Fairview Heights is the primary center of commerce for the Illinois-side of the St. Louis metro area. During the holiday season it becomes a national disaster, as Christmas shoppers dog pile on sale racks and litter Highway 64 with fender benders. You’d expect the pandemonium to slow down a bit, though, after little J.C. exits the virginal boy-howdy and the world drinks away the pain of another year. And you’d be wrong.

Pretty much just like this.

There’s an impolite compound phrase, the pairing of simian and feces, which is the only appropriate term for the mess we encountered out and about today. I finished up my holiday gift buying a few days before Christmas, and it hadn’t been this bad. It was like Robert Pattinson was hosting Macy’s white sale – just knee deep in crazy.

Wanna kill any hope or respect for humanity? Go hang out at any retail chain this weekend. Be honest – if the undead rose up in legion to devour the blank-eyed, drooling masses at the shopping mall, you’d be rooting for the zombies. That is, if you could tell the difference between the two groups…

When I was a kid, I remember folks talking down people on the coasts, particularly fast-paced New York and plastic, narcissistic Los Angeles, focused on their lack of friendly decorum. “Nobody’ll even hold a door for you, or give you the time of day,” my small town denizens would remark knowingly. “Here in the Midwest, we’ve still got manners. People have a kind word to spare, know how to be considerate.”

And then we all ejected Pleasantville from the Blu-Ray and dared to step foot in public – just in time to be mowed down by a 65 year old woman dressed like a college girl (oh, gawd, the tights – they burn my eyes!), hell-bent for clearance at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Nothing will kill that old sentimental attachment to Midwestern Hospitality than a day getting pushed aside, elbowed, mean-mugged and bulldozed by your fellow consumers. I’ve grown used to the low number of people who say thanks when I hold a door for them (and the fewer still that will hold it for me). I’ve learned to deal with dirty looks from quatro-moms when their unattended children rebound off my leg in the Target aisles. But these people today, their uncanny valley stare, their aggressive yet directionless trajectories, their disregard for traffic signs and lights, their gumption to cough right in your face without any attempt to cover their germ-spewing maws…

Seriously, I’m 6’1”, 250 pounds of blue-eyed, broad shouldered, pissed off consumer. How can you stare straight at me while playing a game of pedestrian chicken without registering my existence until the point of collision, only to give me the evil eye when I step aside? You should be goram grateful I didn’t body check you into that endcap of iPod stereo alarm clocks.

Midwest politeness, my ass.

But… I’m sleeping tonight on Calvin Kline* pillows ($16.99 at Marshalls!), so I’m feelin’ alright.

*So extravagant! 

2010: Doesn’t it sound like the future?

Welcome to TEN. What are we going to call 2010? Is there an official version, and who decides? Is this what that Pearl Jam record was about?

We partied in the New Year with an impromptu gathering at casa de Wendronimo, also celebrating my wife’s birthday. Double whammy of awesome. With only a few hours of notice for our low-key shindig, we had a full house of merry makers and a full evening of laughs, hugs and good times. We kept it alive, if laid back, until about 4:00am, which is pretty good for a bunch of early-thirty-something/late-twenties folks, right?

Goodbye, 2009. Few will miss you and your Dexter-like habit of killing celebrities. But what of this new, sci-fi sounding year?

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, but I’m all for setting goals and making plans and using a milestone (birth of a new decade) to kick-start some new habits and positive inertia.

Instead of a resolution, I’ve decided on a theme for 2010 – “Who do you want to be?” I think this is an important question; it requires self-analysis and reflection, with a focus on the desired positives as opposed to dwelling on perceived negatives. Instead of looking at myself and saying, “damn, here’s a bunch of things that make me unhappy – I should probably change those”, I’m imagining an ideal version of myself, and seeing how close to that model I can become.

I don’t mean some unreachable, fantasy version of myself, but a real world manifestation of my dreams, goals and personal happiness. Not just for 2010, but for my life in general, down the foreseeable timeline. Some of those things will be easily described, maybe easily achieved. Some will be intensely personal, requiring a lot of “behind the scenes” effort. And there might be some lofty ambitions, lifelong pursuit kinds of stuff – but this is about forward thinking and positivity, so that all works.

