Farther Room

Hear me out... Movie Adaptations

2012-02-07T03:07:00.000-08:00

I have a fondness for movie adaptations that make fantastical or cartoonish source material "work" by adding darker, more "realistic" elements.

The two prime examples I can think of are Bryan Singer's X-Men movies:

And Super Mario Bros. The Movie:

(do I have your attention yet?)

Now, that doesn't mean I don't love a good 100% faithful adaptation -- I do! Sin City, 300, the (first two) Spider-Man movies, even the recent Marvel-produced movies are largely, with only slight exceptions (or in some cases, none at all), committing the comics page to screen, and I love that!

But, I also love the idea of breaking things down to what they are at their core.

For example, my favorite of the Punisher movies (relative to each other) is the first one, because it felt like what the Punisher would really be like in the real world. He's not a dude in black spandex and a skull logo spouting poetic verse about how the guilty must be punished, he's a dirty, greasy, disturbed, dead-eyed headcase who lives in the sewers and only comes up to murder criminals.

(while spouting poetic verse about how the guilty must be punished)

"What would the X-Men be like if they existed in the real world?"

Well, they wouldn't be brightly colored superheroes beating up supervillains, they'd be a paramilitary force dressed for combat, fighting a secret war against a ragtag group of terrorists.

Because, here's the thing... when I look at a comic -- and primarily, I'm talking about superhero comics here -- I'm seeing the real world cast through a fantastical lens. And I enjoy it! It stimulates the imagination to contrast these things against what I know to be true.

So, conversely, taking the fantastical and casting it through a realistic lens has much the same effect. It's taking one thing and shaping it into a different kind of thing, while still keeping what made the original thing distinctive.

And it's the same for Super Mario Bros!

"What would would Super Mario Bros. be like if it existed in the real world?"

(and I love this part)

"It would be FUCKING BLADE RUNNER!!!"

Of course it would!

Seriously, what an act of sheer creation. To take this nonsensical world of castles and mushrooms and evil dragon/turtle/monster kings and heroic plumbers, and turn it into a gritty cyberpunk dystopia where the meteorite that supposedly killed the dinosaurs actually split the Earth into two parallel dimensions and oh fuck it, just let the movie explain.

I can honestly say that a 100% faithful adaptation of the game to live action would not have been anywhere near as interesting as the film that was made. Yet it still had all the little elements that made it distinctly Mario Bros. They were representations and approximations, but they were there. It felt like this crazy little Elseworlds version of the video game.

And that's really the point, I guess. Movies can be that, because they'll never be the original thing. And sometimes it's better to invent (or reinvent) rather than adapt, because ultimately, all the latter means is that you're being told a story you already know -- and the first telling is usually better.

Movies that aren't afraid to change things up may very well end up crap...

(cough)

...or they may end up showing you your favorite thing from a new angle.

And as long as it's still about a group of outcasts protecting a world that hates and fears them...

...or a couple of stalwart plumbers saving the princess from a tyrannical king...

...then it still maintains what's special about the original.

And despite what many may convince themselves of when trying to win arguments on the internet, that's really all that matters.

After all, I can think of another series that follows this pattern...

Published! Low Concept vol.1 and The Gathering vol.4

2011-08-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

So, let's just mention the elephant right now: my mission statement in the "Where Am I?" column hasn't exactly been accurate for a while now. Ever since the Portland move, new blog posts have been few and far between and, I'll be honest, I don't know when they're going to pick up again. I've had many things to distract me from the Farther Room project, some legit, some ridiculous. Farther Room ain't dead, though. I haven't given up. I just still need to refocus and, contrary to previous statements, that's going to take time.

I figure the least I can do, though, is to keep you updated on my career progress, seeing as said career was the driving force behind the creation of this blog.

I've (finally) had some stories published!

The first was actually released last month:

Low Concept: an EOC anthology

Conceived, executed, and birthed from the warm fuzzy womb of the 11 O'Clock Comics podcast message board community, Low Concept is what happens when someone goes, "Hey, wouldn't this be a cool idea?" and then actually does it. Contained within are 140 pages of humor, adventure, drama, weirdness, sincerity and an absolute and unabashed love of the comic book medium. There's a story in there for everyone, and each one of them is satisfying in its own way.

And on page 49 you will find my first ever published comic, drawn by Steve J. Thompson.

I'll probably eventually put the whole thing on my website, but for now, let's just call this the free taste.

You can purchase the book for ridiculously cheap HERE!

Second, we have another anthology originally conceived on a comic message board:

The Gathering, vol.4: Into the Abyss

The Gathering is a quarterly publication, started by members of the Jinxworld message board community, which has received tons of critical praise and good press. Each issue is based around a respective theme and features short stories by amateur and pro comic creators alike. The horror themed fourth issue includes a two pager written by me and drawn by my long time collaborator, Matt Shults.

You can buy it (and all the other issues) at the publisher's website HERE!

Also there's still a few days left on the Kickstarter campaign to fund future issues of the comic. Check out the details HERE.

So there you have it! I haven't been wholly unproductive during my hiatus.

Further updates to come... eventually.

The Truth

2011-03-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

What’s the truth?

 There’s a question for the ages. The meaning of life? The reason we’re all here? The grand design? The point of it all?

What is the POINT?

I’ll be honest; I’ve never cared to find out. I pride myself on having found philosophical and existential balance pretty early in life. I was 17 years old, pacing around my apartment, worrying what I should do about my failing grades, my future college career and my life beyond, and I had this sudden, calming epiphany that it didn’t matter. All the shit crushing in on me… didn’t matter. I thrust my arms out to the side with the force and conviction of a shepherd parting waves and I said, “It doesn’t fucking matter.”

And it didn’t.

I didn’t do too well in school. My brain didn’t jibe with that establishment -- which shouldn’t be mistaken for a generic, punk-poseur aversion to “The Establishment” -- I’m just saying the way things were done there -- the energies involved -- the vibe -- wasn’t me. I didn’t like the idea of worrying myself into a nervous breakdown because my own desires, inspirations and meditations didn’t fit into the structure of a future I’d built for myself based on society’s blueprint.

Does that make sense?

It was MY blueprint. MY life. I was who I was and I did what I did and I enjoyed myself. Probably not to the degree that I might have liked; I still feel like I missed out on a lot of my youth when I was young. But at least I clung to those inspirations. Three years later, I would introduce myself to a table of creative professionals by giving my name and adding, “and I wouldn’t be here today if I was a good student in school.”

That moment -- the one with the "F" word -- shaped my view on life. It’s the sort of clarity a person gains when they’re riding a malfunctioning plane into the Atlantic and they realize, “Fuck… I can’t do anything to stop this. I am not in control of this. I preside over myself alone and the rest of the world is just a ride.”

Except, instead, I was 17 years old and worried about meeting the expectations of imaginary people I realized I didn’t give a shit about. I’ve always been sort of an early psychological bloomer. I think I hit my mid-life crisis around 20.

So, it didn’t fucking matter, and from that sprung an entire philosophy on life, molded around the idea of being productively selfish. Do what makes you happy. Get what you want. Contribute to a more positive world by not walking around with a cloud over your head all the time. I couldn’t always follow this philosophy, but who among us can? Even Christians have confession.

One major part of that philosophy was the willingness to not care. People struggle their entire lives with questions of religion and faith and purpose and meaning, and I refused to. God was whatever I chose to believe he was. A mixture of all the good stuff and none of the bad. Did I believe in the devil and hell? Nope. Great storytelling concept, though. Was I interested in others thrusting their beliefs upon me? Hell no. Stop distracting me. Was I eager to share these beliefs and seek out others who felt the same? Not really. I cared more about what other people thought of the comics, movies, and music that I loved. THAT was the shit that mattered to me, because THAT’s what made me happy. Creativity was my religion, and I would wage war on the non-believers with the fury of a thousand angry nerds. But the god stuff just didn’t bother me. I figured, when the time came, I’d learn. Until then, I was gonna do right by me.

This didn’t mean I wasn’t curious… of course I was. I’m a problem-solver by nature, and the only thing worse for me than not knowing something is KNOWING that I don’t know. But the scope of this particular problem was beyond my ability to decypher, at least while still doing everything else in my life that I wanted to. So, like a person who’s resigned themselves to withholding judgement until the end of the movie, I just decided to sit back and enjoy the story. No spoilers would be sought.

I always had an ear out for them, though. Every philosophical discussion or passionate rant I was party to, I paid close attention and listened for the ring of truth. Not judging, not rejecting, but accepting everything, comforted by the notion that I didn’t really need to know.

Still, certain things -- the things that really resonated -- found their way into my daily life. I believe in the power of positive thinking, not because my father would drill this stuff into my head relentlessly when I was younger, but because through my own path, I found that thinking more positively made me feel better. And that made the people I interacted with feel better. And those people in turn made others feel better. And when people feel good, they make less mistakes. And when less mistakes are made, things don’t go wrong as often. Like a stone dropped into a pond, each of us creates ripples, and those are the ripples I want to create.

(As it happens, this is exactly what my father had been trying to explain to me all those years ago, just in his own way and his own words, which weren’t the ones I needed at the time. Or maybe all I needed was time.)

Have I gotten off topic…? Not really. Because it all leads back to the title of this post. The truth.

I’ve never looked for the truth. But I have kept my mind open enough to discover bits and pieces of it along the way. Part of that is corroborating reports. When two people say the same thing, it can be a coincidence. When three or four or five people say the same thing, it could be intentional. When several people, separated by years, with no reason to interact or even pay attention to each other start saying the same weird things in different words… well now that’s something of interest.

It’s the “in different words” part that makes it true for me. You know the belief that all messianic figures throughout the world’s religions may actually be differing accounts of the same person? I believe that. The similarities in structure, if not detail, are too apparent, and the storytellers have no interest in each other. Somewhere between conflict and indifference lies truth.

So, what is truth?

Y’know what? It doesn’t fucking matter… but the problem has a shape now. It has a perceivable scope. I can see both ends of it and I’m curious.

The truth lies hidden in the words and works of Alan Moore, where all time is simultaneous, art is true magic, and society is becoming steam.

The truth lies hidden in the life and mind of Grant Morrison, where magic is a proven act of sheer will, and the next level of consciousness means releasing your personal identity to merge into something communal.

The truth lies hidden in the often angry, sometimes cynical, always passionate words of Bill Hicks, in which “all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, and we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.”

The truth lies hidden in the experiences of Stephen Tobolowsky, who tells a story of a time in his life when he could hear “tones,” like voices (music?) from another (farther?) room, which told him things he couldn’t possibly know about the pasts of random people.

Listen for yourself.

The truth lies hidden in the life of my own family member, who has been telling me these things, in different words, since I was a child, and who put his money where his mouth was last year by quitting his medications and curing himself of a debilitating disease through the power of sheer will and belief.

These aren’t the words of Joseph Campbell or Carlos Castaneda or Michio Kaku or Seth. These aren’t studies I’ve pursued. These are snippets from the lives of artists. These are tiny shards of truth that have stuck in my mind unintentionally. If Creativity is my religion (and it is), these people are my prophets.

Somewhere in their experiences, and the experiences of many others who have not yet crossed my path, lies the truth.

It’s not a truth I’m going to seek out. I have other things to focus on. Stories yet to tell. This is just one of them. And just because I’ve written it doesn’t mean I’m going to become one of those armchair philosophers, tirelessly sussing out the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I’m perfectly content with “42” and everyone else can rest happily in their own beliefs.

Ultimately, this is just a blog post. A collection of words and links. Its only meaning is what you invest in it.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

Cheat Week: Holiday Special

2010-12-25T14:28:00.001-08:00

I know I've been silent this month. The new job threw my schedule for a loop and left me with little brain power for blogging. Still, this is my favorite time of year and I didn't want December to pass without some recognition of that. So, without further ado, I'd like to share an old classic...

