleverly. You know, spread things out through the books. More clues, or rather, more obvious clues. I did enjoy the mystery of the Half-Blood Prince, along with Slughorn. But she made Quidditch boring! How dare she?

School was largely overlooked in this second-to-last book. I guess that was to be expected; after all, kids studying for tests makes for boring reading. But Draco’s lack of involvement in the story, along with Harry’s obsession with him, comes off as deranged and silly—and it’s the first time in the book that we see him obsessing this much over something. Considering that all of the evidence in the books point to Snape being a sympathetic character, right up to and including Dumbledore, I wish that Harry had been able to overlook the cruelty and try to mend a fence. But then, that would mess up the twist at the end, right? Harry was right all along, right? Who can’t see that there’s one more twist coming, right? Ah, well, we’ll know everything soon enough. Rank: 6

Maybe my last entry

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:58:39 GMT

I can hear them downstairs, moving around in the theater. The sound actually carries up through the bricks and the concrete. Of course, most of the building is hollow, because of the return air vents, so their shuffling and scritching are multiplied tenfold.

The metal door is holding, and I don't think they will ever think to walk into the room where the crawlspace is. As long as we're careful and keep the doors locked, we should be able to hold out for a while. It's night now, and the police station is deserted across the street. Nothing is moving on the square. Some view.

Cathy is already worried about food and water. I don't quite know what to tell her. We're going to have to get clever, and pretty quick, too. Maybe scramble up to the roof. I don't know. We're sleeping in the living room tonight, our backs to the window overlooking the square, our eyes staring at the two doors that keep us from becoming food. Or worse.

There's so much I wanted to say. So much I wanted to do. Don't know if that'll ever happen, now. We are done for. Even if we survive, we are going to have to start from scratch. And I'll have better things to do than this.

A small (but kinda big) Finn's Wake update

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:08:55 GMT

It’s been a busy month, and I’m sorry I haven’t sent something out sooner. But it’s with a pretty good reason or two. Hopefully, this will make up for it all.

I got a call from Bill Willingham in April. He had an interesting proposal for me: “I’m renting the Rudyard Kipling house in Vermont, and I’m inviting you, Matt, Chris, and Bill Williams to come up and have a writer’s retreat here.”

When I told Cathy that this would be the first-ever Clockwork Storybook reunion in several years, all she said was, “You gotta go.”

That’s why I married her, right there, folks.

The Trip to Vermont Starts right here: http://finnswake.livejournal.com/35644.html

Pictures of the Vermont excursion can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/finnswake/sets/72157600222004855/

In other news, I’ve won one and a quarter Cimmerian Awards this year: http://www.thecimmerian.com/?p=685

The whole award I won was for Blood & Thunder. I’m really pleased, since this award comes from my peers in the REH community. The other award, I’m sharing with my fellow bloggers at The Cimmerian website; we won the award for best website with our group blog. I ended up accepting for all of us, but only because Rob and Leo wouldn’t get up to do it. Still, it’s pretty cool and very flattering.

I won’t know until next weekend how the Locus Awards shook out. I doubt that I’ll be called upon to provide a mailing address for the trophy, however. And it won’t be until the end of the month that we’ll find out if Blood & Thunder was nominated for a World Fantasy award. I’m deliberately not thinking about either one; it does no good to dwell on such things. Really, I’m just happy about my third Cimmerian along with the nomination in Locus. There may be a hardcover edition yet, if the buzz keeps up.

The theater is, of course, doing very well. We’re busy, and the attendance is great, and the money is tight, and it’s all very First Year in Business, now, isn’t it? Seriously, there’s a lot of blood, sweat, and tears but it’s all for the best. Now that we’re settling into the groove, the Plaza Loft is getting worked on and some of our other projects are starting to shape up. The summer is being very good to us, so far (go knock on some wood, will you?), and we’re overall very pleased that our first year is going as well as it has so far.

Okay, that’s the big news. I’m going to let you get back to your day, now.

Back from Vermont...

