Yes, I am a Glee(K)

This is the first real post for the new website. Excited about getting this up and live finally. Just migrated a few years worth of (sporadic) posts from Blogger and MySpace, now to get this thing up to speed with some current content!

I’m going to keep things brief for now (has Twitter affected me that much?), so here’s some general stuff:

I’m addicted to Glee. Seriously, love this show, love the music. The show is a little rough around the edges, but it all really makes me happy. I listen to songs from the soundtrack on YouTube and GrooveShark constantly. Anxious to buy the album.

Geeking on Big Bang Theory. Was recently introduced to this show via Amy & Cory on DVD. Tore through Seasons 1&2 in no time. It’s Wen and I’s just-before-bed show. It’s smart, super funny and totally dorky. Sooooo my thing.

Struggling through The Lost Symbol. I’m a big fan of Angels & Demons. I love the ideas in DaVinci Code, even though the story isn’t that great. I just got started on Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. I’m about 100 pages in, and it feels like I’ve been standing in one room for 3 hours while somebody blathers on with a bunch of exposition. So far, I don’t give a damn about any of it. Hope it picks up soon.

I ran into Vedera at Bread Co. They’re a really good rock act out of Kansas City, with one helluva vocalist in Kristen May. Been a fan of their first record, Weight of an Empty room, for a few years. They were in town for a benefit show at the Hard Rock Cafe (which I was unable to attend) but they happened to walk into our St. Louis Bread Co. during a Comic Creator Cabal meeting. Talked with guitarist Brian Little for a bit. Nice folks, wish I could’ve caught the show. Their new record is on iTunes now. Give ‘em a listen here: MySpace.com/Vedera

It’s been some time since I’ve written here. As you may or may not know, I lost my mother at the end of October. It was very unexpected, and the single most difficult and damaging experience of my life. You expect a trauma like that to affect you, but I think ‘how’ is always the big surprise. My family and I are healing, and I appreciate all the help we received during this trying time – particularly from The Armada who, as always, stood by me and propped me up when the weight of it all threatened to overwhelm. I love you all. And no words can describe the unimaginable support provided by my wife and best friend, Wendy. She understands what I’m going through all too well, and it has been her unenviable task of picking up my pieces and gluing them back together when I am struck by the need to fall apart. I hope you all can be so fortunate to have somebody in your life with the capacity to love and give that she possesses.

As for my mom – I love her and miss her, always. Sometimes the ache of it all sets in without warning, waves of sadness and surreality crashing against my weary mind. If you discover me to be a bit odd now and then, please excuse – the carrier pigeons that pass for my neural impulses are slow to deliver to all the dusty corners of my brain. When they finally arrive, I get to experience it all again anew, and apparently each uncharted faction of the mind requires its own slightly personalized method of dealing.

However, this is not a blog about all of that.

I’d like this to be the beginning of a weekly entry – I’m not so thick as to think I’ll always been consistent, but I imagine it’s a worthy goal – especially because I wish no structure on it at all. Just a random collection of my thoughts on the things I encounter day to day. So, that said…

I WATCHED “WAITRESS” TONIGHT. It’s a little film about little people with complex, tangled relationships and one woman’s effort to escape a dead end life. It features Keri Russell (remember “Felicity”?) in an impressive, nuanced performance, and Nathan Fillian (Captain Mal in our beloved “Firefly”) as her awkward, sweet OBGYN and extra-marital love interest. Also contains a splendid turn from Andy Griffith. Sadly, the quirky, talented writer/director (and supporting cast member) Adrienne Shelly never got to see her film debut – she fell victim to an absolutely irrational act of violence, murdered by a construction worker in the building where she kept her office. “Waitress” is a testament to her filmmaking vision, a unique understanding of personal drama, friendship and the gravity of our decisions. It’s funny, sad and insightful, and you should go rent it.

