Girl in a Cage

Dammit, Brenda Lee, You're Better Than That

I am several weeks behind on my Closer viewing, so please don't tell me if the horrible attorney/rapist has come back and whether they get him this time.

But anyway, so the other night I just caught the episode guest starring Amy Sedaris as Fritz's nutty would-be psychic sister.

Overall, it was a darn good episode, up to the high standard this show sets week after week. 

Except for this--when Amy Sedaris shows up, we know she's a nutty freak because she cooks a bunch of...wait for it...vegan food!  Oh, the hilarity!  Watch as Brenda Lee and Fritz share covert looks of disgust at the gross food!  Because what's grosser that food made with no animal products? (do not mention this to the millions of Chinese vegetarians who enjoy dairy-free vegetarian food on a daily basis.) Oh, the yuks just keep coming.

Now, I admire vegans, but I am not one.  I partake of the occasional cheese and butter.  But I object to this on a couple of levels.  One:  it's such a cheap, hackneyed joke, the kind of bad-sitcom laugh track thing that The Closer doesn't need to stoop to. 

Two: I just wish vegan weren't tv shorthand for annoying freak.  Now, perhaps in L.A. there are a lot of annoying, self-righteous vegans, and the TV writers like to do stuff like this to piss off their annoying friends and acquaintances.  As a longtime contrarian (such a better word than asshole), I understand this, but, I mean really. 

Now, again, I'm not a vegan, but I have to say that as far as being nutty goes, what's nutty is the way we think about animals in this society.  Most people object to animal suffering when they see it, but happily support it in the form of meat and dairy products.  I'm the same way--despite my curmudgeonly exterior, I can't stand to see an animal suffer, but if they're suffering in order to bring me some delicious cheese, well, I kind of look the other way.

Confine your dog in a tiny space, overfeed him and don't let him exercise, and you're liable to find yourself on an episode of animal cops.  Do the same thing to a pig, and you're just makin' bacon!  We as a society have a pretty weird, inexplicable standard for what consitutes animal cruelty--we punish it on an individual level and reward it on a mass level.  So all the poor vegans do is point this out, and say, you know, if you don't want animals to suffer, maybe you shouldn't fund an industry that is predicated on animal suffering.

Wow, how nutty!  How flaky and new-agey!  Applying  your ethics consistently?  Who the hell are these kooks anyway?

Chiller: You Don't Have to Suck.

In theory, and often in practice, the 500+ channel tv universe allows for everyone to get a channel or two that caters to their specific interest. 

Everybody, that is, but horror fans.  We've got a channel, Chiller, but the problem with it is that it blows.  Oh, there are some flashes of brilliance--they briefly brought back Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and they're showing a Brimstone marathon this weekend.  But nine times out of ten, I turn to Chiller and find either some crap like Ripley's Believe it or Not or a movie from the last two or three years that makes the crappy killer animal movies they always show on the SciFi (or, if you will, SyFy) channel look like...well, something that doesn't suck horribly. 

It seems times are not good at Chiller TV--most of the ads are of the "natural male enhancement" or "Cash 4 Gold" variety, and the promised HD channel never arrived. 

So it's not just me who doesn't like this channel; basically, nobody likes it.

The problem as I see it is that Chiller is trying to be a niche channel that appeals to everyone;  this is a contradictory mission that has led to Chiller's current low-rent, pleasing no-one status.

 But it doesn't have to be this way.  So Chiller TV execs:  here are my recommendations.

1.)You are owned by NBC Universal.  Universal, the studio that was syonymous with horror for years.  Tap into this catalog and show some classy old horror movies.  In fact, make them the hallmark of your channel.  The niche you want will show up for this.

2.) Really, you have to ease up on the censorship.  This is a horror channel.  Your audience can handle at least the amount of profanity they allow on FX and TNT.  Not to mention the gore.  Horror fans like gore.  Show us some severed limbs, some exploding heads, some zombies feasting on intestines, this kind of stuff.  Are you afraid you're going to scare the Cash 4 Gold people away with this stuff? 