A Charlie Brown Christmas

...and something newer...

Community: Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas

One is a piece of my childhood and goes a long way toward defining the season for me, the other is one of the best episodes of my favorite new show, and defines the holiday in a way that's both fresh and comforting. You can watch both of them on Hulu for free at the provided links.

Whichever holiday you celebrate, I hope it brings you warmth and joy!

A Retrospective Retrospective: Hulk (2003)

2010-11-28T01:29:00.000-08:00

A recent and sudden bout of employedness has kicked my productivity in the ass (it's a high-class problem), so I'm recycling an old article to meet this month's quota. Luckily, if you haven't followed my writing for Geeks of Doom, this article will be brand new to you!

When Louis Letterier's The Incredible Hulk was coming out in 2008, I was tasked with writing a review for Ang Lee's much-debated 2003 Hulk film for GoD. It became more of a deprogramming than a film review; my ultimate statement on a movie which I still consider one of the best of its genre (regardless of what genre you think it belongs to). In light of the news of ABC's new Hulk TV series, and after seeing yet another discussion about this movie pop up on one of the message boards I frequent, I figured it would make for a quick, easy, and hopefully interesting Cheat Week alternative while I'm dealing with the restructuring of my schedule for the new job.

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving!

Movie Review: Hulk (2003) - A Retrospective

Imagine a high concept science fiction story. Imagine heavy psychological drama. Imagine an intensely personal exploration of identity, family, and destiny. Imagine all of these elements wrapped up in an extremely bare-bones, classical-style film. And finally… perhaps most importantly… imagine that that film is not based on a comic book.

When Ang Lee signed on to direct the feature film adaptation of one of Marvel Comics’ most beloved characters in 2003, it was only because he saw something special in the material. Something deeper. Something buried beneath years and years of comic mythology and fan expectations. He saw to the heart of the Hulk.

Now, five years later, Hulk is still the most heavily debated comic book film among fans of comics and film alike. The lovers hail it for its cerebral depth and emotional complexity. The haters boo it for its meandering narrative and questionable performances and effects.

“You can’t have a summer blockbuster that takes 42 minutes for the action to start!” was the general consensus among the naysayers, and they were not entirely wrong! The movie was released in June of ‘03, when the summer movie season was just getting started. It featured a character whose entire reputation was built on a very simple concept: He gets angry, he gets big, and he destroys everything in his path. People walked into that theater expecting a Michael Bay-sized action extravaganza and instead they were met with long, contemplative close-ups of desert flowers, flashbacks within flashbacks, and, yes, a 42-minute wait before any of the anticipated destruction began.

That an audience revved up in such a way might have been thrown by this, is not at all unreasonable. If you go to the movies wanting Transformers and you end up getting No Country For Old Men, it doesn’t matter how good the latter was, you’re still disappointed it wasn’t the former. Your expectations kill your ability to just enjoy what’s in front of you.

Let’s take the film out of that context, though. Let’s imagine that the movie was released at a less-onerous time, and wasn’t billed so heavily as an “action adventure.” How might audiences have reacted then? Well, in that scenario, you still have the reputation of the character to contend with. So, as I suggested earlier, let’s eliminate that factor. There was never any comic called The Incredible Hulk. No TV show. No previous knowledge of a frail scientist who turns into an emerald giant when he gets angry.

Let’s strip the experience down to its absolute barest elements. What do we find?

Read the full article here!

Selling Yourself

2010-11-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

Living the life of the gainfully unemployed is a constant game of self-promotion, solicitation, and motivation with the possibility of maybe gaining the slightest step towards the promise of some kind of reward.

(It could be said this describes the life of a freelancer as well... go fig.)

Every now and then, though, you'll come across a job prospect that genuinely piques your interest. That makes you realize all you've been doing to find a job up till this point isn't as much as you COULD be doing. It inspires you to do more.

This happened to me last month when I came across an ad for a "Creative Director" at a company that produces promotional "idea pitch" videos for circulation on the web. The videos on their website were clever, entertaining and genuinely interesting, and the overall vibe I got from the company was a positive one, so I decided to put that extra effort into telling them how awesome I am.

My only problem? I've never been a "Creative Director," or any other kind of director, in my life, and I could only guess at what such a person might do. Yet I still felt a pull towards the position. The epiphany that eventually struck me led to what you are about to read: a self-promotional piece written in the casual, conversational style of their videos, with an emphasis on entertaining, educational storytelling, explaining why I thought I was right for the job, despite maybe being under-qualified at first glance. I posted it as a private page on my personal website so that, after reading it, they might browse through my other work to learn more about me. It was, effectively, my cover letter.

Sadly, I never heard back from them (which is why I'll be replacing their business name below with "Company-X"), but I wouldn't hesitate in encouraging others to make this sort of effort when applying for a job they're passionate about. It may seem risky, but sometimes these risks pay off. Make your passion known. Don't just rattle off facts at prospective employers, engage them. Show them that you're a person who WANTS to do the job, not just a robot who can do the job.

Anyway, I invite any tips, advice, or criticisms regarding what you read below. Maybe next time I do something like it (and I'm sure I will) I'll actually get a response.

~*~*~*~

Hello, Company-X. Let me tell you a story...

Have you ever read a comic book?

Of course you have; everybody loves comics.

Well, maybe not that guy...

But do you know what goes into making one?

Every comic starts with a Writer.

(You’d be amazed how many people don’t realize that.)

Today, comic books are much more of a writer-driven industry than they were even a decade ago. Whether you’re looking at the corporate assembly lines of Marvel or DC, or the myriad independently-owned publications, comics -- like any story-based medium -- are born in the head of the writer.

If that writer is lucky, he is also a skilled artist and letterer... but more commonly, the writer writes and he relies on other talented individuals to handle the rest of the creative chores.

But what if a writer doesn’t already work for one of the Big Two? What if he’s just a regular Joe with a dream of making comics?

First, that writer needs to find himself an artist. If he’s lucky (you’ll notice “Luck” becomes an essential part of the creation process), he’ll find an artist who can cover the full spectrum of duties: pencilling, inking, and coloring.

If not, he'll likely need to find a different person to handle each aspect.

(Just in case you’re keeping count, that’s FOUR people working on a single comic book.)

1) The Writer provides the story…

2) The Penciler translates the writer’s words into images…

3) When needed, an Inker brings depth and weight to the penciler’s illustrations…

Like so.

(Far more than simple tracing...)

(...popular myth notwithstanding)

4) Finally, the Colorist adds vibrant life to the images…

And what about the words?

Well, that’s where the Letterer comes in. The letterer is tasked with fitting all of the writer’s dialogue into the word balloons, and placing them throughout the panel -- it may seem simple, but you’d be surprised how difficult and precise the art of lettering is, and how important it is to the reading experience.

That brings us to a total of FIVE team-members.

Five separate, yet equally important factors which must come together perfectly to produce a single comic.

If you have the time, you can let each team-member take as long as they want… but that’s not very realistic is it? Not if you want to put a new comic in your readers’ hands every month. Even with tons of lead-time, the deadline always rears its ugly head, so it becomes essential to keep the wheels on the creative train running smoothly.

In a big publishing company, it’s the editor’s job to make sure the talent is on-schedule, but in the world of independent comics, that responsibility falls to the person who kick-started the whole endeavor in the first place… The Writer.

The writer sends the scripts to the penciller, acts as intermediary between penciller and the inker, inker and colorist, and when the art is finished, the writer gets it to the letterer to work his magic.

On a good week, all pieces of the creative machine can be working simultaneously.

So, what would you call the person who conceives the story, finds artists to draw it, keeps them on schedule to get the finished art to the letterer in time to get the finished book to the publisher in time to pass it to the printer in time to hand it to the distributor in time to send it to the stores in time to get it on the shelves by Wednesday?

Well… I guess you’d call that person a Creative Director, wouldn’t you?

Sounds awfully official, though. All the writer wanted was to tell a story. That technical, managerial, business stuff was just what he needed to learn in order to make his dream a reality.

Hi.

I'm a writer.

On my best days, I am a comic writer.

Most importantly, I am a storyteller.

I've never held the title of "Project Supervisor," but what I have done is incepted, overseen, and completed several comic book projects. I have a creative mind and an artist’s eye, and I know how to manage multiple elements of a single project while communicating openly and clearly with the artists involved to ensure everyone has the best experience possible while getting the work done on time.

Within my mind is the architecture of a Creative Director.

I’ve explored your website, I’ve watched your videos, and as you can see, I found myself inspired. I want to be a part of your team and I am willing to learn whatever is necessary to make that a reality. I knew nothing about making comics before I decided I wanted to write them... In this case, I'm confident I have more of a head-start than that. Given the opportunity, I know I will make a valuable addition to your team.

Of course... in order to prove that, I need to be given the opportunity.

The ball is in your court.

No pressure.

Thanks for your time. Feel free to poke around the site.

Geeks of Doom Article: What Form Will TV's New Hulk Take?

2010-11-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

My love of the Emerald Avenger is on display in this one.

With the news last month of a live-action Hulk television series in development over at ABC, many questions are swimming through the minds of fans.

Will it be in continuity with the Marvel films?

Will any of the film actors commit to a television series?

Who will play Banner?

For myself, the first question that sprung to mind was, “How are they going to do the Hulk effects?” I’ve made no secret of my long-standing love affair with the not-so-jolly green giant, and of all the creative hoops the studio and show-runner will eventually have to jump through, the one that weighs most heavily on my mind as a fan is what the beast will actually look like on the small screen.

It might surprise some to learn that the Hulk is one of the few characters to have been brought to life through almost every school of visual effects there is.

Behind the cut, we’ll take a look at those different incarnations and speculate on their potential for the new television series.

Read the whole thing here.

The piece is filled with photos and youtube links showing the different forms the character has taken, including this video:

And, here's a bit of trivia I left out of the article... at the 1:40 mark in that video, that guy shaking hands with the Hulk? That's my uncle. I was pretty thrilled to find that when I was researching for the article.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheat Week #5

2010-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's another Cheat Week, but this one is intentional! In the spirit of the season, I wanted to share with you one of my very favorite horror stories, which just so happens to be a (completely free)

AUDIO DRAMA!!!

Darker Projects is a creative studio that produces audio dramas of all kinds, but focusses on the realms of science fiction and horror. They have several great productions that they offer for free on their website, but the one I'd like to call your attention to today is probably my favorite of the bunch.

Autumn is based on the first of several horror novels by British author, David Moody. It's set in the English countryside and follows the trials of a group of people who have survived a world-ending plague that kills and then reanimates the majority of the population. Yes, this is a zombie story, but not quite like any other zombie story I've seen or read. The twist is a relatively minor one, but for someone who has sampled the many variations of zombie fiction, it will make the story surprisingly suspenseful and unpredictable. And, of course, for those who have never had an interest in zombie fiction before, this story may change things up enough to draw you in.

It's wonderfully acted by Darker Projects' cast of volunteer actors, with atmospheric music that will stick with you long after its finished. I've listened to it three times and I fully intend on giving it another spin before Halloween.

All six episodes can be found on the above-linked Autumn page. Hope you enjoy it!

Geeks of Doom Article: Destroying Comics For Fun and Profit

2010-10-19T15:11:00.000-07:00

The Farther Room is a place for positivity...

...but sometimes, things just piss me off. When these things pop up, I need a place to vent about them. Thankfully, my overlords at Geeks of Doom have given me a platform through which to do this.

I spotted this little tidbit on Bleeding Cool and was compelled to write something.

