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

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’.

. I went to Mexico recently, on a business trip. Stayed at a fancy 5 star all inclusive resort. Went to meetings, had a sports massage, did a little swimming, drank tequila and hung with my Emmis Interactive peeps from all over the nation. Good times. Special note: when you don’t want to return from Mexico looking like a lobster, look to Neutrogena SPF 45 spray on sunblock. It’s like Colt 45 for your skin – works every time!

. The DaVinci Code movie is good. Don’t believe the critics. The most thrilling ride ever? No. But still very entertaining, well acted (especially Ian McKellan – no surprise) and intriguing. I never found it slow or tedious as some reviewers remarked, but I’m usually okay with a film taking it’s time, as long as it’s justified with character development or important information. (This does not apply to Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which I believe suffers from George Lucas syndrome – Petey’s too successful for anyone to reign him in when he gets unnecessarily extravagant.) I believe that many reviewers’ opinions were directly related to their views of the novel, the questions about the ideas it presents, and the author himself. For instance, Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman’s (sp?) review was full of pointed jabs at Dan Brown, the ideas in the story, and very little to really say about the movie. Then again, between Owen and Lisa Swarzen-something-or-another, EW’s reviewing staff is the last I’d look to for sound feature-going advice.

. I’m working on some new designs for the Point website. Finally, after 4 years of looking at that ugly thing, I get to do something new. I’m totally stoked, although my workload for the next few weeks just increased dramatically.

. At a recent friend gathering, I ended up playing several games of “washers”. It marked my second instance ever, I think, of partaking in this pasttime. I’ve always found washers, and horse shoes, to be a bit hoosier. But I had fun playing at the GC house warming party, and did pretty good for my second time out – a 4-1 record, losing only to Warmouse’s wife, Lisa.

. Wendy and I are nearing completion of the “Firefly” series – the short-live sci-fi, space-western tv series created by Joss Whedon, later continued with the film Serenity. I may have said it before, but it bears repeating now: “SONS OF BITCHES!!!” This show was so well written and spectacularly acted, it’s ludicrous that the network cancelled it before allowing it to build it’s audience. They should know by now that niche genre shows take a little time to gather an audience, but when they do, they can power their way through years of programming. Even shows you’d never have thought would be popular (i.e. Stargate SG-1, Forever Knight, Highlander) built large, loyal fanbases that sustained them through many seasons. Must I mention Buffy and Angel? My new emperor Joss Whedon is off working on a Wonder Woman film (with his track record of exceptionally strong female protagonists, only he can really pull this off), but I so wish he would return to making Firefly, maybe on the Sci-Fi channel. The shows lead character, Malcolm Reynolds, has quickly become one of my all-time favorite TV personas. He’s who I want to be when I grow up…

/// Listening to “Brandi Carlile (self-titled)” by Brandi Carlile