Just fuck.

No one really reads this page, which is good, because I just had to get this off my chest.

I'm sad. Torn inside by this nagging feeling that I've lost something precious to me and there's nothing I can do about it. But it sucks. The loss was my novel, Swing Zone, to a publisher who is overcharging to the point where he has no sales..and the sad thing was. I never cared about the money. I just wanted the story to be read. And it's making me sick inside.

This was a serial that had picked up hundreds of daily readers on its initial run. It even had its own forum full of fans, speculating on each facet of the story. I ended the series with two novels worth of content (over 200k words) and sky high ratings, so I did what any sane writer would do. I rewrote and edited the first part of the story, preparing to release it as a novel. And I was on the verge of doing that, cover and all, when I ran into Grit City.

My fixation with Grit City was that they were looking for serials...and Swing Zone was, at its heart, a serial. That is to say, it's an ever widening story with a large cast, and it has a lot of roller coaster drama and chapter ending cliff hangers. Grit City's hook was adding abstract art to the stories during moments of peak emotion. I sampled their original 'emotobook' to get a feel for what they were doing and was impressed with the artist involved. The company was new and willing to roll with Swing Zone, so I eagerly signed on with them, extraordinarily excited to see my serial run as a serial with a much larger audience. But that's not what happened.

Part of this is my fault because I never did the math. I didn't know what ebooks normally retailed for but I assumed it was in the 3.99 to 8.99 area, so when he initially said 2.99 an issue, I was thinking of the price of a book and I thought it sounded right. In reality, at fourteen issues, that actually equals $41 for the book, which is completely and utterly ridiculous. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up on this discrepancy until I'd already signed on with them, and any discussions of lowering this price were met with the publisher's scorn.

The publisher argues that the artwork has a value, but I'll be honest. I don't agree, nor have I found anyone who agrees. In fact, the most popular opinion so far has been that the abstracts detract from the book, jarring the reader out of their world whenever they come across one. I happen to like my illustrator, Zach, and as an artist, he has improved ten fold since we started (a few of his SZ issue covers were downright epic) but these abstracts just don't speak to people in any meaningful way. Redoing the illustrations to depict the feel of a scene in actual pictures (like the covers) is about the only thing I can think of to save the concept, but the abstract thing just isn't working.

Beyond price, the first book's synopsis was horribly written and no amount of begging from myself was going to make them change it. It contained pretentious words I wouldn't use in a million years and I kept hoping to God that no one thought I wrote it. (Thankfully, it was recently changed to something much more appealing on some of the sites) And just so we all understand, this isn't a 'me' problem, my novel, Homebound, which I self published six months ago, routinely sells more copies in a week than Swing Zone has sold (in total) in a year and a half.

I wish I could go back and release Swing Zone as a novel the way I had intended. At $2.99 for the book, it would be doubling my Homebound income, and I could have the pleasure again of an audience to interact with. Instead, I can only stare at it on my computer and lament that no one will see it.

It's heartbreaking to see such an amazing story going to waste. :(

And it will be three and a half more years until its contract is up.

Sigh.

:/

Movie Review : Oz The Great and Powerful

One of the biggest problems Oz : The Great and Powerful has, is that by title and storyline alone, it will be compared to one of the greatest movies ever made. But by the same comparison, there was this amazing wonderment, this truly odd sensation of ‘look at how far we’ve come’ that started seconds into the opening credits. At the IMAX, in 3D, this movie looked incredible, and visually, it never failed to deliver. Every opportunity was taken to delight the senses without overdoing the effect. There was just the right number of sweeping landscapes, floating glowies and duck-worthy projectiles, and a perfectly tolerable set of CGI companions. Director Sam Raimi did a very nice job of making this a well-balanced movie in that respect.

The problem here was story, and to be honest, it wasn’t a bad story. It was just too bland and mediocre to compete with its lavish production. Casting wise, the actors were like beautiful stick figures. I liked James Franco as Oscar ‘Oz’ Diggs, but his performance felt so tight to me, for what could have been a really fun persona. Everything he said and did seemed mechanical and scripted. He was missing that unbridled state this character so sorely begged for. Maybe I’m spoiled by the likes of Johnny Depp, but hey, there’s a reason that guy’s a fan favorite. Mila Kunis was like a bad joke version of the ‘overly attached girlfriend,’ although I have to say, towards the movie’s end, she made an excellent witch. I almost wish she had been this character from the start. It would have made the twenty minutes after Franco arrived in OZ less boring. Michelle Williams, as Glinda, was lovely and sweet, but she sounded like she’d downed a few dozen valiums before filming. By comparison, Billie Burk, the original Glinda, completely and memorably lit up the screen while speaking with the over-the-top flair of a manners instructor in finishing school, just proving delivery does make a difference.

I did like the campy transition from black and white to color, and the use of primary characters in both worlds, but unlike the original movie, we never pop back to that reality, and it’s not quite the same effect. The little stories, the girl in the wheel chair, the old flame who is getting married, those stories never go full loop, and so, in the end, it feels unfinished. Even my mother mentioned she felt it was missing something at the end, and I knew exactly what it was. Outside of him doing his wizardly job, we never really get resolution. He hands out gifts at the end in the same way he does in the original, but for some reason, its in part to bit actors we don’t care about, and the rest of them kind of get nothing.