I READ “THE BLADE ITSELF” BY JOE ABERCROMBIE. This is a hard book to describe succinctly, because it doesn’t have an obvious plot. Instead, it follows three very different characters as the threads of their lives are woven together against the backdrop of vivid and brutal fantasy world. Abercrombie’s startlingly good debut novel is packed in turns with exceptional characterizations and visceral, engaging action scenes. He finds a voice quite apart from most fantasy fair, in turns frank and funny and vulgar. Inspector Glokta and Logen Nine-Fingers are two of the most fascinating fantasy characters I’ve encountered in years, and I most eagerly await the sequel (set to land on American shores in February, I think). Get thee to a bookstore.

I MET WRITER/DIRECTOR JAMES GUNN. First, outside of the radio station, where I quickly introduced myself (with the obligatory “I’m a big fan” AND “we’re friends on MySpace”). Later, Cory, Big T and I spoke with him after a Q&A session at the St. Louis Movie Festival. Both times he was very gracious and easy to speak with. And he was hella funny during the Q&A – the man is a silly bitch. Not surprising from the fellow who wrote/directed “Slither” (starring the aforementioned Nathan Fillian as ‘Bill Pardy’).

I SAW “THE MIST” IN THE THEATER. 95% awesome, but that last 5% was such a kick in the privates that it made me hate the film. The director and I will have words some day, oh yes. Skip the last 3 minutes and it’s a pretty good flick.

ALSO SAW “BEOWULF” AT THE CINE, IN 3D. I felt bad that I missed Neil Gaiman’s “Stardust” in theaters, so I hastened to “Beowulf”. It’s impressively animated, but at times poorly directed or edited – it loses its flow frequently, with long, boring moments creating an awkward canter between some really thrilling action sequences. The dragon battle near the end is particularly badass. Angelina Jolie’s digital presence in the film is distracting, and the fact that her computer-rendered face looks absolutely identical to the real life version and yet is still sort of disturbing only suggests that she borders on inhuman. If you love CGI or sword-n-sorcery tales, give it a go. But it can wait for dvd – the 3d is neat, but I don’t think it will lose much without it.

THE UNRATED, UNCUT OF “TALLEDEGA NIGHTS” SUCKS. Seriously, get the theatrical version – the director’s cut ruins the comedic timing of the entire movie. They say 13 minutes were put back in, but it feels like an extra 2 hours. “The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” works as a concise piece of pop silliness, but fails when the editor becomes indulgent. And you’ll hear the phrase ‘Shake and Bake’ way more than is really tolerable.

THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE “TERMINATOR” TV SERIES ROCKS. I was fortunate enough to land a screener of the upcoming “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” pilot from Fox. I didn’t have high hopes for this, but Summer Glau (River on “Firefly”) co-stars as a new take on the protective Terminator, and that was enough to get me in the door. The show follows roughly after T2, with some time lapse. And it rocked – totally captured the feel of T2’s ominous paranoia and machine-blunt action. T, Cory and I re-entered this world with severe doubts and left genuinely jazzed up. Debuts in January, and I think a fair amount of it was finished before the writer’s strike, so yay for non-rerun TV!

I JOINED A COMIC BOOK CREATOR CLUB. My new dorky haunt, Twilight Comics in Shiloh (in the Green Mount shopping plaza near Target) is hosting a bi-weekly gathering of writers, artists and assorted other creative types interested in making comics. Despite the crappy weather, the first meeting was well attended and tons of fun. It was compelling to converse with a handful of other guys entrenched in the craft of sequential art storytelling. The group was heavy on writers in this first go ‘round, but there was an artist there whose portfolio and work ethic were extremely impressive. The second meeting is this coming Thursday. We’ve been charged with creating something new for each week, pages of script or art, at least a little something creative to share with the group. I’ve not had a very productive couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to complete a six page rough draft of a script for one of my comic properties.