Superworld Comics is a store in Massachusetts that specializes in bronze, silver, and golden age comics and original comic art. On their YouTube channel, they have a feature called “Trash-A-Comic.” The title is pretty self-explanatory. Every episode, they destroy a comic book from their back-stock in what they insist are fun and creative ways for, one can only assume, the entertainment of their customers.

Because comic book fans — especially collectors of mint and slabbed comics — LOVE seeing those books destroyed.

In their first episode, they shot an issue of Classics Illustrated: Kidnapped to pieces with a paint gun.

In their second episode, they fed a near-mint issue of Dazzler to a couple of pigs before having it pecked by chickens.

In their third episode, they ripped an issue of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories in half, put it in a blender, turned it into a smoothie, and drank it while toasting, “Here’s to the end of another worthless comic.”

In their fourth episode, they rolled over a CGC slabbed issue of Shazam with a steam shovel and fed it into a wood chipper.

Laughing all the way.

Read the full article here.

Creative Release

2010-10-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

So, I had an epiphany during the move.

In the months leading up, RC and I talked long and hard about getting all of our preparation done early. We assured ourselves we would be fully packed, with boxes lining the walls, by the time our first moving pod arrived. Our last move had been utter chaos, so we were determined not to see that happen again this time around.

We would be ready. We would be disciplined. We would be organized.

This, of course, didn't happen.

We caught ourselves every now and then, saying, “We’re not doing what we said we were going to do. We’ll watch this movie, or play this game, or browse the internet tonight... But TOMORROW, we really get down to the business of packing!”

Then the next day would come and we’d do a box or two. A couple more the day after that. Then it would be Thursday and Thursdays are shitty, so we’d let ourselves rest that evening, saying we'd pick it up again the next day, but then the next day would be Friday and Friday is Date Night, so we’d resolve to get our work done over the weekend, but then Saturday is Saturday and who wants to wake up early on Saturday, so Sunday would come around but the next day’s a work day, so we’ll just…

And so on.

Then, about a month and a half before Moving Day, during one of these moments of clarity, I realized exactly what was keeping me from committing to the move... I was too busy trying to be a writer!

...

I know, I know. This was just more mental masturbation, convincing myself that the real problem was ANYTHING but my inherent laziness... but the thought wasn't entirely without merit. I’d spent many evenings writing when I should have been packing. And evenings when I wasn't writing, I was THINKING about writing, which left me staring off into space or listening to music... doing just about anything, but packing.

Blog posts, audio dramas, this comic, that comic, eHow articles, Geeks of Doom articles… my mind was a whirlwind of creative thought, and it was taking time away from the move-prep.

So, that day I decided I would put all creative pursuits on hold -- the comics, the articles, everything -- until the complicated and stressful act of relocation was completely behind us. I knew that once I freed up my mind to focus on planning and executing the move, things would move faster and we would be 100% ready when the day came.

And, believe it or not, it actually worked.

For about a week.

Then I started getting the shakes. Then I started itching everywhere. Before long, I was wandering the city streets offering sexual favors to any stranger who might be able to hook me up with a fix.

Because I, my friends, am a Creativity Addict.

That may sound like a self-important "Aren't I Awesome" sort of statement, but listen to me... really understand...

Quitting creativity cold turkey was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life, because it made me realize that I could not function properly without a creative outlet. If you thought I was a scatterbrain before? (...and if you knew me, you would...) Holy shit. I became a complete blithering idiot. I couldn’t focus at work. I couldn’t focus at home. I couldn’t focus while packing. I couldn’t focus while SPEAKING. I overreacted to almost everything and had more than a few emotional breakdowns over the stress of it all.

It's like whatever machine fed me all those fun ideas was also connected to my central operating system, and the minute I pulled that plug, it ALL came crashing down. Creativity was my brain's liver! Sorting out the good thoughts and the holding back the waste. You can't live without your liver, people!

It felt like I was back in school, repeating the fifth grade again because, “He’s a smart kid, but he just doesn’t apply himself.” Without a creative direction, I was utterly lost.

But... the move still happened. All that pent-up energy turned me into a human forklift. I’m pretty sure I lost more weight in those last two months than I have in the last two years, just from all the picking up, carrying, loading, and unloading I’ve done. So, there’s that, at least.

But I'll tell ya…

The minute I sat down by the window in my brand new apartment with my brand new view sprawling out before me, and booted up my laptop…?

Release.

24 Hour Comics Day 2010

2010-10-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

October 2, 2010, was the 7th annual 24 Hour Comics Day. For those who don't want to follow the link, 24 Hour Comics Day was created by comics guru Scott McCloud, first as a challenge to a fellow artist , but soon as a challenge to every lover of the comics medium. Anyone is free to join in, regardless of artistic experience or disposition, and there is only one rule: the comic must be conceived, written, and drawn entirely by you within a single consecutive 24 hour period.

Eventually, a day was made of it, so that comic lovers far and wide could take on this creative endeavor as a community.

Last Saturday was my first attempt. I started at midnight and worked straight through to 10pm on October 2nd (I included time stamps on each page to mark when I finished it). The result is what follows.

The Oregon Trail

2010-09-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Our story begins on August 23rd, 2010.

Or… it’s supposed to.

Due to an unexpected flurry of delays, disasters, fuck-ups and frustrations, our story actually begins on August 24th... when RC and I loaded her precious little Toyota Echo (affectionately named Beastie) for bear, and set off on our cross-state adventure.

We left the Valley around 1:00pm, after making one last stop at our favorite local ice-cream shop. We were excited. Especially after the previous days hardships, we were eager to get on the road and find out what the future held in store for us.

Now, for anyone who lives in Southern California, but maybe hasn’t traveled North of the Valley along Route 5, allow me to be the first to tell you what to expect...

Desert.

That’s it. There is nothing else.

Just desert.

Some more desert.

Some orange groves.

A Bond villain’s hideout.

His evil scheme to steal California’s water supply.

This thing.

And more desert.

We spent the day listening to music, laughing, bantering, bickering, and going through all the different phases of Road-Trip-itis:

The Happy

The Pissy

The Bored

The Tired

The Restless

The Sofuckingtenseyouliterallyvibrateatahigherfrequency

And back to the Happy again.

As time wore on, we realized the ride was taking longer than we'd expected, and we began to worry we wouldn't make our planned halfway point. So, we had to cancel our visit to RC's cousin's place in San Francisco, and we drove on.

Eventually we passed through Sacramento,

which had these buildings

and this place.

And still we drove.

Past the slumbering Walgreens giant.

Into the sunset. 

Beastie reached 100,000 miles.

And still we drove.

We stopped at a motel in Redding, CA around midnight. It was our designated halfway point, but the amount of time it had taken us to get there made us worried we had miscalculated our entire trip. How much longer would the next day's drive take us? Would we even reach Portland as planned?

We emptied the car, giving Beastie's shocks a much-needed rest, and settled into our little motel room. Within an hour we were passed out.

One day down. One to go… or so we hoped.

Our next day of travel was marked by brighter spirits…

...greener pastures…

...and the promise of…

...Portland.

Only 362 miles away. We were already two thirds of the way there.

The change of scenery from when we left the Valley was amazing.

Suddenly, there were trees! And...

Yeah.

Eventually, the road hit an incline. We began to climb, and before we knew it…

...we were in Oregon.

To our left, we saw this…

And to our right, we saw this.

Heh.

Well, no matter. We were in Oregon now and we felt safer already…

…what do they mean Runaway Truck?

Like, it was angry at its parents so it decided to leave home, or…?

No Parking? Who parks there? Why would somebody park there? Do people park there??

Okay, so there’s a danger of runaway trucks on this road! No problem. Noooo problem at all. They’re considerate enough to put up all those signs and build a ramp for it, so that’s encouraging, right? I wonder what one of these runaway truck ramps looks like anyw--

Holy shit, that’s a pile of rocks. They’re going to stop a runaway truck with a pile of rocks. Honey, let’s get off this mountain now please.

GAHH!!!!

Get back on the mountain! Get back on the mountain!!!!

And on we drove.

Eventually, we got some sage advice from one of our fellow road warriors.

We reached the Portland area by late afternoon, were settled into our hotel room in Beaverton by early evening, and immediately began our search for an apartment.

We got a discounted rate by booking the hotel room for a full week, but we would need to find a place to live by September 1st. We found one that would be ready for us by August 31st. Sometimes things just work out.

A week later, we were settled into our new two-bedroom apartment (which cost 2/3rds what our tiny one-bedroom in Chatsworth had).

We emptied the car, transforming it from a beast of burden…

...into a happy Beastie.

And we looked at what our efforts had wrought.

And it was good.

To be continued… (or so we hope)

Face it, Tigard... You just hit the jackpot!

2010-09-28T03:52:00.001-07:00

We have arrived.

More soon.

Gone to Oregon.

2010-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Be back soon!

Cheat Week #4

2010-08-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't forgotten the blog exists, we've just been so wrapped up in... well... wrapping up our time in California that there's hardly been any time for anything else. I know I promised to update at least three times a month but I figure under the circumstances my loyal readers (all four of you) (hi, Mom) will forgive me a bit of lag.

Okay, enough groveling, I've got something for you!

BLOG!!!

Patrick Rothfuss is the writer of a novel called The Name of the Wind. It is a fantasy novel, which will make some people balk, but those people are poo-eaters, because it is one of the best stories I have ever read. Ever. The dude is a natural storyteller and his book is packed with humanity, humor, mystery, suspense, joy, sadness, and a realism that should easily help anyone overlook the fact that it takes place in a fictional world.

Seriously, go read it.

Also, read his blog.

He updates once weekly and always writes with humor and honesty. He is an unabashed geek, and he loves talking about the art of storytelling and how bizarre it is to be "All Of A Sudden" a well-respected writer (TNOTW was his first book). Dude is as interesting as the stories he tells. Give 'im a looksee.

Cheat Week #3

2010-07-20T00:30:00.000-07:00

Another week closer to the move and we're starting to pull our hair out a little, but that's okay. A little stress is all part of the adventure, right?

In the meantime...

AUDIO DRAMA!!!

The Leviathan Chronicles is, simply put, the coolest fuckin' audio drama you're ever gonna hear. Which isn't to say that there aren't many equally worthy audio dramas out there for your listening enjoyment -- if there weren't, my Cheat Week grab bag would be drastically shortened. It's just that, of all the series out there, this one isn't just the most ambitious, it's the most ambitious and successfully executed.

Part audio book, part radio drama, The Leviathan Chronicles is an epic science fiction adventure, at times comparable to the best of Tom Clancy, James Bond, Nelson DeMille, The X-Files and The X-Men. It tells the story of a research scientist who discovers a secret family legacy that places her between two powerful factions of super-powered beings and the government agency sworn to bring them all down. Created and written by first time author Christoff Laputka, listening to this series is like experiencing a serialized big budget action adventure film of Michael Bay proportions (but much more intelligently written), all without needing to open your eyes.

I first discovered the series last year during my sophomore obsession with audio drama podcasts (a person needs SOMETHING to listen to during those boring work days). I was hesitant at first because I don't typically like audio dramas that tell their story through narration. I'd only heard it done right once, in the legendary Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio show, and no one since had managed to do it even close to that well. Leviathan surprised me, though. Its "production values" were impressive -- a full cast of professional actors, professionally mixed, and a damn good soundtrack -- and the story and characters were intriguing. I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. The narration only chimes in when necessary, and adds valuable detail and atmosphere to every scene.

Listen to Episode 1 here!