3.) More original programming.  Horror has always been the most robust independent film genre because you can make a decent horror movie for about twelve bucks plus beer for the crew.  You've already got the dare 2 direct contest; why not give the winners a couple of cases of beer and a ten-to-midnight spot for their original movie?  Could the results possibly be worse than the crap you've got in that time slot now? 

You should feel free to take my advice without paying me my usual substantial consulting fee; just pay me with a better channel.

The Nostalgia Virus

I spent the last few weeks afflicted with the nostalgia virus.  I contracted this from reading Stories For Shorty:  A Collection of Recollections from the Jockey Club 1982-1988. (available here, for a limited time.) 

It's a collection of essays about a hellhole of a club I used to frequent back in the years 85-86 and features a brief essay by me.  I had to buy a copy because if contributors got free copies, that would have probably covered half the print run--it's a small press and a small print run.  I was happy to pay--it's a really well-put-together book, and it's a document of a time and place that I feel lucky to have, and this kind of micropublishing feels really cool and DIY to me.  Plus I got a t-shirt! If you ever went to the Jockey Club, this is an essential volume.  If you never went there, well, I don't think you'd enjoy it all that much.

For me, though, it was a lot of fun to read about this place.  It's especially interesting to get a kaleidoscopic view of a time and place--everyone's memory is slightly different, and the club itself meant different things to different people.  To some (perhaps many) people, it was the first place they really felt at home; to others, it was the place that saved or transformed their lives; and for me, it was just a place to go and hear music.

Having said all this, the nostalgia that affects people when they are talking about something or some place that was important to them as a teen or young adult does get annoying.  The Jockey Club brought in a lot of great bands, and it was always easy for the underage to get in and see a show.  And it was the only home for punk rock in the Greater Cincinnati area for at least 3 years.  And I guess it was a kind of unofficial clubhouse for a bunch of people.

And yet.  

The place never felt warm and inviting to me--there was almost always the threat of violence there, perhaps because there were so many drunks.  The neighborhood was scary, and there was, even in this relatively small group of midwestern punk rockers, the back biting and jealousy that emerges whenever you get more than two people together.  And it's fine to look back on the club with its numerous code violations and poor sanitation, fondly, but seriously, if there had been a fire, we all would have burned.

I had a good time there, but it wasn't any kind of freaking golden age--it was like anything else; there were good things and bad things about it.  It's cool that it existed, and it was an important place, but it wasn't perfect. 

And the fact that a bunch of old farts had a cool place to go when we were young doesn't mean that the stuff kids today do is somehow lame and inauthentic.  It was ironic to read  that sentiment from former Jockey Club denizens, since at the very time we were going to the Jockey Club, baby boomers were dominating pop culture and giving us that, "oh, in my day, we had Woodstock, blah blah."

So I enjoyed this book a lot, and I recommend it with this caveat---take anyone's nostalgia with a grain of salt.  e

Weird Stuff I've Seen on TCM

I'm starting to really like TCM.  They show an array of classics, of course, but also slip in some really bizarre movies.  And I'm not just talking about Forbidden Planet at 2 a.m. (Leslie Nielsen vs. a rampaging id in a hokey sci-fi reimagining of The Tempest!  You should see this one if you haven't already.)

No, I'm talking about stuff that's just really really strange.

First up, the one I saw most recently:  1959's The Brain That Wouldn't Die.  A mad scientist type gets in a car accident that decaptiates his fiancee.  What's a groom-to-be to do except for flee the scene, head in hand, sit the head in a tray of mysterious serum and ignore the head's pleas to "let me die!" while scouring beauty pageants for replacement bodies!  But that's not the weird part.  The weirdest part is the fact that the serum gives the fiancee's head some psychic powers, including telepathy with the monstrous thing locked in the closet.  Man, this movie is just incredibly strange.  But don't just take my word for it; check out the trailer! And then there's the other movie I saw a couple of weeks ago. Blood Freak. This movie is so bizarre it makes The Brain That Wouldn't Die look like St. Elmo's Fire. So there's this transient biker dude who falls for a good churchgoing girl but is of course tempted away by her slutty drug-addled sister.

