Life 2.0

The Eagle Has Landed

2012-01-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

And welcome to the first post of 2012. Our New Year holiday was low-key and intimate, much like our Christmas (and the older I get, the better I feel about that). We hung out at Dan & Trish's with some friends, and, since I was fighting a headache, I stuck to water and remained the DD for the evening.

The second draft of the Green Light screenplay is done, now we're really starting to hone the work. We've shown it to a small, select handful of our filmmaking peers, and there is some buzz about it, which feels good. Of course, writing even a fictional version of real events tends to dredge up some of that stuff, which knocked me emotionally off-kilter for a few days. Now things are mostly back to normal...

"Must. Have. Coffee."

"Normal" being the occasional wake-up call at 3, 4 or (if I'm lucky) 5AM. This morning it was 3. I know when this happens, I can usually parlay it into some productive time while the rest of the household is still sleeping, but it still messes with my ideal schedule.

And today I realized that I used to be an incredibly sound sleeper. Never really had a problem with 3AM awakenings until after Samantha died. Go figure. There's likely some hyper-vigilant sense being triggered.

Not sure what I'm going to do about it yet.

Mid-Holiday Lull

2011-12-27T23:06:00.000-08:00

So here we are in the eye of the storm, between the craziness of Christmas and the New Year. Life has kept us all busy during the past few months, and I've actually felt the itch to blog far more often than in 2010. I'm making regular posting a priority for 2012.

After two years of being tardy with the holiday spirit, we actually started decorating the day after Thanksgiving. Hosting a holiday party on December 3rd gave us the perfect motivation for getting the tree up, the lights on the outside of the house, and festive lit garlands inside. And the party was, I believe, a rousing success - what with the fifty-some people crowded into our tiny main floor, the Winter Warlock theme cocktail* and the karaoke machine going full blast in the living room. At one point, someone found me in the kitchen and said, "you need to come see this..." I pushed through the crowd of stunned onlookers snapping photos with phones and digital cameras to see my 17 year old son giving a karaoke performance for the ages. As longtime readers know, Tyler is not the most outgoing or social person, and coupled with his hatred of crowds and the normal teen angst, performing FOUR karaoke numbers in front of fifty plus people was not exactly high on my List of Things I Thought I'd See, Ever.

But when it came time to pile into the car and head north to Bellingham for Christmas Eve, my boy was back to his hermit persona. Which we're actually learning to be okay with.

Said Christmas Eve celebration in Bellingham was a lovely gathering at my mom & stepdad's place (formerly my grandparents' home), including my sister & niece, brother & sis-in-law, stepmom and grandmother. We shared a wonderful meal, exchanged gifts, drew names for next year's exchange, and headed home.

On Christmas day, we stayed home and didn't do a thing. Oh, we did the stockings and gift thing, I cooked breakfast, and we mostly lounged around in our pajamas all day, watching movies. Kayleigh got The Lion King blu-ray, and I was the happy recipient of Thor, Amadeus, Stand By Me and Citizen Kane bu-rays. Kayleigh also got a bit choked up when she found a framed version of this photo in her stocking:

Kayleigh with Bob Schneider at the Triple Door, Seattle (2011)

It was perfect. And Boxing Day was perfect too. Now we have a short week, and the New Year this coming weekend. My New Year was back on November 1st, but what the hell? It's a reason to celebrate with friends.

Then, in a few short weeks, we'll be in production on The Collectibles episodes 4-7. Looking forward to getting back on the set with some terrifically talented people.

And then there's Green Light, the screenplay Raechelle and I have been planning for two years. We finally outlined it this year, and now the first draft is almost done. It's the somewhat fictionalized story of what happened to me after Samantha died, and what happened to Raechelle after her breakup with her ex, and how there were several opportunities for a crossover of worlds, but we didn't end up meeting until a certain guy placed an ad for a vocalist on a certain online bulletin board.

Crazy.

Anyway, we're almost done. When we have a workable first draft, we'll give it to Dan Heinrich and Lisa Coronado to look at. From there it will be honed, sharpened, shopped, sold and produced. Hopefully here in Seattle. Although the Washington State legislature just tied our film industry tax incentives to a homeless spending bill and drowned it to death. But that's a topic for another post...

Season's Greetings!

2011-12-17T21:19:00.001-08:00

As Promised...

2011-10-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot of me actually wearing the Vincent Price Gothic Steampunk Monster Hunter costume from the Halloween party last Saturday.

With my hot flapper wife.

And lest I forget, I've been directing this for the past couple months. We open on Friday night and close on Halloween. If you live in the Seattle area and want to experience a very cool performance, you have a small window of opportunity. Tickets available here.

