I wanted to put in an appearance and make a mention.  I just saw an article on Comic Book Resources reporting that comic book master Will Eisner died December 22.  I wanted to go into his contributions, but…funny how certain kinds of bad news just drains energy out of you.
Anyway, I found a Wiki article that covers the basics pretty well.

It’s like finding out Leonardo Da Vinci died.  He was that talented.  His contribution to English literature and popular art…it was that significant.

Now I know why the wind has been blowing so hard.

Hi, kids…sorry for the month-long silence.  Lots to do, not a lot of time to do it in.  I’ll plead work, family emergencies, and illness.

No, physical illness.  The rest, you already know. (hee hee)

Anyway, we’ve only started on the mixing process for “Sleepless Days.”  MS Word has been a profound pain, which has made editing difficult.  Fear not–I managed to beat it into submission.  I’ll be sending my edits on “Dying on Stage” to its author Brian Rust for his approval.

If I’ve clocked those stories well enough, each one should run about 28 minutes.  I want to squeeze in another story.  To play it safe, we’ll make it shorter than the others.  Jamie’s hoping the results will be like the off-the-wall shorts they’d do on Night Gallery. Once we complete pre-production on the last two eps for the disk, we’ll pour on the speed after the first of the new year and take Volume 2 into the home stretch.

Also Jamie and I have been discussing a possible reissue of Volume 1 “Dark Descent.”  From now on, Afterhell CDs will come with a UPC bar code, making them eligible for sale on Amazon.  Hoo ha!

In case we don’t check in by then, let me wish everyone happy holidays!

Jamie decided to get a totally unnecessary and much appreciated gift for yours truly — the new U2 album.
It’s screaming with a new energy and yet a recognizable passion familiar to U2 nuts like me.  I’ve been a fan of theirs since I saw concert footage of them on MTV back in January 1981.  Yeah, it was that memorable.  Seeing Bono on stage was a shock.  I got the same emotional response, amazement and awe, that I got when I first saw the Beatles.  He was like a mix of Patti Smith and John Lennon.

Here’s the beauty of what they do and Bono’s writing in particular.  Their new single, “Vertigo,” is obviously about a certain kind of confusion.  But the context, the cause, is left open to interpretation.

Hello hello (hola!)
I’m at a place called Vertigo (sorpresa!)
It’s everything I wish I didn’t know
Except you
give me something
I can feel
FEEL

Is it about personal change?  A whirlwind romance?  Political upheaval?  Spiritual crisis?

Or how about a chorus from another song,  full of poignancy and self-recrimination:

And it’s you when I look in the mirror
And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone
Sometimes you can’t make it on your own

All I know for certain is that the emotions are genuine, the music is honest, and that the boys are at the top of their game.

And I miss you when you’re not around
I’m getting ready to leave the ground

To quote Gypsy from MST3K, “Working like a dog.”  For a wonder, I’ve been able to do a lot of catch-up.  The wretched neocon Ugnaught is no longer in my hearing range.  The NYC radio station hosting him and the rest of their demon horde of screaming heads has changed their audio stream.  So I’m getting a much needed vacation imposed on me.
But I have a lot of work ahead of me.  Lots of editing, e-mailing, scheduling, researching, note-taking.  One of these days I’ll actually get to do some writing.  God, my kingdom for an intern.

I haven’t completely bowed out of the media monitoring thing.  For one, someone has got to slay the poisonous beast that cable news has become.  Wolf Blitzer has gone from Gulf War luminary to Bushco stooge.  It should be of no surprise to anyone, I suppose.  But I was reminded of it this morning, courtesy of Media Matters for America.  If you follow the link, you’ll get an idea of why I sent this to CNN:

I’m writing in response to the November 21 installment of “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.” It’s a bitter reminder of why I stopped watching CNN on a regular basis. After this, I won’t forget again.

The Nov 21 program was brought to my attention this morning while reviewing the website for Media Matters for America. MMfA posted a transcript and, later, video excerpts of a segment with US House Representatives Loretta Sanchez, Jesse Jackson Jr, and Martin Frost along with radio personality Al Franken.