(though they're also available on iTunes if you'd like to go that route)

The full 25 episode first season just recently wrapped up, and they've got a pretty ambitious interim season planned out while they record the rest. Of course, ambition is pretty much the name of the game with these people, so it's no surprise. I would suggest giving it at least two episodes, as it's obvious they were still finding their feet and figuring out what works and what doesn't in the first episode. After that, I'm sure you'll find yourself as enraptured as I did.

Hope you enjoy!

Cheat Week #2

2010-07-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

So, Cheat Weeks are going to be a little more frequent in the coming months as RC and I prepare for our grand exodus from sunny SoCal in August. I had hoped to have more full entries stored up before then, but dem's the breaks of a life in progress; it is rarely, if ever, predictable.

Luckily, I have no shortage of other people's work to sling at you while we throw our lives into upheaval. Speaking of which...

TV SHOW!

Thief was a six-episode mini-series that aired on the FX network back in 2006. It starred Andre Braugher (of Homicide: Life on the Street fame) as a career thief and family man whose double-life is thrown out of balance when struck by a personal tragedy. It featured a talented cast, beautiful cinematography, sharp writing, wonderful music, and it won Braugher his second Emmy award... so, naturally, it vanished from the face of the Earth after its initial airing. Neither hide nor hair was seen of it on store shelves or the web until last year, when it was brought to that beautiful bastion of internet entertainment, Hulu.

I first sought the series out as a fan of Braugher's work on Homicide, but I quickly fell in love with its style and story. This is not like the shiny, gimmicky crime dramas of network television. It's harsh, visceral, honest, and engaging television. One of the best shows to air in the last ten years. And now you can watch it for free! Gotta love Hulu.

Watch it here!

And when you're done, join me in clicking my heels and clapping my hands until the people at FX are finally smart enough to release it on DVD.

(The show was rated TVMA for language, violence, and sexual situations.)

Geeks of Doom Article: A Game of Thrones vs. The Walking Dead

2010-06-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

The article I wrote for Geeks of Doom about the upcoming A Game Of Thrones and The Walking Dead, from HBO and AMC respectively, just went up!

Geek shows have gotten more recognition in recent years than they ever did in the past. Once upon a time the height of genre television was the Star Trek franchise, which, while always intelligent and ambitious, was still shunted by society into that niche of fandom reserved for the obsessive and the dateless. Thankfully, with the success of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and True Blood (and we’ll just ignore the unjust deaths of shows like Firefly, Dollhouse, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles for the moment), genre television seems to have entered into a new golden age, much like comic book movies did ten years ago.

Two of the most recent — and, it could be argued, most anticipated — such shows share a unique mission statement, despite their vastly differing subject matter. Both are adaptations of decidedly adult material, from mediums often given the short shrift in live-action television. Both will attempt to subvert genres that come heavily burdened with the preconceived notions of the common audience. And both feature a surprising pedigree of creators who are dedicated to their success. Those two upcoming shows are AMC’s The Walking Dead and HBO’s A Game Of Thrones.

Read the full article HERE!

Post-Modern American Cooking Quickie: The Blossamwich

2010-06-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, a baller on the go has no time for long, drawn out recipes with their lists of ingredients and cooking times and fifth grade reading levels. For those times, you need something quick, satisfying, and most of all, utterly absurd.

For those times, you need The Blossamwich.

Observe.

First, you toast two slices of any bread of your choosing (I usually prefer wheat bread because it helps me fool myself into thinking I’m eating healthy).

Then comes the cold cuts. My meat of choice is Boar’s Head’s new low sodium lemon pepper chicken breast, which is DAMN tasty, and, again, low sodium! We’re eatin’ right.

Take a decent helping of the meat (say four or five slices) and lay it on one side of the toasted bread.

Next, you bust out some 2% milk swiss cheese...

Say whaaat? Healthy like a muthafuck!

...and lay that on top of the chicken. (Depending on where you got the swiss, the slices may be long enough that you can tear them in two and overlap them; otherwise, you’ll want two slices.)

So you’ve got your toasted wheat bread, your low sodium chicken breast, and your low fat swiss cheese.

Next comes the Onion Blossom.

It's... looking at me, Ray...

This is where my delusion shatters like a piñata, spilling deep-fried cholesterol bliss over all the happy children.

Yeah, that’s right, I said Onion Blossom. You know… like the ones you get at Outback? The ‘Bloomin’ Onion’? Mmmm, they’re so delicious, aren't they? If ever a gift was sent down from the heavens just for the onion lovers of the world, it’s this. And the sauce it comes with? Holy god, it’s like a zesty orange dollup of unadulterated nirvana! Onion blossoms are amazing.

But they’re also big. Sure, a whole table of people could wipe one out in mere minutes… but at a table for two? You’re not halfway through the thing before your stomach is packing its bags and grousing about how it should have listened to Mother. Onion blossoms are not a two-person appetizer. And usually, when you’ve had your fill (and then some) you just throw the rest away, right? Such a waste.

Well, not anymore.

You take that sucker home -- not forgetting to ask for a small container of extra orange blossomsauce...

(rhymes with Awesomesauce)

...and you keep it in the fridge until the day you are ready for The Blossamwich.

Today is that day.

Slap down a layer of leftover onion strips on top of the cheese and pop that bitch in the microwave, open faced, for one minute on high.

This will melt the cheese and heat up the onions -- and somehow, the bread stays dry and crispy!

Miracles...

Final step: Pour on as much of the blossomsauce as you want (I would suggest a generous helping; too little and the flavor will be drowned out by everything else).

Aww, the Predator bled all over my sandwich!

Close it with the other slice of bread...

...and your masterpiece is complete.

Embrace it as a brother. Enjoy it like a lover.

Inspiration

2010-06-12T00:26:00.001-07:00

Inspiration's a funny thing.

It can come from anywhere, but only at unexpected times. When you search for it, it's nowhere to be found. And when you need it the most, it finally arrives... for something entirely different.

I've got at least two unfinished Farther Room posts right now waiting on the fickle ministrations of inspiration... but instead I'm writing this.

Like I said... funny thing.

Take this dream I had the other night...

Wait wh-- awww, where's everybody going...?

Don't worry, I'm not going to go into detail about it. I'd much rather turn it into a story... which is sort of my point.

Every so often, my slumbering mind will spit these vivid scenes out at me. I'll see a person on the run from an army, or fighting giant robots in hidden corridors... I'll see a tender moment between two people, while a jealous third person watches from the shadows... my brain puts on little movies for me...

(this one time I dreamt Johnny Depp and Wynona Ryder were running away from a cross-dressing Meatloaf...)

(...but that's another story entirely...)

...and then I wake up wondering who those people were, what their story was, what their lives were about. And, whereas once upon a time I used to just let that creative charge dissipate into distracted nothingness, now, I grab it. I harness it. I turn on the computer, I grab a pen and paper, and write it all down.

And that's probably the most difficult part. JUST WRITING IT DOWN is something you learn. It's not the first instinct. The first instinct is to sit back and enjoy the mental movie... not cannibalize and plagiarize it for your own fictional pursuits. Turning creative thought into actual words can be the most difficult process this side of childbirth. It kind of IS childbirth, if you look at it a certain way.

I had this dream once (about that aforementioned quiet little love triangle), and the scene was so powerful to me... the feelings of fear and surprise and excitement and jealousy mixing in that moment were so potent... that I couldn't stop thinking about it for an entire weekend. I was in San Diego with RC, and I didn't have a laptop at the time, and I had no notebooks or pens. I could have bought one, but I wasn't as disciplined as I am now... and... something else... I knew that if I wrote it down, my mind would ease away from it. And I didn't want that.

It was my first time in a new place, and this dream -- this idea -- just would not leave. So, I nurtured it. Every new sight I saw added to the story. Every random musing triggered by every passing fancy became a scene, regardless of how disparate the elements. Every new setting, a place for things to happen. "Creepy parking garage... what if somebody just found a dead body right here." Boom. Somebody does, in the story. Like that.

Between the music we were listening to while driving around and the influx of new visual information, I had an entire setting, all the main characters, their back stories, their personalities, their relationships, their struggles, their arcs, their entire lives, from beginning to end. I knew what the first three issues -- oh, yeah, it's a comic -- I knew what the first three issues of their story were, and I know what the last three issues are... and I've got about ten different stories to tell about them in between.

In two days.

And when I got home, THAT's when I wrote it all down. It was a pretty unique experience that I've never quite been able to duplicate.

(I still don't have a title yet, though.)

(I suck at titles.)

Anyway, my point is... the inspiration... the muse... it's like a wild thing. It's a force of nature. It's like...

RARR! MUSE!

And the only way you're going to get any good out of it... the only way it becomes more than just a fun little show your brain puts on for you... is to harness it. Write it down. Think about it. THINK ABOUT IT. Every second. Ponder, rerun, explore, expand. Because once you get that fucker moving... it's like a snowball rolling downhill. It just builds! In ways you never would have expected.

And I swear to you... I SWEAR to you... the shit my subconscious has given me is ten times better than anything I've ever invented while awake.

Dreams are where our best ideas live. We're just too damn distracted when we're awake to come up with the really good stuff. Most of us are, anyway.

Hell, even Twilight was based on a dream Stephanie Meyer had! And look how that turned out!

(...well...)

So, that's how it is. For me, anyway. On a lucky day, that's my process. Every other day, I try my damnedest to artificially recapture that creative hotspot. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes not so much, but I just keep plugging away. You gotta! And when the spark comes, you follow it wherever it's willing to take you.

Which is how posts like this happen.

Evolution: Bryan Singer's X-Men 1, 2, and 3 (Part 2)

2010-05-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase one of my favorite movies:

“There was a dream that was X-Men 3…”

Sadly, before Director Bryan Singer and his writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris could bring it to fruition, they heard the siryn call of Superman Returns, and it was a call Singer could not refuse. (It was, after all, the movie he’d been waiting his whole life to make.)

I will defend the greatness of Superman Returns till my dying breath, but along with the warm, happy feelings it leaves me with, I am also left with a small ache for what Singer’s X-Men 3 could have been... the clues to which are littered throughout both previous films.

~*~*~*~

Up till this point, I’ve run on the assumption that anyone reading this blog has already seen at least the first two X-Men movies, but as I’m now about to go into the plot details of those films, I’m gonna throw up a big ol’

SPOILER ALERT

just in case. If you have never seen these movies and feel like you might actually be interested in doing so, read no further. Go rent ‘em, netflix ‘em, buy the DVDs… watch, and enjoy, and then come back here for the rest of my diatribe. Go on! I’m not going anywhere.

~*~*~*~

X-Men ends with a climactic battle in (and on top of) the Statue of Liberty, between the titular heroic mutants and Magneto’s misguided Brotherhood. Magneto intends to set off a radiation-emitting device that will trigger the X-factor (or mutant gene) in regular human beings, thereby making mutants no longer an oppressed minority in the world.

What he doesn’t know is that the false mutation triggered by his machine will eventually kill all the normal humans who are affected by it.

In the end, the machine is set off, but the X-Men are able to shut it down before the radiation can reach Ellis Island (where a UN summit just so happens to be taking place). Magneto is defeated. The world is safe. The heroes can return home for milk, cookies, and high-fives.

(just as soon as Wolverine heals up)

(silly Logan)

But all is not as it seems. In the Director’s Commentary for X2, Singer points to something that happens during that final sequence as a clue towards the events in the second movie.

The radiation engulfs the upper half of the statue, covering the X-Men and Magneto. Since they’re all mutants, though, it is believed no harm can come from their exposure to it.

Except…

After the machine has been shut down and everyone is coming down from the Near Miss of it all, we’re shown a brief moment with the team’s telekinetic, Jean Grey. Under the circumstances, it could be easily assumed that this is merely a shot of her reacting to the tension of the scene. A combination of fear and exhaustion, since the last third of the film has seen her using her powers in far more demanding ways than she’s ever done before.