Well, to make a long story short, he winds up as a homicidal maniac with a turkey's head who drinks a lot of blood. Also some guy breaks into the action and comments on it, Greek-Chorus style, at random intervals. Oh yeah, and that guy smokes a lot.

 Finally Turkey Boy turns human again and everything is okay, except for all those people he killed. Again, the trailer kinda says it all, except for this: this movie is like some weird piece of folk art populated entirely by amateur actors.  And these "actors" really make you realize how good even a bad professional actor like Keanu Reeves is.  There is a certain amount of craft and skill involved in being even remotely convincing on screen. And the people in this movie simply don't have it.  It's the kind of thing you watch with your mouth hanging open the whole time, unsure if this is a joke you're not in on, or a joke the filmmakers aren't in on.

See Me Clearly at Brookline Booksmith

Hey there. Just a quick reminder to everyone that I will be appearing at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA on Thursday, March 26, reading from and signing my new novel, I Can See Clearly Now, which arrives in stores on March 24.  Come support me and a great independent bookstore as well!  My new book will be 20% off at the event!  Bargain!  Come one, come all!  Bring your friends!

Those of you not in the greater Boston area can still support Fiction That Doesn't Suck (Trademark that, Karen Kingsbury!) by buying I Can See Clearly Now at the outlet of your choice! (for best results, we suggest your local independent bookstore.  But Brendan, they cry, I don't know where my local independent bookstore is!  Whatever shall I do?  You shall go here, my friends, and find one. )

Anywhere you buy it is appreciated.  This is most likely my adult fiction swan song.  Unless I change my name to Zane.  Seriously considering that move. 

Now, the last time I whined about my lack of sales, I got bitch-slapped by a librarian (I deserved it, and it was kind but, I'm sorry to say, not at all as hot as it sounds), but I just got my (wow, you are really never going to earn a) royalty statement for Dear Castastrophe Waitress, and the news is not good.  I moved nearly negative 800 copies in the last six months!  Sweet!

So it seems like, realistically, there are a couple of thousand people out there who like my books for adults.  And while I wish there were more, I really appreciate all of you.  That sounds smarmy and insincere, but it is actually smarmy and sincere.  When I was writing It Takes a Worried Man, my fondest wish was that maybe five people I didn't know personally might read and enjoy that book.  And here it happens that a couple of thousand people I don't know like my books enough to buy them. So that's pretty good.  Thanks, everybody! 

I've had a good run on the adult side--all those advances I didn't earn out allowed me to write full-time for nearly five years, write a bunch of books that touched and/or enraged people, and I got to live my dream of being a writer. 

Random House has printed relatively few copies of I Can See Clearly Now--despite the fact that this book is, in my opinion, my most accessible and commercial, they, based on the last two, don't really expect it to sell.  So unless it flies off the shelves in unprecedented numbers, this is probably it.

I'd love it if it flies off the shelves, but if it just brings a few hours of pleasure to the couple of thousand of you who really like my work, well, that's cool too. 

More Fun in the New World

Just had a trip to the New York metropolitan area for a funeral.  On Saturday afternoon, I needed some fun, so I took myself to The Joker's Child in Fair Lawn, NJ.  This is a fantastic comic shop that I highly recommend on your next trip to scenic Bergen County. 

I went to said comic shop (where I neglected to get a receipt so as to enter Joe Hill's cool contest) because I needed some fun, and, well, when it comes to comics and fun, I'm with the stuffed bull.

But this got me thinking.  Really, it's not just comics that oughta be fun.  Fun, as it turns out, is why I turn to any kind of art. 

I recently dissed Nirvana on my facebook status/twitter feed and was called upon to defend my assertion that they are the most overrated band ever. I said something about how Cobain's lyrics seem like they were freestyled by a stoned 14 year old, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized what I really don't like about Nirvana is that they're simply no fun at all. 

I'm not saying everything has to be happy and joyful all the time, but, for me, there needs to be something fun in my interaction with art.  So, for example, the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian both have a number of pretty sad songs, but the sense of humor on display makes them fun. Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is a terribly sad song that, because of its lyrical awesomeness, is fun.

The fun/no fun dichotomy also helps differentiate, say, a good Rush song from a bad Rush songs.  The good ones (Red Barchetta, Spirit of Radio) are fun; the bad ones (Almost everything else) are not.

