Behold–I return from the wilderness.  Nope, no holy tablets though.  No souvenirs either.

For those who weren’t in the loop, I took an extended leave from cyberspace to chase a writing gig at Mongoose Publishing, the publishers of several role-playings including Babylon 5, Conan (which is fantastic), and the new edition of Paranoia.

The final verdict?  I just couldn’t meet the deadline.  I’ve been getting some nasty leg cramps for the last week or so, and even got a prescription of quinine for it.  Quinine…the stuff they used to use for malaria?!  Yup, the same.  One dose really messed up too.  My legs felt great, but the rest of me felt like I’d just had a nasty visit from Torquemada.  By mid-afternoon I couldn’t even type.  There were other things, the new kittens and some of the health problems they were having.  Minor ones, thank God.  Earlier in August, we also had a long humid heatwave run through here.  It sounds like a lot of excuses, but I was genuinely off my game these last few weeks.

I didn’t just leave it at that, though.  Jamie’s been a real trooper, pulling for me and backing me up on whatever I had to do.  And I really wanted the gig.  Writing for B5, Lone Wolf, Conan or whatever and getting paid?  I was sleeping a few hours a night for the last two weeks.  Last night I stayed up till 4am, throwing ice water into my face, on the hour, every hour. Then I went back to the keyboard and typed like crazy, crunching d20 stats and data as I went.

I wanted it bad, but I had to be realistic.  I  wasn’t going to make the deadline no matter how good I was.  Exhausted, in constant pain.  50 pages in just a couple hours?  Nah.  I learned a while back I had to forgive myself for having limits.  I send a short e-mail to Mongoose.  I figured I’d be lucky if they asked to see what I had so far, but there’s no reason to.

I didn’t get the job, but Jamie and I ended up achieving something more important.  We proved to each other that, despite all our missteps and nightmarish failures, we’re still a good team.  In sports, people would call it a character-building defeat.  You can have a good team, a good driver, the best technology, the best skills…and still have a bad day.  I think that’s what we’re having now.

Okay, so we get to live and fight another day.  The next battlefield will probably be more Afterhell, maybe a novel.  So we lost a battle.  We’ll win the war.

Just thought I’d try out the new settings.  It’s a good excuse anyway.

My submission for Mongoose Publishing is really behind.  I’m guesstimating that I need to do at least 12,000 words today to make up for lost ground.  I was getting some nasty, nasty leg cramps last night which put me completely off my game.  My doctor has written up a ‘script for quinine, of all things.  The stuff they used for malaria?  Sheesh.

Not sure why this has flared up.  The RNCC, a veritable goulash of hypocrisy and meanspiritedness, has been going on all week.  The news media has given up its roll-over-and-play-dead routine and gone straight to lovin’ on the legs of neocons.  Here in the real world, Jamie and I are trying to keep fleas off the new litter of kittens.  Most of the last five weeks have been hot and muggy, especially at night.  It seems I have so many reasons to choose from.  [shrug]  Well, I thought it was worth a laugh.

A few quick tidbits for folks, if it ever comes up in their own lives.

• At the RNCC last night, Ahnod the Governator was lying up his carefully crafted backside.  Apparently honesty isn’t counted among the rarely codified and loudly touted family virtues.  Don’t let anyone get away with stuff like that.  Pin them down.
• This has been bugging me for some time.  I’m one of several people monitoring right-wing media for Media Matters for America.   The neocon screaming head I’m tracking is a shrill, detestable  little gnome by the name of Mark Levin.  If you ever hear someone sing his praises, get that person to a professional cult deprogrammer immediately.  Those of you who follow the ISA Phoenix Babylon 5 PBEM might have witnessed a caricature of him just recently.  Sorry, I had to get it out of my system.

Anyway, I wanted to get all that out.  I don’t want to bog folks down in a rant.  It’s a time-honored cyberpunk tradition, but I’m not sure if I have the energy for a good old-fashioned Johnny Storm moment anyway.