But, what if something else is going on?

Could it be possible that the radiation has had some kind of effect on her?

X2. When next we find Jean, she and her snazzy new haircut are accompanying a group of students on a field trip to the museum.

While watching over them, she is struck by an overwhelming wave of ambient thought. Everyone in the room thinking at her all at once. Trying to push these thoughts out of her head, Jean causes all the television screens in the room to flicker, like their signal is being interrupted.

Scott (Cyclops) approaches, concerned. He mentions that "ever since Liberty Island" she's been acting different.

“My telepathy’s been off lately," she tells him. "I can’t seem to focus, I can hear everything.”

“Jean, it’s not just your telepathy. A month ago you had to concentrate just to levitate a book or a chair across a room. Now, when you have a nightmare, the entire bedroom shakes.”

Wonder what could have caused that.

Skip to halfway through the movie, when a missile is fired at the X-Men’s jet. In a display of power heretofore unseen, Jean disables the missile from the comfort of the cockpit, sending it spiraling off to explode in mid-air.

The effort manifests itself as a flame springing to life in her eyes, and is followed by a moment of confusion and uncertainty on her part. As though she is afraid of wielding so much power.

Later, when forced into confrontation with a mind-controlled Cyclops, Jean’s inner flame once against manifests. She releases a blast of energy that knocks Cyclops back into his right mind and severely damages the facility where the battle takes place…

...leading to the climactic moment of the film.

The X-Men have saved their students from the clutches of the evil Col. William Stryker. They are preparing the jet for take-off, but the controls won’t behave, due to the damage the jet received earlier (from the second missile that Jean couldn’t stop). They’re grounded, and sitting directly in the path of the now-crumbling Alkali Lake dam -- which was damaged by Jean’s earlier showdown with Cyclops (talk about a bed of your own making).

The dam bursts, the water races towards the X-jet. Jean places herself in the path of raging waters, using her new powers to hold back the torrent, while simultaneously repairing the jet and lifting it to safety.

As she finally accepts this new power she’s been given, her entire body erupts into flames, and a sort of serenity overcomes her as she drops her arms and lets the water take her.

The X-Men are safe. Jean Grey is dead.

Or is she?

The final shot of the movie has us moving over the serene waters of Alkali Lake (now a river, I suppose) as Jean’s voice repeats the monologue from the opening of the first movie. And as the music swells, we see a flaming, birdlike figure just beneath the surface of the water.

“...every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.”

So… what do you think X-Men 3 was supposed to be about?

Obviously, this was all leading up to an adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Dark Phoenix Saga, arguably the most revered storyline in X-Men history. But how could Singer & Co. translate that space-faring epic to the screen while keeping the somewhat grounded tone of the existing movies? To my mind, it was a simple matter of evolution.

Rather than the voracious cosmic entity which possesses Jean Grey and drives her to consume worlds in the comics… or the disturbed multiple-personality that Xavier locked away in Jean's mind in an attempt to keep her from abusing her enormous gifts in Brett Ratner’s X-Men 3… the story could have been about evolution. The radiation from Magneto’s machine causes Jean to evolve far beyond any normal mutant, into something with so much devastating potential it puts the whole world at risk.

With this thought in mind, I went searching the web to find out if it had ever been revealed just what Singer’s plans for the third X-Men movie were. Surely, I wasn't the first person to connect these dots, was I?

I wasn't. To my delight, the plans for Singer's third movie had been revealed, and they were even more ambitious than I could have guessed.

I was right about one thing, though… Evolution was the key.

Here’s an excerpt from David Bentley’s blog The Geek Files (full article HERE):

Author Thomas McClean's book Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy From Comics to Screen answers some of the questions raised by fans, who have been desperate to find out what Singer and his own writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty had been planning for their unmade version of the third film.

Dougherty had already revealed some time ago that they had wanted to cast Sigourney Weaver as Emma Frost, a comic book psychic who would be reimagined as an empath able to control people's emotions. Some reports have suggested that Frost would have been an old flame of Xavier and would have emotionally manipulated a resurrected, unstable Jean Grey into the evil Dark Phoenix.

McLean's book adds new information:
Dougherty says the resolution of the Phoenix plot would definitely have been a major part of their version: "The main element for me was Jean coming back and learning how much power she could wield - that she just became overcome by it."

Dougherty says that many of the ideas he was considering, such as Magneto trying to use Phoenix as a weapon, ended up in the filmed version. He also says that the idea of Jean using Cyclops' power to kill herself was one they liked, though they would have made it clear that only Phoenix's body was dying. Her spirit would live on, evolving Jean past mutant and into a godlike cosmic state.

Dougherty likens it to the closing lines of Arthur C Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the Star-Child that was astronaut David Bowman hovers over the Earth: "Then he waited, marshalling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something."

For more detail on the plot and character arcs (I’ll give you a hint: Cyclops doesn’t die in the first act), check out Bentley’s other blog post HERE.

So there you have it. A far more faithful adaptation of the Phoenix story, and what’s more, a somewhat risky direction to take the third film of a popular franchise. From Chris Claremont to Arthur C. Clarke. From WWII to the cosmos. Singer's X-Men films were always pushing the boundaries of what you'd expect from a comic book superhero movie. Proving that truly ambitious storytelling was not precluded by the presence of a dude with knives in his hands.

Taking this into consideration, I have no doubt he could have pulled off his vision for the third film successfully. To me, Bryan Singer is still the best thing to ever happen to comic book movies.

Here’s hoping he makes another one some day soon.

Evolution: Bryan Singer's X-Men 1, 2, and 3 (Part 1)

2010-05-25T02:53:00.000-07:00

As news of the current events in the X-Men universe floods the web, I’ve found myself in a very X-centric (heh) headspace. When not scouring the message boards for vicarious thrills in the reactions and opinions of those experiencing the comics firsthand, I’ve been digging up my old collection of X-books to revisit the bygone glories of yore.

(...what the hell did I just say?)

If I could, I would just break down and buy the latest comics myself, but the Big Move looms ever closer, and every penny saved is to be treasured.

This past Sunday, my obsession culminated in a miniature X-movie marathon, wherein I watched the first (best) two X-films: X-Men and X2: X-Men United.

(are you sick and tired of the letter X yet?)

I’ve always enjoyed both movies, though I consider X-Men to be almost an audition tape -- a proof of concept -- for what Singer would achieve in the far superior X2. The first movie is like the first season of an ambitious TV show (season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to mind). It has all the right components, but is still figuring out how to use them to best effect.

X-Men featured a talented cast, a skilled director, an interesting story, and -- something movie studios were only just figuring out at the time -- a healthy respect for the source material that made the movie worth making in the first place. What it lacked, in my eyes, was confidence. The filmmakers knew they had something special on their hands, but also knew they had two masters to serve, each with very different expectations. There was the movie studio, who wanted a tight, entertaining, accessible action flick for the masses, and there was the comic fanbase, who wanted to see their beloved characters brought to the screen faithfully.

Singer and company achieved what seemed impossible at the time, satisfying the demands of both… but the signs of their struggle still showed around the edges. Action scenes were a little too self-conscious to be taken seriously, and edited a little too stiffly to be believable. The quiet, character-building scenes that Singer had shown a mastery of in both previous and subsequent films were edited down to quick, concise exchanges which served only to move the plot forward. The detail and nuance was there, but it was left largely implied. The entire movie is filled with scenes that you enjoy, but wish there was more of. As though something truly special is lurking just on the other side of the cut.  

(In the special features of the X-Men 1.5 DVD, we actually see some of these lost and extended moments, and a part of me wishes we could get an extended edition of the first movie, Lord of the Rings style, just to see these scenes edited into it, regardless of pacing. Sometimes, you just wanna watch the characters talk.)

The movie's plot never quite overcame a small air of stereotypical comic cheesiness, but the weight of the subject matter and characters helped to keep it grounded.

Ultimately, we're given something that satisfies on the basic principals of good storytelling, but does not yet show the chemistry of a truly great film.
 
That we got with X2.

Here, Singer knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly where he could go, and went there, and beyond, with the confidence and skill of a master. X-Men was a good movie. X2 was something great. A continuation and expansion of the themes and plotlines of the first film, but with the commitment and assuredness the first film lacked.

Here, there is no rush. The quiet character moments are not only left in, they make the movie. Hell, if not for those moments, one of the most important and relevant characters might have been cut entirely, his storyline lost, and so, the deeper conflict and questions the films sets out to ask, lost as well.

The tone was darker, all pretense of “comicky” flash and dazzle abandoned. This movie was a serious science fiction adventure film. Though not without its moments of levity and humor, it never made fun of itself, never winked at the audience. It took place in a real world which only lent weight and believability to the fantastical exploits of its protagonists.

This is why X2 is a great movie.

But what made it a great X-Men movie is that little something extra. Again, a respect for the source material, not only on the superficial level that movies like Spider-Man, Sin City, or Hellboy managed, but in the deeper spirit of the material. The allegory, the world-view, the interpersonal relationships and small details that only fans of the comics would notice. The stuff that made the comic tick was there on the screen, invisible to all but the few who would appreciate it

X2 was such a great flick…

Then came X-Men 3.

...whoof… did it just get chilly in here…?

Contrary to popular belief, X-Men 3 (or X-Men: The Last Stand) was not a bad movie. It was a solid action flick, at times plenty of fun, that took a lot of those aforementioned superficial elements from the comics and plastered them all over the screen in a story that, based on its own merits, was structurally tight and formulaically satisfying. This does not a bad movie make.

But it was disappointing. Because what had come before had aspired to so much more that, well… audiences didn’t want just a fun action movie. They wanted their serious science fiction saga. They wanted greatness again.

To me, X-Men 3’s largest failing is its near-complete ignorance of the thematic elements that Bryan Singer had built into the series since the very beginning. Not the themes of tolerance or feeling like an outcast -- all of that was covered, though in a way that left many dissatisfied with the message it was sending.

I’m talking about the theme that Singer hands us as the very first words spoken at the very beginning of the first movie…

“Mutation. It is the key to our evolution. It is how we have evolved from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.”

And that, dear friends, is the story of the X-Men movies. The underlying theme, which Bryan Singer even reiterates to us in the final moments of the second movie, and which Brett Ratner and his team were either unwilling or unable to carry through in the third… Evolution.

~*~*~*~

Be sure to check back for Part 2, wherein I descend to levels of nit-picky geekdom the likes of which no person in their right mind would ever want to subject themselves to...

Wait, that's a horrible teaser.

Be sure to check back for Part 2, wherein I am awesome!

See you soon.

Cheat Week #1

2010-05-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

"Yep. Here we are."

Sometimes there's just not enough time in the cosmos. Responsibilities stack up, muses go on vacation, obligations... obligate.

And for those times, we have Cheat Week. These are the weeks in which, rather than spend my usual amount of time constructing brilliantly thought-out blog posts for you to read, I'll instead link to other sites where other people can do all my entertaining for me! Rest assured, barring freak accidents or natural catastrophes, Cheat Weeks will be few and far between. I guarantee you I'll be back next week with more of my own content.

Until then...

WEBCOMIC!!!

Written by one of my very favorite comic writers, Warren Ellis, and drawn with awe-inspiring clarity and character by Paul Duffield, FREAKANGELS is an experimental webcomic published on the... web... for FREE. Every Friday. By Avatar Press. For free. On the web.

I could do a blurb, but they saved me the trouble...

It's awesome.

Since there's no direct link to the first installment, and its URL seems to be constantly changing, I'll link you to a Google search for Freakangels Episode 0001. The very first item that comes up should bring you to the first page of the comic, whatever its current URL may be.