A HANDFUL OF OTHER THINGS:

I’m reading “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Joss Whedon’s Season 8”, DC’s “Booster Gold” and My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way’s “Umbrella Academy” comics. Good stuff all around. After 7 years, though, I’m losing interesting Brian Michael Bendis’ “Powers”. I think I’m only still getting it out of habit.

I received the “His Dark Materials” trilogy as an early Christmas present, which I’m excited about. Also got the first volume of “Preacher”, which I read on the job at Fantasy Shop years ago. It was a fun re-read – a little rough around the edges, but sets up the inspired insanity of the rest of the series.

I’m 3/5 of the way through “The Spiderwick Chronicles”. It’s pretty decent kid’s fare, really one book split into a 5 volume serial – presumably to make more money by releasing them as $10 mini-hardcovers. The reading leans a bit thin as it often relies on the accompanying illustrations to describe the people, creatures and locales. My favorite element so far is, of the three sibling protagonists, one is singled out as our main touch point, while his twin takes a backseat. I think that’s a fairly unique way to portray twins in fiction.

My friend Roi’s band, The Material, made it all the way to second place in a big MTV2 contest. They performed at the competition finale in Times Square. It’s a big deal for these guys, a real break that is creating some exciting opportunities. Roi’s been pursuing music as a career for the better part of 15 years, so I’m really excited for him. (Some of you may remember him as the guitarist from Cory’s old band, Cope.) The Material has a nice hard melodic rock sound with a female vocalist. Strangely, I’d been following the band for almost a year on MySpace before Roi moved west and eventually joined up with them. Find them and show them some love.

Jimmy Eat World’s new record is pretty awesome, especially the first single “Big Casino”.

Another band to check out is In This Moment – met them the other day. Nice folks, solid performers, and the lead guitarist is sorta like a dreadlocked, metal version of Seth Rogen.

It’s now 12:30 and I have physical therapy in the morning. Yay for cracking and stretching and putting my body back into some semblance of alignment.

All my love,
adron

Another fantastic show from Carbon Leaf. Last Friday, a small contingent of Armadians attended the CL headlining show at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room. It was the band’s first sold-out St. Louis show, which they were obviously excited about. Somebody offered Doug a hundred bucks for his ticket (which he turned down). The concert was incredible, an absolutely revelatory performance. Carbon Leaf is my favorite band. Wen and I have seen them live four times now. This show was my favorite so far. Interesting show highlight: they began their encore by going completely unplugged. No mics, no amps, just the band (sans drums) projecting “Learn to Fly” to a packed room struggling to remain silent. Other highlights – friggin’ everything.

Dork out moment: Doug, Wen and I walked up to CL guitarist Terry Clark after the show to shake hands (and hugs from Wen). Before even exchanging a greeting, he tells us that the bands sound tech had spotted Doug’s shirt (which says “Joss Whedon is my Master Now”) and excitedly called the bands attention to it through their ear-monitors. Turns out the band just watched all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD via their laptop while on tour. They were completely stoked to see a Whedon fan in the crowd. We all dorked out for a minute, and insisted that they spend some quality time with “Firefly” next (appropriately, I was wearing my “Browncoat” shirt from “Serenity”). It’s good to know that our favorite band is our kind of people.

Hot Blog-on-Blog Action: awhile back I commented on a short story collection, “Little Gods” by Tim Pratt, that I had really enjoyed. I sent the author an email telling him how much I liked the book, and which stories I found most affecting. He was kind enough to write back about a week later. He also apparently checked out my blog (the link is on my email signature), and wrote about my comments on his own online journal (he linked off to me, too). Pretty cool. This evening, we made a Borders run and I picked up Pratt’s novel “The Strange Adventures of Ranger Girl”, to be perused during our upcoming trip to New York to visit Mary and Gene.