This is why I dislike most literary fiction; purveyors of this genre often eschew fun, or else the only fun on display is the fun the author has peppering his or her narrative with lots of chronological confusion, narrative confusion, and other stuff that's probably fun to write but deadly to read. 

Hatchet is a fun horror movie (the part where the old lady's skull is ripped apart was simply awesome); Dead Ringers, though it has better actors, a better script, and a more skilled director, is one of the least fun movies I've ever seen.

I could go on:  Sherrybaby starred Maggie Gyllenhaal in a tour de force performance, and yet I couldn't watch it because it was simply no fun at all. Most of the bands I saw at Ozzfest seemed to think fun was for the weak.

It's not that I expect brainless fun all the time; I like brainy fun too.  And I don't mean I have to have tons of laffs on every page, or in every scene, or whatever.  It's just that, for me, stuff I like is fun in some way; stuff I don't like isn't fun. 

So I guess this is where I stand, art-wise.  I'd call it a manifesto if that word wasn't so devoid of fun.

Fool for the City

I just finished reading Christopher Moore's Fool.

It's King Lear, more or less, told from the point of view of the fool. It is filthy--no, I mean really, really filthy.  It's also hilarious.  It's also got a heart.  It's also Moore's best novel.

The fool, Pocket, instigates all kinds of political intrigue that is, to be honest, somewhat hard to follow, even if you've read the play.  (I don't think familiarity with Lear is going to add too much to your reading experience, though a love of Shakespearean wordplay and bawdy jokes certainly is.) So I was a bit lost as to who was supposed to be in love with and/or killing whom, and I didn't care at all, because Pocket is a classic smartass in the Groucho Marx/Bugs Bunny vein-- that is to say, one who can't really seem to take anything seriously, who counts on his persistent wiseassery to deliver him from any scrape.  He is way more explicitly horny than either Groucho or Bugs, though. 

There are also witches, a ghost, some shocking revelations about Lear, and a dim-witted giant apprentice fool named Drool. 

It's a ton of fun, and I can't recommend it strongly enough, with the caveat that if you're going to find yourself perturbed by a lot of really filthy words on every page, this really isn't the book for you.

My Spunky Little Book

Right now there's a lot of buzz around this book, a collection of essays about girls' first periods.  It seems like a great idea, so here's my pitch for my version, lifted nearly verbatim from the other book's website.  

My Spunky Little Book!

My Spunky Little Book is an anthology of stories about first ejaculations, collected from men of all ages from around the world.

The accounts range from light-hearted (the editor got his with the assistance of a mildewed 10-year-old issue of Penthouse found in a plastic bag in the woods) to heart-stopping (a first ejaculation that took place just before a deeply religious grandmother walked into the room unannounced ). The contributors include well-known men writers, alongside today's teens. And while the authors differ in race, faith, or cultural background, their stories share a common bond: they are all accessible, deeply honest, and highly informative. Whatever a boy experiences or expects, he'll find stories that speak to his thoughts and feelings.

Ultimately, My Spunky Little Book is more than a collection of stories. It is a hot, sticky call for a change in attitude, for a new way of seeing the lovin' spoonful. In a time when the taboo around ejaculation seems to be one of the few left, ahem,  standing, it makes a difficult subject easier to talk about, and helps boys feel proud instead of embarrassed or ashamed. By revealing what it feels like to undergo this experience, ahem,  first hand, and giving men the chance to explain their feelings in their own words, it aims to provide support, entertainment, and a starting point for discussion for fathers and sons everywhere. It is a book every boy should have.

My Spunky Little Book is a companion through the sticky years of adolesence, a touchstone that young men can turn to again and again as they shoot towards adulthood.

There's the pitch.  I think this book could be an important contribution to my checking account balance, and I pledge to donate all proceeds to the purchase of video games and comic books for men and boys who live in my household.

I would make a video trailer, but I don't think I can successfully pull off the balance of attractive and annoying that the editor of My Little Red book displays in her trailer.  Because, you know, I'm way too attractive and not annoying enough.  Yeah, that's it.