Due to the occasional violence and rare nudity, this comic is not always safe for work... well, unless nobody's looking over your shoulder.

Enjoy!

Farewell to a Legend

2010-05-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

Frank Frazetta passed away this morning, leaving a hole in the heart of an entire industry.

I wish that I could say I followed his career as closely as it deserved to be followed, but mine was always a peripheral appreciation. His art was a constant in my life, but I never took that time to learn about the man. I often find myself saying this when a beloved creator passes, and it's something I hope to fix in myself one day. I want to know what I've got before it's gone.

Frazetta was an icon, but like so many icons, the weight of his presence was easy to take for granted. Like the shadow of a building or the touch of a loved one, it was easy to think he'd always be there.

I'm glad that he received the recognition for his work that he so richly deserved, both from his peers and fans of the characters he helped to define. His legacy is one of inspiration, which is perhaps the greatest legacy anyone can leave behind. And wherever he is now, I hope he takes with him the pride of a job well done.

Enjoy your well-deserved rest, sir.

Letting That Character Go

2010-04-19T01:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, this one is for the gamer geeks... or the people who are curious about the way a gamer geek's mind works.

Or the people who THINK they're gamer geeks and need a serious re-evaluation of their gamer geek status... as well as, possibly, their lives.

I've been involved in the same ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign for the last six years.

...man, look at you all scatter.

For those who don't know, Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D) is a table-top role-playing game. What that means is, simply, a group of people sit around a table with some pens, some paper, and some dice. One of them, the Dungeon Master (DM) creates a story to tell -- sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure book -- and everyone else creates a character to play, who will live through the events of the story.

Imagine your favorite movie. The DM is the bad-guy, the supporting cast, and the world-shattering events... the players are the heroes.

The DM is Sauron, Saruman and an entire army of orcs... the players are the fellowship of the ring.

The DM is Darth Vader, the empire, and the ewoks... the players are Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie.

Make sense?

Okay.

I've been playing one of these games for six years.

It has been, at turns, the most riveting, mind-blowing, frustrating, emotionally draining, and creatively satisfying experience of my life, so far. In many ways, it has been like a marriage; albeit one of creative synergy. I imagine it must be like the writers room experience on a great TV show. Except, in this, we are the writers, the actors, the directors, and composers. Six people sitting around a table to tell a story together, feeding off each other's ideas and passion to create something singular and amazing. I have had the privilege of sitting along side five of the most talented writers and actors to never see screen or print.

Certain creative professionals often talk about those projects that will stick with them for the rest of their lives. The ones they felt lucky and blessed to have been a part of. Peter Jackson & Co. have the Lord of the Rings... Joss Whedon & Co. have Firefly... Simon Pegg & Co. have Spaced...

We have this. And we didn't even get paid for it.

The game is going to be ending soon. In a matter of months. Two of us are moving to another state (that'd be me and RC), two of us are getting married, and the DM is preparing to draw to a close the story he's been building in his head since he was a kid.

Our characters have been put through every dramatic wringer imaginable -- and if you'd ever doubt how much of a strain that can be on the player, imagine the work of every actor who's ever shed real, honest tears for the camera, just to make that fictional scene as real as possible. We can go through that every time we play, except the audience is only ourselves. We're not performing for the millions, we're performing for the six. Our reward is the creative charge, the inspiration, the knowledge that, as storytellers, we can give as good as we get.

I don't know that ANY gaming experience has ever been as intense as this one has been for us. There are times when I feel like we take it a little TOO seriously. We place too much weight on the outcome. We can fight and argue and offend each other while discussing the most insignificant of details. We've had screaming matches -- actual screaming matches -- about the exact wording of a rule. There have been tears shed over the outcome of a dice roll. There are times we've gone WAY beyond reason and far over the falls of depression, because this fictional universe was just a little too real for us.

Sometimes, we have to step back and remind ourselves that it really is just a game... that the level of unhappiness it can breed is often far outweighed by the joy we feel between spats. We remember that we love this thing. That we only fight because we care so much about the story and the characters.

Like I said, it's like a marriage.

And it's ending soon.

I've already said goodbye to one character -- yes, in this game, we have left the main characters behind to play entirely new ones, because you don't just follow Frodo and Sam all the way to Mordor... Aragorn and Gimli have to have their say too -- and the feeling is bittersweet. Like any writer would, I had to get inside this guy's head, get inside his heart, and figure out exactly what made him tick... and though I played him the LEAST amount of time, I still get that hollow feeling when I think about not playing him again.

His name was Caid. He was a musician, and during the game just prior to the one where his part in the story ended, he played, literally, the performance of his life.

One of the many things that makes our game special is the emphasis that's placed on music. The DM combs meticulously through his music collection to compile a list of songs that complement not only the characters, but the scenes, the themes, and the overall arch of the story. Each character has their own band (or bands) to act as their musical "voice", and during the game, the effect is often like living inside a movie with the perfect score. Our DM uses music the way an expert filmmaker would -- to touch the audience on a level that the action and dialogue can't. It makes the experience that much more rewarding.

For Caid's final performance, I was challenged to compile the list of the songs he would play. What I put together seemed to tell a story at the time, but it wasn't until after the game that I realized that, in their way, the songs actually told the story of Caid's life. It was a brief life, for reasons only five other people know.

This is the list of songs I've been sharing with you.

Hope you enjoy them.

And a special thanks to Dave Grohl and Tim Reynolds for giving Caid his voice.

The Good, The Bad, and the Unfortunate

2010-04-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

To think, when I woke up this morning, I wasn't sure what I would write about for this week's blog...

For most of the week, my wife's parents have been away at a wedding in Las Vegas. Because we're awesome (well... really because SHE's awesome, and I'm a follower), we agreed to bird-sit for them while they're away. This consists of visiting the house once a day and making sure that their birds (two parrots and a cockatoo) get some attention (ie: someone to scream at with impunity) and have their water and food bowls restocked.

Today was to be the day they returned from their trip, so we were doing a last minute check on everything. My wife saw that their pool water was a little low, so she went out back to fill it up, and because that sounded way more rewarding than staying inside with the birdnoise, I followed. So, we're outside, and the door is left open behind us, and the birds start screaming. My initial thought was, "Maybe I should just close the screen door," but once the screams start echoing out into the neighborhood, I think, "Yeesh, maybe I should just close the main door."

So I do.

And the security lock slides into place.

Now the back door is locked. And the front door is locked and dead-bolted, because we came in through the garage door...

...which I closed as soon as we entered the house.

It's noon. RC is still getting over a bad back, and has no shoes on. The birds haven't been fed -- and, because we woke up late, neither have we. And her parents are coming back today... iiiiin about five hours.

We check windows, we check side doors; no good. We decide it's time to call a locksmith.

Now, I was a locksmith dispatcher for two years, and even wrote an article for a local apartment-owners magazine on what to do in JUST this situation. Sadly, that was so long ago that I can't really remember all of my own advice. Luckily, I shouldn't have to! Because I know tons of locksmiths! I can just call my old company and they'll be able to get us back into the house lickety split! Right?

Oh... yeah... except, then I remember how busy they could get over the weekend, and I realize we'll probably be waiting outside for at least an hour. So I just dial 411 and call the first company that's listed in our area.

And when nobody picks up there, I shrug, dial 411 again, and take down the SECOND name that comes up.

It takes about a half-hour for the locksmith to arrive, and when he does, he uses every single trick in the book... EVERY. SINGLE. TRICK... to try to get us for $125.

"Oh, you used to work in the industry? Okay, I'll give you discount. $110."

He tries to explain to me that over time, with the cost of gas and inflation, prices have gone up.

(DOUBLING what it used to cost? What is this, the comic industry?)

He tries to tell me that, because it's a deadbolt, it's much more difficult to pick.

(which is true, but an exaggeration, and never changes the price of a lockout unless you're dealing with a high security lock -- which this wasn't)

After I tell him thanks but no thanks and offer to just pay the service call,

(which is only fair, because that covers the time and gas getting out to us)

he finally... magnanimously... agrees to only charge us $100.

(which is still bullshit, but I'm impatient by now)

When he finally gets his picks in the lock, he rattles them around and puts on a concerted effort to show us just how difficult it is to pick a deadbolt. He even breaks a pick off in the lock, JUST to show us how difficult it is. And he's hoping that, with all the commotion, I won't notice that he's NOT PUTTING ANY PRESSURE ON THE TENSION WRENCH. AT ALL.

~*~*~*~

For those who don't know, there are two essential pieces to a lock-pick set. One is the pick itself.

The other is the tension wrench.

Without going into too much detail, while one hand is raking the keyhole with the pick, the other is supposed to keep constant pressure on the tension wrench. That way, when the lock finally pops, the barrel will turn before the pins fall back into place.

With no tension, you can rake the pins all you want, but you're not opening the lock.

~*~*~*~

"Oh, this lock is too old. I might have to drill."

I know these games. I had to deal with them for two years. I know locksmiths who are so charismatic that they can make you feel completely at ease paying $200 for two minutes of work, and leave you with a smile, a business card, and all the confidence in the world that you'll never call another locksmith again.

This guy was not that. This guy was not only bad at his job, he was bad at faking it.

In the end, I paid him the $45 service call ($10 more than what we charged four years ago, but whatever) and sent him on his way.

Then I called my old company.

"Hi, how much for a lockout today?"

"$65."

We wait another hour-and-a-half. When the guy shows up, we recognize each other. We exchange pleasantries. He sticks a dummy key in the lock, taps it with the end of a screw driver, and the door pops right open.

"You used to work for them."

"Yeah."

"And you're letting them charge you $65?"

"S'better than the alternative."

We shake hands, he drives away, and I feel monumentally stupid for not calling them in the first place.

And that was our day. We ate breakfast at 5:30 in the afternoon. It was Outback Steakhouse. We felt we'd earned it.

I'm gonna end this post with the lockout article I wrote back in 2006. I've updated it a little bit, and removed references to being a landlord, but otherwise, it's pretty much unchanged from its original publication. If you want a fun drinking game, try taking a shot every time you see a piece of my own advice I didn't follow...

~*~*~*~

"Dude. Where're my Keys..?"

After you've finished reading this piece, here's what I want you to do. Print it out, fold it up and put it in your wallet. Because, when you need this article, it will be locked inside the house, and you'll be outside, kicking yourself for not following the advice in the first paragraph.

Now that that’s out of the way… you‘re locked out. The first and most important step is to NOT PANIC. This sort of thing happens to the best of us and is no reason for anyone to lose their cool.

Second step, go try the obvious alternatives. Back door? Windows? If you've taken your home security seriously, these might be too secure to sneak back into. Good for you! (Now might be the time to start thinking about investing in a store-a-key box or something of the sort to keep outside so you don't get caught in the same predicament twice.)

If step two doesn't pan out, get your hands on a phone book and a telephone. Don't worry if you're standing at a pay-phone in a bathrobe and boxer shorts (what were you doing outside dressed like that, anyway?) and have no money on you; most locksmiths have an 800 number that costs nothing to dial. If you’re lucky enough to be locked out with your cell-phone, just dial 411 and ask for a locksmith in your area.

Whether the locked door is on a house, an apartment or an automobile, these tips should help guide you through your moment of need:

- The locksmith you choose should be licensed, bonded, and police-permitted. These are the legal requirements all locksmiths must meet before they are allowed to practice the trade (though some try to slip past them).