I also cashed in all of my Christmas gift certificates and, with a 30% coupon, picked up Absolute Sandman volume one for just over fourteen bucks (it’s regularly priced at $99). I discovered Sandman with issue #50 in early high school and have been a Neil Gaiman fan every since. This Absolute edition collects the first four story arcs of Sandman in an oversized hardcover with a gorgeous slipcase. The pages have been recolored, and it includes a slew of “special features”. Now, if the absolute editions just come out every Christmas, maybe I’ll be able to use this tactic again…

Last weekend I attended a book signing in my hometown by one of my high school teachers for her recently published book of poetry, “Leaving the Limberlost”.

I stupidly wrote the quite long journal entry about the visit in my web browser, then MySpace crashed before I could save it. I can never bring myself to rewrite a lost blog like that, so here’s a summary: 1) it was nice to see my teacher again, and talk shop about writing; 2) chatted up some other old instructors who didn’t recognize me at first with the long haired that characterized me in school; 3) had nice chats with my (long-time-no-see) high school friends Jessi and Ben. Jessi runs the coffee shop that hosted the signing which is really cute. Ben and his adorable wife actually live pretty close to Wen and I. He’s a dentist now; 4) a little hometown nostalgia got me stalking through the MySpace High School listing to find profiles of my old classmates. There’s quite a few of the folk in my class and the ones around it on the ‘Space. Mostly, I was struck by how old most of them looked (though I should note that Jessi and Ben both looked almost exactly as I remembered them). In particular, any classmates who had children looked in the neighborhood of 40ish, instead of our actual late twenties / very early thirties.

Scary stuff. Made me examine myself in the mirror for signs of age. Over the last year or so, I’ve been told several times that people think I’m a guy in his mid-thirties who looks like he’s in his late twenties. I’m not really sure what to make of that…

As previously mentioned, Wendy and I are flying out to NYC later this week. We’re working on all the preparations now. It’s been a very long time since we had any kind of vacation, so we’re pretty excited. I’m hoping Gene and I will be able to attend the New York Comic Con for a day (it happens to be going on the weekend we’re there) but, in general, we’re just stoked to spend some time with the McKellys.

Currently:
/// watching Invasion (complete series on dvd). Three episodes from the end. It’s pretty good.
/// reading Peter and the Starthieves (sequel to Peter and the Starcatchers).
/// watching Batman: The Animated Series season #1 while I work out.

My January underground wrapped up this week without a great deal of creative activity. I had a couple of nights of decent productivity, but I’m still having trouble staying awake at the keyboard past 10:00pm.

I have been toying with something new on my lunch breaks at Starbucks. I think it spawned as a result of my reading “The Cthulhu Mythos” by August Derleth, and feeling like I could do better. Derleth was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft (kind of the Stan Lee of horror, for the uninitiated), and took up his mythos after Lovecraft died. I’ve owned this story collection for years (I went through a big Cthulhu phase in early college), but just now got around to Derleth’s work. And, no sir, I don’t like it.

I’ve read almost half the book, and the author seems a one trick pony. Most of the stories seem practically identical, with a few different names and places. Worse, Derleth resorts to the meta-fictional technique of referencing H.P. Lovecraft in almost every tale! In each story, at least one character has just discovered extensive knowledge in Cthulhuian lore. They inevitably reference the same set of ancient tomes and evil texts Lovecraft created for his own stories. Yet Derleth goes a step further by having his characters cite “the fictional accounts of one H.P. Lovecraft” as filled with insights into the stories’ strange and horrific phenomenon. This has happened in no less than eight stories so far. Ye gods!