Instead of moderating the discussion, host Wolf Blitzer was leading it. Instead of eliciting opinions from his panelists, he tried to muzzle them. He was pushing a premise when he should have been testing it. He asked leading questions and repeatedly defended their subtext, often at the expense of the panel’s analyses. He had already decided that his opinion, not those of his panel, was the focus of that segment.

When panelists openly challenged the news media’s effectiveness, and specifically that of CNN, he shut them down. He didn’t explore their points or even tried to disprove them. Instead he openly dismissed them. Further, he also did a poor job of encapsulating those points, distorting or exaggerating their arguments as a result.

Mr Blitzer’s abilities as an impartial journalist have proven lackluster. Unfortunately such blatant partisanship and poor skill has become typical of the entire network. CNN has become a major source of disappointment and anger for me, a former longtime CNN viewer since 1981.

But I will win — for I am good and the Mads are evil!  But how?!?!?!

Sorry, folks, just wanted to put in a word to let people know I haven’t died.  Lots of AH work to do.  I owe someone revisions on a script slotted for Vol 2, and we’re still not sure which story (if any, but probably) will follow it.  Anyway, back at it….

File this entry under, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”  I won’t be expending a lot of blogspace or words on the election.  Anyone who knows me can guess where I stand on it, assuming they haven’t heard me already.   No, you’ll get to dismiss my thoughts on a different topic altogether.

I need someone else to explain this to me.  I’ve been a vocal supporter of feminism for some time.  When the ERA was effectively crushed, I was stunned.  I was in junior high at the time (called “middle school” in my neck of the woods.)  But no one, not even militant feminists, has ever explained to me why the word “lady” is now an insult.

The discourse went something like this:  I refer to someone I admire as a lady.  Someone jumps on me for it; the perp usually calls me a sexist chauvinist pig.  I explain I was giving someone a compliment.  Perp says it’s an insult, not a compliment, that I was demeaning women.  This is where it all falls apart:

I ask how the word demeans women.  Instead of explaining that, Perp insists it was cruel, condescending, belittling, humiliating.

I lose patience and get confrontational.  I asked about the word.  Instead I get an emotional audit of the entire area.  When forced to admit whether he or she is reading minds, naturally Perp denies it.  The other person scrambles to regain some credibility, issuing excuses and ultimatums.  I’m picking them apart, trying to separate fact from spin.  But no explanation or definition of the word.

And it isn’t just me.  Many others don’t understand why the word “lady” is no longer acceptable.  Scroll down a bit and survey the comments with this entry of Cam Edwards’ blog.  You’ll see more than a few people, men and women, scratching their heads on this whole thing.  Consider it a testament to the confusion and rancor generated by the incoherent belligerence of poorly equipped intellectual warriors, who ransack casual conversations and social discourse like robber barons in the name of their chosen causes.

Yesterday, while smarting from the election, I got back on this issue by an on-air remark by Katherine Lanpher, Al Franken’s co-host on his Air America Radio show.  She nailed him hard about addressing someone as a lady.  Jesus, here we go again.

Feminists and pseudo-feminists have failed to educate me on this solitary point.  I decided to get to the bottom of it myself.  It took a few Google searches, playing with keywords a bit.  I found (gasp) an explanation in, of all places, the March 2000 newsletter of the Victorian and Edwardian Ladies League, with my emphasis:

Now would it have killed anyone to read up and explain that?

On the other hand, maybe folks couldn’t justify their actions.  In that context, it constitutes a socio-linguistic war, waged in the here and now, against the Victorian Age.  Modern speakers don’t use the word “lady” in the same context as the upper-class of one or two hundred years ago.  And yet we’re held to the same ancient account, plus interest, whether we made the investment or not.  That’s revisionism, the rewriting of history to better control the present.  Big Brother luvs yoo.

You can argue that the word “lady-like” is antiquated and even derogatory.  Easily.  “Lady-like” behavior has no place in the real world.  In the modern age, women must express themselves with political power and harsh words just to hold their own.   We need women with backbone, integrity, and genuine wit.