I can say Oz : The Great and Powerful was an entertaining enough movie in spots to make it worth the admission, but only if you see it in 3D. Otherwise, both you and your kids will start dozing right about the time you reach the Emerald City, and it won’t be because you traipsed over a field of poppies.

Expanding Young Minds

My grandmother, to occupy me on those times I slept over, would always pull out a tool box...and she had a wonderful assortment of things that I could take apart. Electronic things like telephones, TVs and stereos, all kinds of weird mechanical stuff with little motors and tons of removable parts. And I would spend hours deconstructing them and trying to put them back together.

Thus began a lifetime of thinking, if something stopped working, I could take it apart and fix it on my own. I never felt like sealed items were somehow off limits to my prying, and at some point in my teenage years, that extended to my car. I became fascinated with how all the little wires in there hooked up, and what went where and how to add things to that mix. Which probably would have meant a kick ass audio system if I had been a boy, but instead meant (obnoxiously) adding pretty purple lights to everything on my dashboard.

In any case, the moral of this story is: You can open and expand the mind of a child if you provide them with the right tools.

MMOs don't make people nuts.

During a recent lunch outing, I was rambling on happily to my Mom about the latest Guild Wars 2 beta and how much fun we've been having playing it, and that included a brief explanation of mmo's in general. (Although I've shown her World of Warcraft and its basic mechanics, so she has 'some' clue.) Being a big fan of PVP, I may have also excitedly said something to the extent of 'I killed SO many people.'

                                     Because, you know...it's what I like to do.

Now, to gamers, this kind of statement is innocuous. We picture cute little elves and dwarves face planting and disappearing to their revive point. But my mother responded with, "I wonder if the movie theater murderer played ultra violent games like that."

I was thrown by this statement, a. because it sounded out like it came out of nowhere, and b. because your typical 'World of Warcraft' type mmorpg is hardly 'ultra violent.' While it's true we are running around killing each other, it's with goofy characters in a goofy world with goofy weapons, skills and magic, devoid of any real blood or *decapitations. I never in a million years would categorize the games I play as even being even a little violent, let alone use the word 'ultra.' So, I immediately went on the defensive, insisting mmo players are not in any way inclined to go out and shoot people just because they play these games.

But not having a TV in my house put me at a disadvantage on this, as I didn't know it had already been revealed and discussed that the gunman, James Holmes, did play WoW or something similar addictively, and once again, video games have come under attack as being the gateway drug to insanity. And obviously, my Mom latched on to that.

Perhaps the argument could be made for a first person shooter in an army scenario or the over-the-top bad guys in Grand Theft Auto, but for mmos? No. No way. For starters, in this day and age, everyone under forty has grown up with video games, and now they are as common as television for entertainment, and in plenty of cases, trump it. Without having the exact figure at hand, let's just say a BAJILLION people play WoW world wide. I mean, saying he played a video game is like saying he owned a cell phone. You have to sort of be Amish not to have touched a controller in your life at this point. 

The ONLY correlation one could conceivably make here is that some very anti social people LOVE mmos, because they are a comfortable way to socialize without having to leave your home, so yes, more than a few nuts are drawn to it. But sorry, whacking a dwarf with a sword is not what produces a psychotic need to shot people in real life. Even if someone in the game managed to completely piss you off, the worst you're gonna do is throw your keyboard against the wall and erupt with some epic vent or forum rant. This guy, Holmes, had a mental problem looong before he high kicked a troll.

I'm thinking only people over the age of maybe 30 might honestly believe there is 'violence' in our little cartoon worlds. (And their Bug Bunny cartoons were WAY more freaking violent than any Orc I know.)  The rest of us have played them...and we know it's about as ridiculous an argument as you can find.

                                      The violent death of a Grove Sparkie. :(

And for the record, I wish they wouldn't start with the gun control argument either, but as a gun owner, I'm biased. I'd like to believe I can continue to protect myself and my home from these kinds of nutters if I had to, because gun laws won't stop these psychos from getting a hold of guns. 

                                (Okay...I may have to actually shoot this guy...)

*Age of Conan being the gory exception .. however they did have a 'G' rated setting.

Music Ramble

Back in the 70s, Vin Scelsa was a budding Manhattan DJ who ruled the night airwaves at a public radio station called WBAI, and I was a really little kid who suffered from insomnia. While I had a TV, it generally went off the air around midnight, so my go-to relief on those long sleepless nights was the radio. Since reception wasn't exactly stellar, being so far from the city, I played with the dial a lot, and somehow, one night, I happened on Vin...or rather I happened on a station playing 'Psycho Killer' by a band called the 'Talking Heads.'