The last time I encountered such literary bungling was in “Vengeance of the Black Donnellys: Canada’s Most Feared Family Strikes Back from the Grave”. I was working at a bookstore in DeKalb, IL, which had a discount branch that sold markdowns and closeouts. We literally bought books by the crate, without knowledge of what we would receive. In one shipment, we were cursed with about a hundred copies of “Vengeance of the Block Donnellys” in a small, plain trade paperback. They became a joke around the stores – we’d display them everywhere, priced at a whopping ten cents, and hard sell them to any customer who’d listen. “Vengeance” is a fictional sequel to a non-fiction book (itself wholly inaccurate, sensationalized and poorly written, yet has somehow managed to maintain some popularity since the 1950s). The novel, a hack job of epic caliber, makes constant reference to its precursor, often with characters espousing the book’s virtues and “widespread” fame. It would be laughable if it had not managed to be published time and again over 50+ years. Look it up on Amazon and you’ll find four customer reviews, all 4 or 5 stars. I’m guessing these are family members still pulling in the royalties…

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, but I was informed that the 2nd Quarter Sprint commercial featured the voice of my work buddy Rob Naughton. Rob does imaging for KSHE 95, and on the side has been trying to get into the big time movie preview / commercial business. He’s read for several high profile companies, but hadn’t made it on screen yet. Awhile back, he cut a VO for Sprint, was paid for his work, but never told if it would be used. So he’s sitting with some friends tonight watching the big game, the Sprint ad rolls and it’s his own voice playing back to him – and 100 million other television viewers. I think it’s safe to say he was pretty stoked.

Meanwhile, I was hanging some art in the kitchen, washing dishes and watching a few minutes of Puppy Bowl III on Animal Planet. Go team.

Wen and I went to Stars on Ice on Friday night. She’s a lifelong fan of skating, and in the past couple years has gotten me into it. We watched the USA Nationals last week, and I was really excited to see a gold medal win for Kimmie Meisner, and an explosive, first place performance from Evan Lysacek. Stars on Ice didn’t have the big bangs of the competitions, but was still a lot of fun. Some of the routines were a little dull, but Michael Weiss proved to be a strong entertainer (though I’d seen him live at Nationals last year and was not impressed), and Olympic Gold Medalist pair Jamie Salé & David Pelletier were outstanding.

I picked up “Batman: The Animated Series” Vol. 1-4 on DVD from Slackers (in large part on the merits of my recent Xbox console and games trade in). My immersion in the “Justice League (Unlimited)” cartoon series has hooked me on the DC Comics / Bruce Timm – Paul Dini animated universe. Since I don’t have the time or money to devote to comic books right now, this has definitely filled the void.

Watched “The DaVinci Code” on DVD with Wen last night. I saw it in the theatre as well, and read the book before that. Critics called it slow-paced and dull, and I’ve never understood that. I think it’s a very well constructed adaption of the novel. It has a lot of big ideas to communicate in a short time, and I think it does that pretty well. Some of the dialogue gets heavy-handed, but it doesn’t weigh the film down too much. The media made a big deal about Tom Hanks’ hair in the film as well, which is ridiculous. It suits the character, looks good on him, and was simply something to gripe about. Up yours, movie critics.

My “underground” month continues, though the last two weeks without the benefit of being on vacation. I’ve learned an important lesson in these 14 days: I am not one of those “write my best stuff at 2:00am” nocturnal writers. I am way more productive in the typical 9-to-5, probably as a side effect of working that for years.

Now that I’m back in my daily work routine, I’ve generally been fitting an hour or two in a night, between 8:00pm and midnight. My productivity has gone way down, which was to be expected, but I’ve been rather caught off guard by my penchant for falling asleep at the keyboard around 10:45. (Cory and Amy will have a laugh at that because, as they know, if casual conversation around the house goes that late, I tend to fall asleep on the couch or, sometimes, the floor.)

Despite all that, I’ve gotten some work done. “Pitch” has progressed a little, but I spent a couple of nights scrapping a big chunk of it, removing a character and rewriting a page. It’s starting to feel right, but I think this one is going to see a lot of action on the redraft frontlines.

Late last week, a casual observation on the Metrolink kicked my brain into momentary overdrive. In the three minutes between stepping off the train and Wendy arriving at the station to pick me up, I had a whole new story, beginning, middle, end. I’m never at a loss for ideas, but I don’t often get the whole package delivered at once.