To me, that describes a woman of substance.  Someone worthy of respect.  A class act.  A lady.

Now here’s my problem.  Does that make me a terrible person?

Maybe I’ve unintentionally redefined the word.  Or maybe that’s the definition we should all use.  Should I be punished for trying?  Is the very word so dangerous that it must be completely excised from the language?  How can such oppression be justified?

Sorry, I just can’t go along with that premise.  We don’t need thought police to defend the honor of women everywhere.  That’s hypocrisy.  There is no such thing as equality through oppression.

A woman’s place is in control.  But get your foot off my throat.

I was going to write this up last night, but Jamie and I were really tired by the time we got back.

Back from what, you ask?  Our recording session for “Sleepless Days.”  We got together with our actors at Doug Kreb’s DIG Recording in downtown Portland to lend voices to the goofball characters and their dark shenanigans.  DJ Chiles, David Loftus, and Holly Neuenschwander joined me and Jamie in the studio.  Together, we banged through the script for about three hours which included an unusually giggy zombie hoard.  (Those were most definitely outtakes.  If there’s room on Vol 2 and if I’m feeling especially twisted, those might show up as a bonus track.  Ha, ha, evil chortle.)

The most Jamie and I have been able to do this year for Halloween is pass treats out to little tricksters and spin up some choice flicks.  Our studio sessions on All Hallow’s Eve’s Eve was a great way to celebrate the holiday, though.  If it wasn’t so expensive, we’d make it a Halloween tradition!  😉

We’ll probably need two mixing sessions to complete that episode.  In the meantime, we start prelims on the next ep, which is probably Brian Rust’s “Dying on Stage.”  (I still owe you an update on that, Brian.  I haven’t forgotten.  Blame the election…along with the cold I got from all the canvassing in the rain.)

Anyway, stay safe.  I hope everyone had some fun this Halloween!

The folks here at Ollin Productions (both of us) are working steadily on Volume 2 of “Afterhell.”  Two scripts are on the fast track to the studio.  Their working titles are “Dying on Stage,” which was our second out-of-house contribution by Brian Rust, and of course “Sleepless Days.”  I’m writing outlines for a few other stories while editing and planning out those eps.  With luck we can fill out the next CD with three stories instead of leaving one with all that extra space floating around.

We won’t be able to go back to Walnut Studios, so we’re talking to someone recommended by Piotr Orloff, the engineer on the pilot ep.  It looks like Curt Siffert will be back to compose new music for us, so that’s brought our spirits up.

It’d be a real kick to produce one ep in time for Halloween, wouldn’t it?  Right now that’s my short-term goal.

Anyway, gotta go.  Lots of production forms to write up, a few roles to cast.

I’m going to be all over the map.  Bear with me.  I need to get these thoughts and emotions out of my system.  Relax, this won’t be rant.  I’m not in the mood right now, but nobody is.  Maybe this’ll be a shellshocked tone poem or something.  I don’t know.  I just need to put this stuff…somewhere.

Neocons
I try not to demonize people, but as I continue to track their distortions, insults, and out’n’out slander, they seem less and less human.  And so do their fans.

I’m tracking this one neocon talk show host.  Thanks to a wonky CD burner, I spent the better part of yesterday scanning through 36 hours’ worth of right-wing paralogia and neocon hate speech to catch up on my work for Media Matters.   I feel as if someone’s taken a lead pipe to my soul, man.  I haven’t felt so emotionally overwhelmed in a while.

Between shrill diatribes against liberals, Europeans, and Muslims (who are all part of a conspiracy to take over the world apparently; I’ll bet you didn’t know that), grown women call up this one guy’s radio hate-fest to flirt with him and giggle like schoolgirls.  Sometimes I flash on that one piece of newsreel footage of a glassy-eyed woman wearing a Jokerfish grin at a Nazi rally.  Power is sexy.  Oversimplication and unshaking certainty are sexy, I suppose.  Maybe even blood is sexy, provided it’s on a sufficiently attractive pair of hands.