In case people haven’t heard already, the object of King Kong’s affections has gone to the Mann’s Chinese Theater in the sky.   Here are a few links:

I saw the original 1933 King Kong just a few weeks ago, and inadvertently renewed my childhood crush on her all over again.  I’d forgotten what a good actress she was, the way she expressed an ongoing struggle between tenacity and vulnerability.  For many years after, she had to reconcile herself to the shadow that King Kong cast over her career, and finally did so with charm and aplomb.  In fact she’d even become friends with director Peter Jackson when he took the reins of the King Kong remake.  She might not be here, but she’s radiant somewhere.

A quick postscript:  I prefer to keep Afterhell as non-partisan as possible, but I had to throw this bit of synchronicity in.  While I was writing up this entry, the second hour of the Al Franken Show started with a horror-oriented intro complete with John Carpenter’s theme for Halloween.  Oh man, I hope they do that again when October 31 comes around!

I just heard that Jackson Beck has died at the age of 92. He lent his voice to many characters, probably numbering up into the thousands if you count commercials, of which he did many, for everything from Chesterfield cigarettes to Little Caesar’s pizza. You know that “Pizza Pizza” snip? That was Beck.

He was the voice of Bluto in Popeye cartoons, Philo Vance in a rather well done detective drama in the late forties, and did dozens of narrator roles in radio, film and television. They ranged from “Faster than a speeding bullet!” for the Superman radio and TV shows, to “On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence …” for The Odd Couple TV show, to the narrator of Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run.”

Beck’s work has become a part of our popular culture to the point where we probably don’t even notice it, and I thought it appropriate to make note of his passing here.

Hi, folks, I thought I’d make an appearance here before the record-breaking summer heat conspired with my Pentium Northwood system to force me into the nearest garage.

I’m polishing up a couple of scripts for the perusal of our resident artist and webmistress, Alida Saxon.  She’s asked to see them so she can percolate some album art ideas for Volume 2…not to mention threatened just out of sheer curiosity.  It’s only to be expected.

I keep talking about new eps, dropping titles like “Sleepless Days” and “Damning Praise,” so someone’s bound to call my bluff eventually.  Anyway, a couple thoughts on matters loosely related to Afterhell…..

Jamie recently pointed me to an article on the SFGate about a news story I’d been following for a while.  A kid in San Jose was in serious hot water for a poem he’d written in school.  It was a primitive, edgy piece of work that evoked the fears of any reasonable person after the events at Columbine High School a few years back.

Students and faculty were panicking.  Was it a poem or a threat?  A threatening poem?  What was it?!

The case was before the California State Supreme Court.  Fortunately, sanity reigned and the kid was cleared of any charges.

Now Jamie brought this to my attention for two reasons.  The kid lives in San Jose, California.  My hometown.  And one of several writers who came to this kid’s defense is one of my favorites, none other than Harlan Ellison.

And this does strike a personal chord for me, for reasons other than the obvious.  My brother once got into trouble for somthing similar.  A counselor at his school saw a picture he drew and called our parents in.  He was only copying some art from a post-apocalyptic RPG, an early edition of Gamma World.  A line drawing of a humanoid rabbit packing a rifle was enough to make her, a normally reasonable and sympathetic woman, panic.  And they had to show the counselor the book and prove my brother hadn’t gone postal.

I’ve always agreed with Ellison’s take on art, that its function is to disturb as well as inspire.   Complaceny, not fear, is the enemy.  With enough time and mental adjustment, you can get used to anything.  Complaceny is comfortable, reassuring and unchanging.  Once you’re hooked on the junk, you’ll do anything to keep it going.  Even comfort has its dangers.

I wanted to put in a world for Jerry Goldsmith, noted composer for fillms and television, who died in his sleep Wednesday night.  Everyone has been touched by his innovative music at least once in their lives, from Patton to Logan’s Run, from The Omen to the Star Trek films, from The Man from UNCLE to The Waltons.  I’ve loved film music for a long time.  His work at there for me at the very beginning.  The second film I ever saw was bits from Planet of the Apes, and the music I heard then has stuck to me all this time.  I’d like to think an exciting new sound has been added to Heaven’s mix.