All Writing Advice is Crap

Let me clarify.  Advice that you receive about how to improve a specific piece of writing may or may  not be crap.  Advice that you receive from a professional writer telling you the various conditions that must obtain for you to write successfully are crap. 

Writers have been dishing this stuff up for years, probably at least since Virginia Woolf's "Room of one's own" deal.  I don't have a room of my own in which to write.  Today I wrote a chapter of one of the books I'm working on with Emily Franklin.  I wrote the first half sitting on an uncomfortable bench in an elementary school in Cambridge while my son had soccer practice; I wrote the second half sitting on a couch in my house while one of my daughters and her friend loudly played Little Big Planet in the next room.  (Hell of a game, by the way.  I recommend.)

I used to tout the importance of making yourself write all the time, even when you don't feel like. Pretty decent advice if you're writing full-time, as I was at the time, and almost completely impractical now that I'm teaching full time and writing part time.  But you know what?  I'm still writing.  I write when I feel like in whatever time I can steal during the day.  This has made it more fun--it takes on the feel of a naughty solitary pleasure--which makes me want to do it more.  And then, sometimes, I don't feel like it. So I don't do it.

I googled writing advice and found a ton of web pages with rules you must follow in order to be a successful writer. 

The key, though, is not following someone else's rules; it's making your own.  It is nice to have a room of one's own, or several hours a day to while away in a coffee shop, but if it works for you to bang out a chapter while the kids are at soccer practice, well, you can do that.  Some people will tell you that you have to plot out your entire novel before writing word one.  Others (like me) will tell you that half the fun of writing a novel is watching it develop as you write it.  Whichever works for you is fine.  It's okay to start things you never finish; it's okay to finish everything, even the stuff you hate. 

A lot of people want to write, so they seek expert advice, but nobody's an expert on what works for you.  They only know what works for them.  So stop surfing the web for writing advice and freaking write something already!

Who Watches the Watchmen? Probably Not Me.

Back when I knew the Lord of the Rings movie was coming out, I decided to re-read The Lord of the Rings.  I ended up loving the book in spite of Tom Bombadil, the anti-climax scourging of the Shire, and, of course, the racism.  The book deepened my enjoyment of the movies, which are better than the book.  But that's probably another post.

Anyway, what with the Watchmen movie coming out and all, I figured I'd re-read that.  I read it about 15 years ago and remembered nothing about it.

Well, re-reading it convinced me not to see the movie.  Actually, based on the book, I don't think the movie is going to be a hit.

Watchmen is  a compelling read and, for the most part, very well written. It definitely stuck with me more than most comic books. Oh, I know, graphic novels, la la la--they're still comic books. And comic books should, I think, be fun. This one is no fun at all. (I know, what should I expect from the guy who sapped the fun out of Swamp Thing, for God's sake?)  Perhaps the reason this, of all comic books, gets taken seriously as literature is that it borrows so many characteristics of literary fiction--desultory pace, confusing chronology, pointless book-within-a-book, downbeat ending. I have more patience for all these things in comic form than in, uh, non-graphic novel form, but still-this isn't why I read comics.

And really--do we want comics to be serious and respectable?  Look at what happened to their fellow disreputable 50's art form, jazz?  Now it's respectable, moribund, and nobody listens to it except old white guys and people eating brunch. God save comics from such respectability!

So, anyway, Watchmen has its cult following--they will doubtless be disappointed in the movie because it's not a frame-by frame loyal rendering of the book, much as the Lord of the Rings cultists bemoaned the fact that female characters had something to do in the movies and Tom Bombadil was missing. 

People who aren't Watchmen cultists already are going to go to this movie expecting some fun at the movies, because that's what they've been led to believe a movie with costumed superheroes offers.  What will they make of this relentlessly, purposefully un-fun tale?  I'm guessing they won't run off and tell their pals to go see it. 

And the people who enjoy an arty, chronologically-confused, downbeat tale?  Well, they're not gonna go see a movie with people in superhero costumes. 

My prediction:  spectacular flop.  As for me, I probably won't be going, though I suppose I might watch it on DVD.  Real life has enough depressing moments. I want my superheroes to bring me some fun.