Since I was feeling some strain with “Pitch”, I decided to step aside a bit and explore this new short story. It’s tentatively titled “Mercury People”; I’m 8 pages in, about 4000 words. Which is a lot wordier than I expected it to be (cue snickers from the in-the-know crowd), because I initially envisioned the language and action in a kind of clipped, matter-of-fact fashion. I’m at the end of the second act (of sorts), and the language and situation has become, well, dense. Right now, my plan is to finish it in its present style, redraft it in the same, and then go to town on it with the methaphorical red pen, maybe cut it by half. Perhaps I’ll send different versions to my creative-crit friends, and see how they react to each.

This past Friday, another “train of thought” on the Metro (how it hurts me to pun it that way) stuck with me into my morning Starbucks ritual. I sat to jot down a few notes and turns of phrase. The second stanza was just beginning when I realized I was constructing a poem. Again with the freaking poetry. Perhaps since I’ve not done much in the way of songwriting lately, that part of me manifests in the poetic structure. In any event, this new thing is called “The Kind Man Looks Death”, and it’s not at all like the last one I wrote. Its tone seems fitting for a publication like “Dark Wisdom”. If I don’t have a polished short ready during their next submission period, a sharpened version of “Kind Man” might be worth a shot.

OTHER STUFF

. Friday night, a small handful of Armadians ended up in little, out of the way Trenton, Illinois, at a bar called The Jailhouse Rock. I was highly skeptical of the locale and venue in question, but it turned into a really fun time. The place is really quite large, with a decent bar area, and a whole other section with a big stage, dance floor and game room. The motif is very Elvis, obviously. I imagine it was once a schoolhouse or church, or maybe even one of those tiny concert halls that used to litter the country fifty odd years ago. They had karaoke that night and, as you may know, Armadians are black belts in Karaoke-Fu. The guy running it was really nice and respectful (all too often not the case) and the song selection reasonable. And the Boulevard on tap was dynamite.

. I felt like crap all weekend, something like food poisoning without the vomiting. Might have been my recent flu shot just catching up with me. Watched a bunch of mediocre movies to distract me from whining: Idiocracy, the lost Mike Judge picture with Luke Wilson. Futurama without the sci-fi (and most of the biting wit). Extremely funny at times, with some poignant observations, but overall not a good film; Crank, an all-out actionfest that would have rocked at 30 minutes but lost its edge at 90. Sorta fun, if you’re feeling ADD; and Beerfest, from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Actually pretty funny, in that Saturday Night Live spin off movie way, it’ll entertain when you’re holed up on the couch and don’t feel like doing shit.

. I parted ways with my Xbox. The console and all my games made the trip to Slackers today. I picked up the first Clone Wars animated dvd and ordered the first four seasons of Batman: The Animated Series. I’ve been loving the Justice League collections, and feel its time to catch up on the series that got it all going.

. Finally took all the Christmas decorations down. Woo-hoo!

. One of my favorite high school teachers, Connie Brubaker, just published a book of poetry. Connie was always a big proponent of my writing, and shared her work with me as well. She’s doing a sale/signing at a cafe in my hometown which I’m hoping to attend. It is, incidentally, the coffee joint my old friend Jessi runs that I’ve been meaning to visit. Economical use of a stone, that.

. Just finished reading Tim Pratt’s short story collection, Little Gods, a Christmas gift from my wife. This is a wonderful little gathering of fantastical-stories of many flavors and tones. I haven’t enjoyed a new author find like this since I discovered Kate Atkinson. There’s plenty of material to dig into, here, but my two favorite stories from the collection are “Bleeding West”, a gritty piece of mythology in the spaghetti western tradition, and “Behemoth”, a tale of forsaken friendships, unrequited love and the creatures of the apocalypse that left me weeping in a corner at Starbucks.