To be fair, it’s not just neocons.  I’ve seen dysfunctional support systems form up around popular people all the time, throughout the political spectrum.  Cults of personality just coagulate around the charismatic person in range, it seems.  And yet how often are the objects of such affection good people?   Instant dime-store idolators:  Just add Dark Side points.

God, how much of their souls have they surrendered to be so wretched and so proud of it?

RPGs
Doing so much work on role-playing games lately has brought back a feeling I try to avoid.  I get wistful, thinking back on those special moments that make those games unique, the sense of empowerment and awe that comes with participating–not just writing or witnessing–in adventures and worlds worthy of legend.  Die-hard gamers have war stories of derring-do, mirth, and wonder.  You get to invent your own myth.  That legendary one-liner just came from you and your friends, not Hollywood.  You get to be a hero, to test your wits and abilities, to transcend reality a bit and bond with your buds over pizza at the same time.

I haven’t been able to do that in a long time.  Jamie and I have been busy.  Even if we weren’t, the only people we know around here clearly aren’t interested in the kind of stuff I want to do.  They might try a game if they can meet Qui-Gonn or Data.  But that’s it.  No desire to explore a new world, meet mythical beings, or show that we have in ourselves to be just as magical.

It’s a sad world when even dreams become the property of the corporate sector.

Trekdom
Speaking of which, I’ve been getting curious about “Enteprise” lately.   Anticipating the season-opener, I started catching up on past eps.  It’s just modern Trek again, isn’t it?  I didn’t go in expecting Theodore Sturgeon or anything, but it’s all formula.  “Cue the interrogation scene.  Okay, Big-Bad, gloat at your prisoner.  Good.   Cue the hero.  Spit in the interrogator’s face in five, four, three, two…good!  Cut to camera two.”

I might watch, but I’m at a disadvantage from the start.  So far I can see every punch before someone throws it.  I suppose this is when someone yells at me for not turning my brain off before the movie starts.  I keep getting wake-up calls and apparently it’s disturbing everyone else’s viewing experience.

Depression
I’ve been painfully aware of its presence in my life again, probably from the sheer psychic assault of all the neocon screaming heads.  Circumstances haven’t been the easiest either, but to complain or vent about it only invites mockery.  Didn’t I know that life was supposed to be so grueling or miserable?

Anger seems to be my first defense against it.  That only makes sense.  More often than not, depression is what happens when you sit on your emotions for too long.  That’s why it’s so exhausting.  You had to cut off those power sources, stifling parts of yourself.  And anger is a defense mechanism.  It’s sadness with a sword and shield.  And let’s face it.  Anger is more respectable than sadness.

(Is there any wonder we glorify violence?  “Hey, Governator, what are the best things in life?”  “Kicking girly-men arse.”)

It’s not easy to go out into the outside world, but it’s the only way to feel the wind or the sun on your face.  That sounds lame especially here in the land of liquid sunshine.  I can’t avoid the truth of it though.

I was reminded of that when I gave a neighbor a misaddressed package meant for them.  Nice guy, nice lady.  Everyone there shook my hand and thanked me.  Even their one-year-old son.  When he shook my hand, his hand barely made it around my forefinger.  He even had a Spider-Man shirt on.  Always a good sign.

I don’t have the time or energy I’d like right now, otherwise I’d be able to do the rounds, say hi to everyone, help people with their writing (always important, if you ask me) and perk a few folks up wherever I can.  I just get worn down sometimes.   I wish I had more time.

Not to mention a speeder bike.

Folks familiar with Lovecraft know what that means.  For everybody else, I’ll translate.

We’re starting pre-production for new episodes.  Sales have been sluggish, but demand from our actors and supporters is high.  We’re approaching a few people, casting a few roles, giving a couple of scripts a green light.

I can tell you for certain that a story called “Sleepless Days” will definitely be in Volume 2.  Jamie wrote the treatment and approved the script.  Her original premise for it was basically the last vampire in Gilroy.  It got just plain strange after that.  I want upcoming eps to explore the darker places of the Afterhell world, so this story will be a goofy and probably welcome change of pace.

Now if things go really well, we’ll get some studio time before Halloween.  Then again, it might make for a really strange Halloween party….