The late 70s was not where New Wave music was really born. And while there were some innovative bands alive at the time, I could count them on one hand. The 70s was geared towards the pop single and it was disco that was ruling the roost. So alien was the sound coming from my radio, I was instantly in love with it. Unable to locate a pencil, I actually scratched the numbers 99.5 into the side of my old wooden dresser next to fading flower power stickers.

One of my prized possessions back then was a Radio Shack tape recorder, which I had saved up $12 to buy. Armed with this tape recorder, I stayed up until 4am the next night waiting for Vin Scelsa to play this song again, but instead, I ended up taping about twenty other songs I'd never heard of, and it would be another week before I added 'Psycho Killer' to the mix. Listening to that tape now, it astounds me just how prolific Scelsa was. It's a who's who of bands that wouldn't become household names for another ten years. Devo, The Police and Blondie, Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols and Johnny Cougar (Mellencamp.) There's Planet Claire from the B52s and Lene Lovich's Lucky Number. Songs that were the crest of a tsunami still several years from hitting shore. 

Vin Scelsa was the kind of guy who talked to his audience like he was talking to his pals in his basement. He fast became my friend, his voice...a welcome beacon of companionship throughout the long dark night. I followed Vin from station to station as he grew from a college station DJ to one of Manhattan's most prominent on-air personalities, and there is where Vin's musical tastes began to enter the mainstream, introducing a whole new generation to music he'd been playing for me a decade. Doing the hipster thing, while that was going on, I started to seek out newer music, honing in on a whole new sect of college DJs who were playing unsigned bands. It had become my passion. 

Musical taste is developed by experience. Mine was molded by Vin Scelsa and others like him who seeded my brain with the desire to hear the new, the innovative, the different, a desire that continues to this day. I'll load anything onto my MP3 player and let it sit in rotation a week. By that point I'm usually like, "Wow, who is this?" or "Oh God, not this horrible song again." Back when Napster was still a free download site and 'pirating' wasn't an issue, I went through thousands of songs this way. Now I have to hunt for (decent, well produced, free...) new music, which is a shame. :/

Welcome to suggestions if you know any good sites for free, new music downloads.

Breaking Bad

I don't have a television. Scratch that. I have a television. I don't have cable TV. Which, is essentially the same thing as saying I don't have television. It wasn't a financial decision, although it's certainly nice NOT to pay for cable, but, honestly, I didn't watch television a lot to start with, and I realized the few shows I did watch were generally available online not long after they aired and without commercial interruptions, so it just made sense to me to eliminate a costly service I was barely utilizing. <--Possibly the world's longest sentence. Sporting events I did watch a lot of, but since I moved from the NYC area, I could only catch my favorite teams streaming online or over net radio stations anyhow, so even that I'm good on.

What I do have is free access to Netflix and Hulu, which is where I watch a good portion of my favorite shows. If I'm particularly bored, which isn't often, I will sometimes watch new shows there as well, which is how I came to start watching 'Breaking Bad' last week. I remember looking at the synopsis and bypassing this show several dozen times, but finally, I tried out the first episode. Which...led me to the second episode..which led me to watching three full seasons in a psychotic three day marathon. It isn't very often that I get so hooked on a show that I feel the need to consume it in voracious fashion, so I figured I would just mention it to anyone who might not have watched it yet. It is one of the most absorbing shows I've ever seen. It had a fascinating cast and some truly amazing editing, cinematography and production.

One of the things I most loved about it was it was a true serial drama. There were branch storylines, yes, but they were just pit stops on an epic journey. The kind of story writing that's right up my alley. In fact, if I was going to write and produce a TV show, this is exactly what I would be aiming for. It's so deliciously dark and shady, filled with ironic twists and honest soul searching. How often does anything you read make you cheer for one group of bad guys over another group of bad guys? It's so much fun when all the goody goody rules are thrown straight out the window!

And by the way, if you happen to like that kind of thing...you might seriously love 'Swing Zone.'  Because me and goody goody rules...we don't get alone so well.

Just..sayin'..bitch!

Jesse = I <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 you!  

Aw, Bruce. What did you do?

(Warning, contains really, really foul language. If you don't like foul language, don't read this!)


When my son was little, he was a quiet, introspective kid who spent a lot of time watching the same handful of videos over and over again in his room. (I think it was like Ninja Turtles, Rambo and Diehard.) Because he wasn't in any way prone to doing anything wrong, I was shocked one day when his nursery school teacher calls me, upset and concerned, that my four-year old has been cursing up a storm on the playground.

"It's impossible," I insist. "No one in this house curses. There's no way." 

"I'm sorry," the woman tell me, "but he is. He's been saying the MF word."

I gasp in complete dismay. "Where would he even hear that from? It must be one of the other children on the playground teaching him bad words!"

"No," the woman say sternly. "It's only your son. He's keeps yelling the same thing every day. "Yippie Ki-Ya, Motherfucker."

At this point, I doubled over with laughter, suddenly understanding how and why my son was saying those words. It was Bruce Willis' line from 'Diehard,' one of the movies my son knew by heart.

Problem solved with the 'there are words you shouldn't repeat in public' speech, but it's my absolute favorite story from his childhood. I still think it's adorable. :)