Here’s another round of random bloggings:

. Pro Evo – I got this book today in the mail called ProEvo: Pro Evolution – Guideline for an Age of Joy. I’ve never heard of it, didn’t order, don’t know where it came from, other than it was plastic wrapped with an insert that mentioned the mysterious “Foundation”.

Googling the book, and it’s author, Tomotom Stiflung, only led me to a string of other blogs of people who had received the book under similar circumstances. It can be found on Amazon (see the link above) for a penny (!) and no real information. The actual website for the book is extremely vague – and in German, I think. I translated it in BabelFish, but it was not informative in any way.

On brief inspection, the book seems to be a weird mess of common sense ideas laced with wild assumptions and stretched logic, pushing a hive-mind agenda, insisting that no one is a true individual. For instance, from pages 78-79:

Man in not an independent being with his “own” strength and his “own” thoughts and actions. Whatever he may think or do consciously or unconsciously: all is behavior that occurs automatically within the energy-organism of the universe…

Reading the back cover of the book brings on a true WTF moment – all seven supportive blurbs are credited to people identified only by their initials, with equally vague descriptors. Example: Prof. Dr. L. K., world famous scientist, and Dr. B. M. S., university professor. The most ridiculous attribution is to “A large country’s institution for press, books, films, television and radio”! Whoa.

. Carbon Leaf Concert – thanks to the handful of folks who joined me out at the Carbon Leaf show back on the 6th. The concert was fantastic, and I think all who came with me to Mississippi Nights walked away with a solid appreciation for this group. They currently share the position of “Adron’s Favorite Band” with Breaking Benjamin, albeit in a completely different musical genre.

. B-Day – Thanks also to everyone who sent me birthday wishes and to whom I haven’t responded to yet. I’m wayyyyyyyyyyy behind in all my communications, so please bear with me. My cellphone currently has 12 messages I haven’t listened to yet (I hate talking on the phone and checking voicemails), and my inbox is full of un-replied-to messages. I usually try to bury my birthday and keep it a very quiet thing, but this year it got turned into a week long event. If I seem like I’m hiding from the world right now, it’s because I was so social for a couple of weeks that I kind of burnt out. I have to hermit out once in awhile just to retain my sanity.

. NEW GIG – It’s literally been a year since the last time I played a show, so it’s fitting that my first gig in a long while would be the same show I played last year. Come check out the 3rd Annual MS Benefit at Laurie’s Place in Edwardsville, IL, on November 4th. I’ll post more details for the show when I have ‘em. It’s for a great cause and it’s a good time. If you’re reading this and thinking “what? Adron’s a musician?” then you really should come to the show.

. Fragile Things – Just started reading Neil Gaiman’s new short story collection, Fragile Things. It is, as usual, utterly brilliant most of the time, haunting, compelling and thoroughly enjoyable. If you’ve not read Gaiman, then you’re missing one of the great voices in modern literature.

. Down in the Valley – Watched Down in the Valley, starring Edward Norton, Evan Rachel Wood and David Morse, on DVD the other morning. Despite all of the critical praise, I didn’t find much in this film. I think Norton could have performed this role in his sleep. It’s a slow flick and I had to fight to retain interest. The “twist” is just a very surprising moment, and it did catch me off guard, but I felt like it meandered afterward into a vaguely unsatisfactory ending. I gained no big insights from the work. Just a curiousity about Ed Norton’s inconsistant facial hair. Good music choices, though, including the quiet beauty of Mazzy Star.

Here’s a few random-ish observations – a bloggin’ catch-all.

. Heroes – I was super excited to see the premiere of Heroes on NBC this past Monday. Advance word was really positive, and the premise sounded like a cousin to J. Michael Straczynski’s turbulent but often brilliant comic maxi-series Rising Stars. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very thrilled with the pilot. There’s some intriguing ideas happening in it, but it struck me as NBC’s attempt at a Lost styled fanta-drama (that’s a new word, folks, feel free to use it, but credit me).