(My comic book brain says this is like taking an established character and revamping him for a universe reboot, What If? story or parallel universe line. An ‘Ultimate Adron’, so to speak. If it’s half as good as Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man run, things will definitely be looking up.)

I’m still sketching my answer to “Who do you want to be?”, designing my specific archetype, but I can say this much so far:

I want to be happy, healthy and physically active. I want to be a great husband, an excellent friend, a loving pet parent and, eventually, a nurturing father. I want to write everyday, to create a career with my words and vision, to build worlds that people love to get lost in. I want to be a leader in media (of many kinds), to generate quality, to effect change and progress. I want to be an active, performing musician – to play and sing and keep my songs alive. I want to always advance my skills, to never stop learning, to never be complacent – to always grow, evolve and innovate. I want to be strong, to take charge, to not back down from adversity – professionally or personally. I want to de-clutter my life, free it from pointless things that distract or slow me down, to streamline to the things that are important, that are enriching. I want to be a whirlwind of ideas, projects and good works – to always surprise, to capitalize on my poly-talent nature. I want my work ethic to be professional and fruitful, without interfering with the quality of my personal and emotional life. I want to look back without resentment for opportunities missed and roads not taken. I want to live a vivacious present, with eyes on the possibilities of the future. I want to be the man who achieved or failed, but always tried – never squandering my blessings. I want to do right by the ones I love, to never lose sight of their needs and their commitment to me. And I want to always be mindful and grateful, to know how fortunate I am and to give back however I can.

And there’s so much more than that. But that’s my start, that’s my beginning for 2010.

Now then – who do YOU want to be?

Some Christmas Day advice: if you’re hungry, Sonic is open. However, they will forget your $4 popcorn chicken. And your fries. And you’ll be too distracted by holiday cheer to check the bag before driving home. And it’s a bit too nasty out to go back for it. And you’ll be left with mediocre burgers (but tasty tater tots…). So maybe don’t do that.

And may God/Goddess/Xenu/Flying Spaghetti Monster bless us, every one.

The last time this happened, some 18 months back during a particularly nasty Spring, the rising tide destroyed our carpet and stained some baseboards. But, through fortunate timing and an hours long struggle to contain the wellspring, we managed to keep our property damage to a minimum.

This time was a reversal – the carpet survives, but the walls are soaked. And we say goodbye to two nice drawer-nightstands and a chifferobe. (The chifferobe being notable only for the occasion, some 6 or 7 years ago at The Fortress, when Gene and I did a mediocre job of assembling this mediocre piece of furniture. The rather poor instructions led us to backasswardsly construct several portions of the unit, requiring us to rebuild it. Thus proving why Gene and I are designers and musicians – not construction workers. Wendy still laughs about it.)

Also different this time: our landlord, Jeff, called in The Flood Team, experts in minimizing damage to homes from groundwater attacks. They swiftly vacuumed up a good bit of the water, then installed a number of high powered fans and the mother of all dehumidifiers, rendering the bedroom into a hot wind tunnel. (It’s actually rather fun to stand in, whipping clothes about dramatically and all.) The methodology is effective – the carpet is dry, the humidity gone. The wet funk only welled up late Saturday evening, and was gone by morning. (If you’ve ever had a flooding, you’re probably aware of the intense odor having a big-wet-everything causes after a bit, like a load of wash gone manky after being left damp in the machine.)

The lousy part is that we currently have no bedroom. We’re sleeping on an air mattress in our living room which, of course, is far from ideal – though Domino loves it. All our clothes are in baskets and bags, choking space in our offices.

We’re choosing to place a positive spin on the whole ordeal, though. We’ve recently had some success rearranging our kitchen and living room to highly improved utility and feng shui. We’re trying to make some big changes in our lifestyle anyway, so why not shake things up good and relocate our entire bedroom? Wen is graciously sacrificing her office upstairs to be converted. It’s not as large as the downstairs bedroom, but should accommodate our now-forcibly-streamlined furniture. Plus, it allows us to finally get a real bed frame (foresight upon moving into this house kept us from every having more than the metal stand for our box-springs and mattress, for justified fear of watery-desecration). We’re looking at platform beds, because they fit our aesthetic and don’t require box-springs – seeing as the one downstairs shall not rise above the earth again. It’s not physically possible to get it back up the stairs in one piece. (The story of how it got down in the first place involves Mr. Cory, my thumb as a shoehorn, and a might groove said digital left in the stairwell overhang.)