- When you speak to the locksmith, the first question you ask should be if they are local to your area. This doesn't necessarily mean they will have an office in your neck of the woods; most locksmiths venture far from their main office in the course of a day. This is how they get work. However, the proximity of the van to the location of the lockout can be the difference between a $55 charge and a $155 charge. (The time of day will also effect the price you're quoted. Later will usually mean more expensive, but keep your eyes open for the golden deal. It's out there!)

- Get at least three different quotes. Play them off of each other. Try to get the best deal you can. Remember, EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE.

- Some locksmiths will ask you for a credit card number. This is a security measure to make sure you'll still be there when they arrive. If you don't feel comfortable giving out your information (or if that's locked inside as well, etc.), simply reassure them that your only option is to stay where you are and wait for them. If you've offered them every possible reassurance and they still want your credit card number, their van is probably nowhere near you and you should call another company anyway.

- Lastly, if this is an emergency (child locked inside, oven left on), please call the police or fire department. As much as a locksmith wants your business, they are not willing to accept responsibility for your house burning down just because they were caught in traffic.

If you follow these steps, you should find yourself safely inside your home (or car) and out of the cold in no time. Now, aren't you glad you followed the advice in the first paragraph?

~*~*~*~

Happy Easter.

I'm in love with... RC

2010-03-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

No, silly, not that one.

The RC to whom I refer is the same person who, three years ago today, decided it might not be such a bad idea to sign over half her life's possessions in return for a pretty gold ring and... well, pretty much just the ring.

That's right, folks, today my wife and I celebrate our leather anniversary.

Now, I've never been much for tradition; quite the opposite, in fact. I've always seen tradition as a collection of obligations and limitations imposed on us by people who don't have to live our lives. I chafe at tradition, so it's just as well that nearly every aspect of our relationship, from the way we first met, to the nature of our courtship, right up to the marriage itself... was the very definition of "untraditional."

RC...

..yeah, still not the right one...

...(actually, back then it was RS) and I met the way most hip, young, modern folks do nowadays... in a fantasy role-playing chat room on AOL.

That's...

...fantasy.

Not...

...fantasy.

The progression was pretty natural; two characters having an interesting conversation in the chat room led to two people have an interesting conversation in IMs, and before we knew it, we were the best of friends. Nevermind that I thought she was a guy for the first two weeks...

Yes, you read that right. I thought my wife was a man when I first met her. A very nice, very friendly, very funny, very gay man.

Such is the beauty of anonymity on the internet.

Needless to say, my assumption was soon corrected and I was free to pursue my interest in this person without needing to reassess my sexual orientation (which was a lucky break, because I don't think my ego could have taken that kind of scrutiny).

A few months of "Maybe we are... but it could never... but it feels so... but it's long distance"ing were followed by a weeklong visit out to the Left coast (I was on the Right one at the time), wherein we would finally see if whatever sparks existed between our voices could translate into tangible reality.

Luckily for me, she was every bit as awesome in person as she was over the phone, and I was finally free to admit to myself what I'd kind of known from the moment she first told me, "Dude, I'm a chick."

I was in love.

Fast forward another year. I finally moved out to California, partially to explore the possibilities of a film career, and partially to be with her. Once we were actually able to occupy the same physical space on a regular basis, we quickly fell into the type of routine that suggested we'd been together all our lives. We couldn't even conceive of a time when the two of us weren't together.

I still can't.

After five years of "dating", and an additional year of living together, we decided to finally make legal what we'd kind of always felt.

We got married under a copse of trees overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Monterey. The wedding party consisted of the two of us, a reverend, and a photographer. It was a bright, sunny, windy day. She was beautiful and I was doofy and it was perfect.

So, now, here we are.

Three years after the wedding...

Four years after moving in together...

Eight years after jumping coasts...

...and nine years after admitting we were crazy about each other, and I still feel like the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth.

(sorry, Sam)

So, if you're single. If you're spoken for. If you've lost all faith in love, or if you're just positive it'll never come. And if you can only take one thing away from our story, let it be this...

I thought my wife was a gay dude when we first met.

Anything is possible.

Don't worry, Arcee. You'll find someone.

Post-Modern American Cooking: Hotdog Surprise Soup

2010-03-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

Here begins a series of articles I'll be doing from time to time detailing the various kitchen creations that keep my wife and I fed on my more... creative nights. As this is the auspicious first installment, I've chosen to share with you a beloved dish from my childhood: Hotdog Surprise Soup.

(unfortunately, due to a complete lack of foreplanning on my part, I have no images prepared to post with this entry. Instead, I'll be using the closest approximations I can find with Google Image search)

HDSS, as I decided to call it just now, was originally conceived by my father sometime in the early-to-mid-80's. Pop was a former military man and professional musician, so had quite a knack for keeping himself fed when there wasn't a lot to work with.

One night (I remember it well), Pop took it upon himself to make dinner for the family, but because grocery stores had not been invented yet, he could only use what we had in the fridge. An unopened package of hotdogs caught his eye... and a legend was born.

Now, the recipe I'm about to share is slightly altered from the one my father begat all those years ago, but it was borne from the same spirit of laziness and MacGyver-like ingenuity.

Let's get to it, then, shall we?

~*~*~*~

The bowl before you contains a steaming, barf-brown liquid filled with little green specks of broccoli offal, and diced hotdogs surrounded by pale, jerry-curled spaghetti.

You approach it with your spoon steady, wary of whatever dangers may lurk beneath its murky surface. You plunge the utensil in, waiting... waiting.... When nothing yanks it out of your hand, you are somewhat heartened. You lift a spoonful of the steaming sludge to your mouth, close your eyes, and taste...

OW! You burn your mouth. You should have waited for it to cool off first. I TOLD you it was hot! I even used the word "steaming" TWICE! You lose two HP.

INGREDIENTS:

4 Hotdogs (5 if they're short)

8 cups of Water

4 packages of Beef Flavor Oodles of Noodles

(if you don't have Oodles of Noodles, you'll need 3 Beef Bouillon Cubes instead, along with the noodles of your choice -- but I'm going to assume that, if you're even considering making this, you're likely to have some Oodles of Noodles lying around)

1 cube of Vegetable Flavor Soup Seasoning

1 package of Frozen Vegetable Soup Mix

1 package of Frozen Asian Vegetable Mix
(or Stir Fry Vegetable Mix)
(or any two packages of frozen vegetables you want, really)

Creole Seasoning
(if you don't have creole seasoning, shoot yourself)

Yeah, that'll do.

~*~*~*~

STEP 1
Fill a medium saucepan up about 2/3rds with water and set it on the stove. Drop the hotdogs in.

If the hotdogs were already thawed, bring the water to a boil, then take them out.

If they were frozen, bring the water to a boil, wait 5 minutes, then take them out.

Dice the hotdogs into whatever shape diced hotdogs make, eating no more than three of the resulting pieces under the auspice of "quality assurance."

STEP 2
Fill a bigass soup pot...

...with 8 cups of water. Set the stove heat to about 7 (Med Hi). Bring to a boil.

STEP 3

While the water heats up, open the Oodles of Noodles packages. Remove the four packets of Beef Flavor seasoning, place them on the side. Also set aside two of the noodle bricks (broken up or intact, your choice).

Take the other two noodle bricks, place them in Ziplock bags, and put them away; you won't be using those this time around.

STEP 4
When you see bubbles forming along the bottom of the pot, but before the water is actually boiling, because you're impatient, drop the frozen vegetables in. Bring to a boil.

STEP 5

Yeah, right. A couple minutes after you put the vegetables in, you start wondering if you should add the seasoning in now while they're still cooking. Nah, you should probly wai-- fuck it, you add the beef seasoning; all four packets of it (be sure to shake the packets out first so that the powder is all packed to one side and doesn't explode all over you when you rip it open).

(it already happened, didn't it?)

At this time, you might as well also add the vegetable cube.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The vegetable (and beef, if you didn't have the Oodles of Noodles) bouillon cubes are incredibly hard and painful to crumble in your fingers. You may want to hammer them into submission first before adding to the soup...

Stir everything up until you're sure no more solid fragments of the cruel bouillon cube remains.

STEP 6
Drink a Gatorade. You're doing hard work.

STEP 7
Let the soup heat up. No, seriously, let it heat up. That shit's gotta cook.

STEP 8
You're hopeless. It's been two minutes. Dump the hotdogs in. Wait a couple more minutes.

At this point, your soup should look nothing like this.

STEP 9
Remember how it says on the outside of the Oodles of Noodles package...

That's why we saved the noodles for last. The soup should be close to boiling by now. If it's not, turn the heat up, you haven't got all day. Once it starts to boil, drop the noodles in. Then lower the heat to 5 (Med), cover the pot (if it doesn't have a lid, use tin foil).

Let it cook for about 5 minutes, or until you're tired of waiting.

STEP 10 (Optional)
If the Oodles of Noodles packets didn't season it enough for you, try adding some Creole Seasoning. Not a lot -- you've already got plenty of salt in there. Just enough to get some of that spicy flavor.

Taste your soup to make sure it tastes right.

You burned your mouth again, didn't you?

Dumbass.

AFTERMATH
Remember those two noodle bricks you Ziplocked? Here's the deal... You're gonna love this soup. No, I'm serious, it's like crack. Even my wife agrees. Right honey?

"Yes, dear."

So, when you're ready to make the soup again, instead of picking up more Oodles of Noodles from the grocery store (you have no excuse -- they exist now!), just pick up the beef bouillon cubes to use with the leftover noodles.

Ta daa!

ORIGINAL RECIPE
If you want to do things the old fashioned way, all you really need to do is omit the extra Veggie seasoning cube (which I use because I like the flavor it brings), replace the noodles with frozen french fries (Pop really was a pioneer), and just use a straight frozen veggie soup mix. Oh, and he didn't use the Creole Seasoning. Disgraceful.

Happy cooking!

I’m in love with… Karen O

2010-03-06T16:02:00.000-08:00

Even if you haven’t heard of her, you’ve almost certainly heard her. If not singing with her band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, then with her side band, Native Korean Rock, on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack as Karen O And The Kids, contributing vocals to songs by groups like The Flaming Lips and N.A.S.A., or making her own music, like the song featured in this Adidas commercial by Spike Jonze:

Since entering the public eye with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' critically-lauded debut album, “Fever To Tell,” she’s become something of a Renaissance Person. Aside from her various musical pursuits, she has also tried her hand at directing music videos, and serves as a makeshift guinea-pig/fashion model for her designer friend Christian Joy.

That’s all well and good, but OUR sordid love affair started when I saw the music video for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song “MAPS”. I’d been a fan of the song ever since it hit the radio waves back in 2003, but it wasn’t until recently that I actually thought to seek out the video on YouTube. Everything that follows, does so because of this...

Echoes of Sinead O’Conner’s “Nothing Compares To You” video notwithstanding, this video truly captivated me. There’s something happening with her right there on camera that can’t be faked -- and you can tell, because she tries. She stands her ground with an admirable “the show must go on” resolve, but seems to rely on the carefully considered and choreographed motions of her performance to carry her through. Maybe because if she surrenders to the music, she might just lose herself completely. And even as the sadness wells up and the tears start flowing, she soldiers on to the end. This lead singer is laid emotionally bare for everyone in the world to see; immortalized at perhaps the most vulnerable of moments. It's real, and it's raw, and it's fascinating.

Now, this could just be a byproduct of my being a typical guy suffering from a terminal case of Knight In Shining Armor Syndrome, but the minute you show me a woman in tears, you’ve pretty much got my attention for the duration. It doesn’t hurt that the woman in question is captivating in her own right. Unconventionally beautiful (of mixed Korean and Polish descent) and apparently unafraid of baring her soul on stage -- or in this case, on film.