Thu, 17 May 2007 14:22:55 GMT

...more or less. I'm still missing my luggage, and I'm girding my loins for yet-another fight with American Eagle, the puddle jumpers for American Airlines. Wish me luck. Soon, I'll back date my journal with tagged entries so everyone can know the love that is Brattleboro, VT and the Clockwork Storybook reunion. There may be pics, luggage retrieval pending.

Lots of News from the Plaza Loft

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:25:32 GMT

Hey folks, it’s been a while, and I’m sorry I’ve been to busy to keep everyone up to date on the big stuff, much less the little things. I’ll do that now, since the next two weeks are going to be certifiably crazy.

*Personal*

My hand continues to heal, and without surgery. I’m able to do most things with it splinted up, although I’m not looking forward to taping my fingers together for stability. Tendon injuries really stink. Thanks to everyone who rooted in their own way for it to get better.

Other than that, Cathy and I are slowly settling into the Plaza loft. Finally, we’ve got a bed and a dining room table to eat on—now we feel like adults again. The space is less of a disaster area, but still cluttered and unfinished. But we’re slowly getting it done.

I also recently did something that I’ve always wanted to do: I am now an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. This is, of course, merely a footstep or two away from establishing a Universal Church of Elvis. Think of the tax breaks! I actually did it because two good friends of mine are getting hitched and they asked me to perform the ceremony. Talk about an honor! Talk about a great excuse to go buy ministerial credentials.

I’m looking forward to the wedding.

*Business*

The Vernon Plaza Theater is now a going concern. We’re generating great, unilateral word-of-mouth and everyone is very excited about what we’re doing. Our first big coup for the town of Vernon just went through: we’re premiering Spider-Man 3, a feat which will insure that we start our summer season (which is akin to Christmas time for retailers) with a bang. The website is about half-completed, but you can get a good look at the structure and form at www.vernonplaza.com. And yes, if you refresh, the poster change. You film geek, you.

Running the theater is very different from running a bookstore. If there’s a power outage, or some kind of technical difficulties, you can still take money at a bookstore. Whereas in the theater world, your technical difficulties grind everything to a halt. Interesting juxtaposition. I’ve got employees, though, and that’s a universal deal. The kids here are funny; they are all sharp, clever, and great workers. But I find I have to dial my pop culture output waaaay back for them, for a couple of reasons: I’m officially too old (or they are too young) for me to drop any kind of dialogue or movie quote from the 1980s or back. They just assume that I’m speaking nonsense. Also, the pop culture underground railroad has no stop in Vernon. They know ABOUT YouTube, but they’re not “into” YouTube, for example. It’s tough sometimes trying to relate to them.

*Professional*

In an amazing turn of events, Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, has been named a finalist in the Locus Awards Best nonfiction category. I am stunned and pleased, and I also think I have no chance of winning. But it’s very cool to be nominated, it really is. I just feel that the Tiptree, Jr. biography is going to stomp a mudhole in my ass. But wow, it’s a real honor to get nominated, alongside of Win and Sam Delaney, too. Will this mean that I might get a nod for a World Fantasy nomination? Jeez, who knows.

The other very cool thing that is about to happen: I’m going to take a week off in early May to spend a week at a Writer’s Retreat. We’re going to Rudyard Kipling’s old house in Vermont—no pressure to create something there, eh? I’ll be joined by several very talented writers: Award-winning author and publisher Chris Roberson, Eisner award winner Bill Willingham, and this year’s Eisner award nominee, Matt Sturges. Together, 8 or 9 years ago, we were known as Clockwork Storybook, and this will be the first time we’ve been together in at least five years. We’ll be joined by mutual friend and up-and-coming writer Bill Williams, and I’m certain that all of our latent one-upmanship will kick into overdrive.

Me? I’m going to finish the Gorilla Man mystery, long-dallied over, and rescheduled twice. This will be the first extended batch of fiction writing I’ve done in over a year. I’m hungry for it. I miss it, like I miss a brother. It’s going to be great.

I’ll post some of what I get done after I return, along with offline blog notes of the week. Wish me luck, or call me names, whichever leaps most to mind when I tell you I’ll be occupying the same physical space as one of the great classics authors of all time.