I suppose I’ll call over @MediumDoug for our time-honored ritual of dismissing undesired furniture by way of hammers and power tools. (We first bonded at the expense of the Union Street hide-a-bed couch, back in mid-2000.)

Unfortunately, this whole process will probably take a few weeks as we find new homes for a corner desk, @Visway’s old recliner and a couple of small bookshelves. That, and a trade from an air mattress on the floor to a real mattress on the floor, until a suitable upgrade is found and delivered. We’re no strangers to that arrangement, though, as anybody who visited The Fortress back in the day might remember my pseudo-Asian bedroom styling. (Which, er, means my fancy waterbed frame collapsed when the fluid mattress was swapped for a solid one, reducing my sleeping arrangement to ground-level. My friend Stacy Small-Molitor delightfully coined it “the sandbox”.)

As for the basement room – after carpet-shampooing, it becomes the new Exercise / DDR / Music room. With, of course, everything on risers…

Currently Reading // The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics

We were celebrating Jack’s 25th year of living with a kidney transplant (he is the longest living kidney transplant survivor in America). They don’t dine out often, so we thought a burger place with a fun twist would be a good destination. Our server, Gentry (cool name!), asked if we were celebrating an occasion, so we told her about Jack.

Apparently Gentry talked to her manager and the staff, and a few minutes later she returned with a “Congratulations” balloon for Jack, attached to an envelope containing a staff-signed card and gift cards to Red Robin and Best Buy. AND they comped our entire dinner.

My family was incredibly touched – my sister took photos of Jack with Gentry and the manager (I didn’t catch her name) for their scrapbook. It honestly made our day and, for Jack and my sister, it created an uplifting experience that means so very much to them. We will be telling everyone we know about this wonderful experience, about the generosity and kindness of the Edwardsville Red Robin staff.

As a side note: our server, Gentry, was absolutely fantastic – such a warm, vibrant personality who made us feel exceptionally welcome from the start and who took amazing care of us.

And I should mention that all the food was very tasty, too – an impressive twist on classic Americana, hearty and satisfying. Kudos, Red Robin – this is how you create an environment that keeps people coming back.

The savage beast.

There is a creature unique to the bounds of civilization, growing overpopulated and more prevalent. It inconveniences us, endangers our vehicles and, perhaps worst of all, takes up all the good parking spaces. It affects all but the most dedicated e-commerce consumer, and it’s an epidemic of our own making: shopping cart abandonment.

Every department or grocery store parking lot is an urban wilderness populated by cast-off carts, left to litter and, all too quickly, dominate the white-lined landscape.

We’re probably all guilty of it: after a long hunt for discounted, brand name cereals, dog toys that will survive more than 10 minutes and reasonably watchable DVDs from the $5.50 bin, that cart corral five parking spaces down from our SUV just seems too far. The looming danger of Timmy’s upset tummy and a gratuitous soiling of the Huggies is a powerful motivator to get moving. Yet you must not neglect this most vital of duties – deliver your shopping cart from the perils of the parking lot.

The cart has been your friend through many shopping adventures. It carries your unpurchased burdens when they surpass a handful. It secures your child and keeps the little predator from attacking unsuspecting canned goods, turkey basters and Pop-tarts on lower grocery shelves. It is your support when the act of consumerism awakens that old crick in your back. It serves as coat rack, foot rest, purse holder and even occasional improvised go-cart (for amusement-seeking high school students).

Your shopping cart is there for you, ready to serve – often with a helpful coupon leaflet tucked into its basket. Sure, sometimes it has a wobbly wheel or a shrill, rusty squeal, lusting for a shot of WD-40 but, hey, your working parts don’t always function just right either. Beware, though – this friendly contraption of metal and casters reverts to a feral state almost instantly when left alone on the great, concrete plains.