The show kicked off with a cheeseball text scroll giving an outline for the series, and proceeded along a bumpy path of neat moments and heavy-handed attempts at faux-enigmatic cliff hangers.

Points for ballsy displays of temporary disfigurement with the angsty-teen-cum-Wolverine girl, and dork banter in Japanese. Deductions for the poorly executed flying sequence and soap opera-like melodramatic scenes between the girlfriend and her future-painting, drug-addicted, emotionally-distraught artist guy. It’s a pilot, though, and it takes most shows a bit to get their rhythm, so I’ll give it some time yet.

. Vellum – Started reading Hal Duncan’s Vellum: The Book of All Hours and gave up after about 100 pages. I rarely cast a book aside, but I just couldn’t give this one more of my time. An ambitious, genre-blending-and-breaking novel about sort-of-angels, folding time and space, twisting mythologies, the first twenty pages really got me interested. But from there on out, I hated almost every word of it.

Vellum is high on concept, and crap on characters with any real depth. Duncan is too busy illustrating the fact that each person has been born and reborn a myriad of times, living as gods and angels and mortals in every possible mythology and civilization, that he never gives you more than a few scraps of who they are in the real space of the story. The book is a nightmare of unnecessary paragraph breaks and spacing, often in the middle of conversations, many with entirely superfulous subheadings. Passages taking place in other times and sub-realities intercut scenes with abandon, indicated by changes in font, color (shades of gray/black), and sometimes in italics – it’s a terrible eyesore. Rambling descriptions of fantastic realms and abstract objects share space with repetitive, generic imagery for contemporary settings, both sprawling across pages, while true character moments and clear plot points are fragmented and sprinkled distainfully over the mix.

Worst of all, the narrative voice is so inconsistant that I often wondered if I was reading the same author, or even the same book. One sub-chapter insisted on the use of the “f-bomb” in every line of description, the narrator’s voice inflected with the nuances of the last referenced character. Many other authors have used this technique, but Hal Duncan knows no restraint with it. Narration in a later section is voiced in the Irish-accented expletives of a would-not-be-angel, oh so cleverly using “fookin’” to give us that lilting flavor of dialect. So clever that it almost made me throw the book in the trash after reading it.

I first thought this would be a challenging novel that would be worth fighting to the end, kin to M. John Harrison’s Light, a hard sci-fi affair that I struggled through but which proved very rewarding. If there is a gem to be found by the end of Vellum, I doubt the ends justifies the means. In 100 pages, I did run across a few stunning lines and brilliant thoughts, but the dreadful entirety of it has swept those bright moments from my memory. It has a pretty cover, I’ll give it that. I’d refer people to the excellent American Gods as a proper alternative to this mangled mess.

. Lost – Just finished watching the second season of Lost on dvd. I am so tangled in its convolutions, I may have to follow the third season as it actually airs (I hardly ever watch shows as they broadcast, these days – I’m much more fond of tv on dvd). If you picked this season up, you must watch the blooper reel on the bonus disk. Trust me.

. Josh – My friend Josh Hagler was selected as one of 10 artists whose work will be shown in a prestigious gallery in London in late October. I sent a MySpace bulletin soliciting help in the voting process. Thanks so much for anyone who helped out. It’s a big thing for him, I think. He’s been working hard for his art since we knew eachother in middle school, and it’s really been paying off the last couple of years. I’m not always the biggest fan of his style, but I’m proud of his growth as a person and artist and try to support him as I can.

. Hoodie – I got a new hoodie from Old Navy, with this awesome, deep, Jedi-esque hood. It’s mighty comfortable and warm, and has been my constant companion the last few days, like Mister Rogers’ sweater. Scored fresh new kicks, too, replacing last year’s Skechers that failed me. Yup, I’m big pimpin’.