So, I did some research. First into the origins of the song, but that eventually became research into the band themselves, and that led to a dawning infatuation with the woman up front. Eventually, I found this video, which sealed the deal:

Look at that smile. Listen to that voice. The little dance she does. The way she gives herself over to the music, just enjoying the hell out of herself.

I was smitten.

(as was Letterman, it would appear)

I started watching every video I could find, and I soon discovered that the Letterman performance was only the tip of the iceberg. During the band’s live shows, without the expectations and regulations of network television, Karen O becomes like a force of nature. Raw, uninhibited, even playful. She owns the stage, and she owns the audience.

And, it all makes perfect sense once you understand...

...she’s fucking crazy.

See, it’s Karen O’s philosophy that, at a Yeah Yeahs show, the audience should be able to lose themselves in the music. Just completely go with the flow, the way she does! Problem is, she knows that most people have insecurities about letting themselves go in the company of strangers. Always worrying about what the person next to them might think. So, she takes the stage wearing the most colorful, garish, outlandish costumes that one could imagine; alternatingly sexy as hell or laughably ridiculous (sometimes both).

She does this, not to shock the audience, but to free them. They see her on stage, completely unafraid, dressed like a piece of living pop-art, and they feel less worried about themselves. Less restrained. Why worry about the person next to you when all eyes are on her?

This philosophy does not end at her fashion sense, either. In the course of a show, she flails, she screeches, she spits water at the crowd, breathlessly converses with them, and generally makes an unbridled spectacle of herself. If you were to combine the most notable exploits of Joan Jet, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Elvis Presley, you might start to get an idea of what this woman is like on stage. A true modern day rocker goddess. You watch her just to see what she’s going to do next, because you never know when it’ll be this…

Of course, this isn’t her ONLY stage persona. She seems to shift facades with each project she takes on. Sure, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O is a total wild-card, but Native Korean Rock Karen O is a much tamer creature...

And then there’s Where The Wild Things Are Karen O...

...who’s just adorable.

Now, before you start worrying that I’m about to leave my wife to run off and spend the rest of my days as a groupie lapping at the heels of Miss O, let me assure you…

I’ve only considered it once.

But I love my wife more than life itself, and no matter how many strange and gorgeous celebrities throw themselves at me in my daydreams, I would never even think of leaving her side.

Besides, even if I had a chance with Karen O, I don’t think I would take it. Truth be told...

...she scares me a little.

My admiration stems only from a place of… well, admiration! As an artist. I feel like I can follow this woman anywhere. She’s a pure entertainer, and whatever project she takes on next, I know she’ll make it interesting.

Hawt.

Rainy Days

2010-02-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

I love rainy days.

I always have. Even when I'm stuck out in them, unprepared, getting drenched down to the skin, I love it. I can't really explain the appeal, except to say that there's just something about the quality of the daylight, the chill in the air, and the rushing sound of the droplets falling, like the world suddenly speeding up... that appeals to me.

Maybe it's because, when I was a kid, I got to stay home from school if it rained hard enough. Maybe on some deep psychological level, rain represents freedom to me -- the thought of all that pent-up moisture suddenly being released from its cage. The tension in the sky subsiding as it pours itself out over the world.

Maybe it's because after it rains, the sky looks like this...

Maybe I just like getting wet.

Soon, the wife-monster and I will be moving away from California, the reasons for which I won't go into here, except to say that I feel I've squeezed all the juice out of this fruit that there is to squeeze, and all that's left are the bitter parts.

We've set our sights on Portland, Oregon, and among the many changes we'll have to get used to out there is that, in Portland, it rains. A lot. Or so they say. We visited early last year, just as the last bits of snow and ice were fading from winter, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that only two out of the five days we spent out there saw any rainfall.

It's a nice area, with nice people, and an artistic vibe that gives me the warm comfies. It's also bicycle friendly, and has good public transportation, which means that I'll be freer to get from place to place without need of a car (a rare blessing coming from the Pod-like Lifestyle of L.A. County).

When we visited, I was actually shocked to see just how many people get from place to place on bicycles. They've even given them their own lanes on the city streets. When you get to a red-light, the cyclists have a place to roll up and stop ahead of the cars, and they get to go first when it turns green. They're forcing drivers to be considerate and attentive, and their methods are so efficient, it baffles me. In a happy way.

And on top of all this... it rains there. A lot. So they say.

But here's my dilemma... I ride my bike to and from work everyday. It's only about a five-minute trek; ten, tops, if I'm lazy. And during the three or four weeks a year when it actually rains, those five-to-ten minutes are all I need to get soaked to the bone.

So, I have to wonder... in a city like Portland, where a third of the vehicles on the road are bicycles, and the rain falls freely and frequently... how do these people manage? Do they just resign themselves to getting wet every time they go outside. Do they sell special rain-proof coats for bicyclists to wear over their regular clothes and bags? A "Portland Poncho"? They must have a way of coping... and that's something I'll need to learn once I'm out there.

Either way, the move will be a new adventure, and I look forward to meeting it head-on.

I also look forward to the rain.

Why Farther Room?

2010-02-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

It's not because I'm a poetry buff, that's for sure -- not that I have anything against poetry. Like all forms of creative expression, I both respect and appreciate a good poem, but I've never been drawn to them on an academic level. Because of this my knowledge of the classics has been, and probably always will be, severely limited.

Still, I've managed to absorb the odd bit of verse through my various other interests. I discovered James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night when it was quoted in The Crow: City of Angels novelization. I learned about W.B. Yeats's The Second Coming when it inspired the title of the Angel season 4 episode, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." And T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was brought to my attention through a comic book called Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job.

VM is a comic I hold very near and dear to my heart for no other reason than it's just really, really damn good. The story is well-told, the characters complex and interesting. The ideas are broad and ambitious, with themes deep, dark and elusive, and a tone that never becomes complacent, hop-scotching from one emotion to the next. It is a story whose reach ever-exceeds its grasp, and every time I read it, it makes me want to be a better writer.

Avoiding spoilers, in the fifth chapter (issue) of the book, the main character finds himself at an existential crossroads, torn between family obligations and the deep, powerful desire to connect with another human being, and set his own path in the world. He turns to the poetry he learned as a child, finding guidance in one particular passage by T.S. Eliot...

"Do I dare disturb the universe?
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all...
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall...
Beneath the music from a farther room."

It's a powerful moment -- one of my favorites -- and it propels the main character onward to the end of the story.

So, readdressing the original question: "Why Farther Room?"

For starters... Because of Violent Messiahs.

But it doesn't end there. It's a great moment in a great comic, and it's definitely a cool name, but to justify using so esoteric a reference, I figure I've got to have a better reason than that. Especially considering my aforementioned ignorance in the realm of poetry. The title should have meaning... and it does.

In my eyes, what the quoted passage is about, to some degree what the entire poem is about, and certainly what Violent Messiahs is at least partially about, is feeling trapped within the circumstances of one's own life. Wasting away in stagnation while being too afraid to change those circumstances for fear of what the unknown might hold. To me, the Farther Room is something familiar and unattainable. The curious unknown that so many people look toward but never attempt. It's where all the magic happens.

In my own life, I know I've gotten tired of staring at that door and wondering "What if...?" I'm ready to finally go there. No more anticipation; only action. That's what this project represents. We are in the Farther Room.

I know what a lot of you will say...

...and I suppose you'd be right.

It's kinda corny, and I have no doubt that my interpretation of the poem is way off... but it's something that inspires me. And isn't that the beauty and purpose of art? For the audience to find their own interpretations and value within the creation?

I think it's pretty nifty.

Anyway, before I wrap up, I wanted to share a few other "Farther Rooms" that I've found out there in the great unknown:

A Farther Room is a wordpress blog maintained by a Los Angeles-based writer named Blair. With topics ranging from entertainment to science to politics, Japanese ramen houses and, yes, even bacon bikinis, I've found in my short time reading that it lives up to its self-proclaimed title as "wonder log of the worldwide web." Probably the blog you should be reading instead of mine (but you can read mine too).

Music From A Farther Room is the 2004 debut album by American violinist Lucia Micarelli. If you enjoy violin and/or instrumental music, you should definitely give it a listen. I'm greatly enjoying it. Plus, she's from Queens. Represent!

music from a farther room is a LiveJournal blog by an aspiring writer/singer/song-writer named Jo. She's "busking on the internet" as a means to earn enough money to leave her small town and go to school in Boston. It's a pretty nifty idea and she seems to have the sort of spirit we (I) here in the Farther Room respect and encourage. If you hear a song you like, throw a dollar her way.

Music From A Farther Room was an art exhibition which ran from July 31 to September 27, 2009, at the Gosford Regional Gallery near Sydney, Australia. The unifying theme is the concept of all points in time existing simultaneously, and the relationship between youth and age within that context. Fascinating topic, and there are lots of pretty pictures, so give it a gander!

Music From A Farther Room is a short film written and directed by Tobias Munthe. I have no idea what it's about, but here's the trailer.

Also, be sure to check out Violent Messiahs: The Book of Job, and its sequel, Lamenting Pain, both of which were recently rereleased through IDW Publishing.

Be Interesting...

2010-02-05T01:12:00.000-08:00

This is the biggest dilemma one faces when trying to create a blog. Well, a blog that's about anything, anyway, which this blog is supposed to be. I just haven't figured out what that is yet.

I've done the day-to-day, random stream of consciousness thing and it was fun for a time, but something so haphazard can be pretty easy to put off, forget about, and ultimately ignore altogether. Besides, I get the rampant randomness out of my system on Twitter these days.

And besides, that's not what this project is about. For starters, I'm actually looking at this as a Project, which automatically places it on a different level from, "Dear Internet Diary..."

I'm not saying I won't be posting about my experiences or thoughts here... it's just going to be more regulated. I want to write about something. Not just anything.

So, for my own clarity, and to start laying some ground to build on... here is a mission statement for what's to come:

1. I will always (try my best to) write about something. No random updates on my latest bowel movement, or the various science projects growing (sentient) inside the abandoned Tupperware in my fridge. That's what Twitter is for.

2. I will always be positive. Which is not to say that I won't be critical. If I don't dig a song or comic or movie I've chosen to talk about, I'll say so, and go into as much detail as I feel is necessary to explain the reasons for my assessment. I also won't hold back if I feel the need to write about a topic I find disagreeable. But this blog will not be a dumping ground for complaints, cynicism, bitterness or prejudice. In short... negativity is easy. That's not what this project is about. This will be a place of positivity.

3. I will always (try my best to) post regularly. As I said above, I'm trying something different here. A blog with a purpose. Such an undertaking demands a certain amount of reliability, I think. I'm still figuring out the details, as you can see, but once I settle on a posting schedule, I will try my damnedest to stick to it. Do I think I'll always be able to hit my update deadlines? Probably not. But, I will try. It will be a consistent goal. I think this is important to both the success of this Whatever This Might Be, as well as my own development as a Whatever I Might Be.

4. I will always (try my best to) be interesting. I want people to read my blog. I want an audience. More importantly, I want to be able to satisfy an audience. What that means is that I will try to provide a variety of interesting subject matter to keep people reading. I will do entertainment reviews and creator/show/comic/podcast spotlights. I'll eventually post my own podcasts. I will do interviews. I will post my own photography. I will post about my life and my experiences and my interests and, on rare occasion, I may even try to be funny.

The deep dark secret of this blog that I have yet to reveal is... this is as much about me expanding my own horizons and challenging myself as it is about keeping you entertained. I know what I find interesting when I read other people's blogs, and I want to try to provide that type of experience myself. So, I'm going to try to keep it interesting.

Dunno how well that's working out so far.

Oh, the adventures to come...

Cuz...

2010-02-02T00:25:00.000-08:00

I dunno why. Cuz maybe.