Once abandoned, shopping carts will first occupy corners of parking spaces, making the parking maneuvers of large vehicles difficult, and scaring off drivers with expensive cars. Soon, the carts gather into packs, blocking off whole sections of the lot, boldly venturing into the margins of the lot’s lanes. The bravest of all, bolstered by the unruly wind, will cross lines and lanes in pursuit of defenseless Fords, Pontiacs and Infinities.

The front-line against this menace are the unthanked, unsung heroes called cart collectors – part-time employees in garish orange vests and rain slickers, suffering the elements and in-lot traffic congestion to wrangle these refugees from commerce. Ideally their job is to collect the carts from the (too often widely spread) designated corrals set up around the lot. But,  you can bet they spend much more of their time chasing vagrant shopping sleighs, just to return them in a long chain-gang, pushed by a rudimentary R2-D2 topped with a spinning yellow light. After capture, the carts are quickly re-domesticated and prepared for another trip through this endless cycle.

It is your moral and social responsibility to see that your cart finds its way to the proper stall, tucked in and comfortably spooning with its wheeled peers. It’s only considerate of your metallic friend, and it will make the exhausting process of shopping a little easier on all of us.

Until then, I’ll be the guy darting through traffic trying to stop an angry, orphaned cart from cutting a nasty scratch in some soccer mom’s Windstar…

Remember these? Yuck.

While out shopping with a female friend, we stop to examine a kiosk selling trendy purses and belts made entirely of big, dangly sequins in bold, fluorescent colors. I fear someone has accosted a figure skater and stolen their outfit for raw materials.

“I should get one of those,” my friend says, her face a canvas for disco-ball refractions cast by sparkling handbags. I raise an eyebrow. This young woman, characterized by her classy, subdued taste, must be in thrall, mesmerized by the magnificent gaudiness.

“Why?” I’m genuinely curious, and a little concerned.

“They’re so hot right now,” she replies. Her gaze doesn’t leave the display. “Everybody has one.”

“So? They’re popular, so what? You don’t even like pink. Or magenta. Or whatever that is,” I say, pointing to a belt roughly the shade of Liberace’s soul.

She finally looks at me, and her expression is blank. Yet, is it my imagination, or can I see hot pink sequins dancing in her irises? “They’re so hot right now,” she says again, flat, atonal.

“But you hate trend-driven consumerism!” I cry. “You oppose Paris Hilton and all she stands for. Why give in to this?”

She stares at me and points at my wrist, adorned with three thick, mono-hued rubber ringlets sporting unrelated slogans. I haven’t worn a bracelet since junior high. Why did I start again now? I’m struck by the realization that no one else has worn these things in months. Why am I?

Her finger raises to indicate my pseudo-vintage, process faded graphic T-shirt. It depicts a questionably-named business establishment that has likely never existed, in a state I’ve never visited.

The accusatory finger aims higher to my short cropped hair, cut in imitation of Lost star Matthew Fox.

I am overcome by my hypocrisy. My will to fight the system evaporates. I look from my friend’s face to the gleaming, serpentine scales of yellow, aqua and copper satchels. I revel in their gaudy hipness. They are to me as jewels in a treasure chest of fashion.
My friend buys one. I applaud her on how the fuschia complements her pea coat and brings out her hazel eyes. “You’re so in,” I tell her.

A week later, I’m at the mall with my wife. I’m drawn to a display of enormous belt-buckles, some with sharp, protruding edges, others with bright red LED lights scrolling popular catch phrases and rap lyrics. I have never liked such unnecessary belt attire. I imagine how stylishly ironic it would be to wear one now.

I gesture to a buckle resembling a hubcap, a dollar sign spinning in its center. “I like that one,” I hear myself say.

“You’re kidding, right?” my wife asks, incredulous. When I shake my head, her eyes go wide. “Seriously? Why?”

I stare at the spinning buckle bling and mentally compare it to a shiny, sequined pocketbook.

“They’re so hot right now.”

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

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 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’.