Halloweeny Goodness

2011-10-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Last year I had very little time or interest, and ended up with my fallback costume, the Awesome Pirate:

...with his hawt rocker girlfriend.

But this year, I wanted to go a little bit darker, a bit more steampunk-esque, and channel my inner Vicent Price...

Yeah, that's the ticket.

The concept is an early-Victorian monster hunter, in the tradition of the classic Hammer and American International films of the 1950s & 1960s. It's a concept I hope to parlay into some original fiction, and it starts right here:

The only newly acquired elements are the velvet-finish top hat, goggles and 19th century vest. The velvet front-flap Regency trousers were custom made by my high school theater pal Andrea Edelman, who is an amazing historical seamstress and milliner. The deerskin gloves are part of my pirate/swashbuckler ensemble, as are the replica firearms, black shirt, knives and baldric (in which the pirate cutlass has been replaced with a mallet for stake-driving). The boots are one of two pair I own for costume work, and are best suited for later-period endeavors (the others being massive gray cavalier boots). The black suede jacket was one of those amazing $16 Goodwill finds, and is incredibly versatile. Add in the brass-handled cane, silver cross and bottle of "holy water", and you've got a vampire-slaying, demon-exorcising, ghost-hunting, werewolf-shooting badass. Can't wait to show it off at the neighbors' Halloween party on Saturday. More pics (with me actually wearing the costume) to come, I promise.

Flashbacks

2011-10-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Had a burst of creative energy yesterday and finished the outline of Green Light, which I followed up by actually drafting the first five or so scenes - with dialogue. And of course when I write, I require a music playlist of appropriate mood. And since Green Light is about the end of one life and the beginning of another (as referenced in Rhymes With Drowning and My New Life Out Here), there are some tracks in the mix which perhaps have more emotional power than would normally be expected.

Like this one:

When the time we have now ends
When the big hand goes round again...

Can you still feel the butterflies?
Can you still hear the last goodnight?

I know people get married to the song, but it has a different meaning for me.

Weekend Players

2011-10-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

No, not referencing the English neo-lounge duo. I'm referring to the packed weekend in which we managed to be all kinds of productive while not exhausting ourselves. We were up early Saturday to head to the Lynnwood office location of The Collectibles, meeting a skeleton crew to shoot some promo material for the show, including this:

And this:

And this:

The rest of Saturday consisted of Raechelle and me running errands, Halloween shopping, grocery shopping, and then retiring to the house for Halloween decorating and what ended up being a 5-hour Mad Men marathon. We're getting Raechelle caught up for the new season.

Sunday morning consisted of me shopping and cooking brunch while Raechelle cleaned. I made a nice brunch and we watched the first half of the Seahawks game (which was the team's first victory in the east in 5 years), then Brian Beardsley and I roughed out the second half of Airship Daedalus chapter three while Rae cheered from the living room (not us, the Hawks game). Then Dan Humphrey (aka The Quick) and I went over some editing notes for The Collectibles. Then Dan Heinrich called and we ended up heading over to Dan & Trish's for dinner and another couple Mad Men episodes. When we got home, I colored and lettered today's Daedalus strip, uploaded it, then turned my attention to editing the PSAs for The Collectibles.

I've been really inspired to write recently - not just throwing stuff into the blog, but real screenplay material. I did a writing pass on The Collectibles episodes 4 and 5, and have made a start on the Daedalus script for chapter 4. Also been thinking more seriously about Green Light. Tomorrow we rehearse Sorry Wrong Number with our Foley guys.

Exciting times.

A Life of Its Own, Part 2

2011-09-28T05:12:00.000-07:00

And, just like that, The Collectibles website goes live, the pilot is revealed, and the funding campaign begins. Holy heck, that's a relief.

A Life if Its Own

2011-09-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Funny how Dan & I were just chatting about doing a project during the summer to keep our filmmaking chops up and stay relevant in the Seattle indie scene. The Collectibles has begun to get traction. The traction is turning into views on some of the promotional videos (like those below). And the views are building a fan base. This has led to a strategic alliance with Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and Ben Dobyns' Fan Supported brand to help maximize exposure. Our local media sneak peek happens on Sunday, with the website and funding campaign going live on Monday the 26th. Here are some of the recent teasers we've released:

Meanwhile, Brian Beardsley and I did some research and altered the Airship Daedalus publishing schedule to a Monday-Friday model to better reflect our readers' viewing habits. We will have a table at Jet City Comic Show this coming Saturday, and a limited run of single issues for Chapters 1 & 2 of the Daedalus comic.

Also meanwhile (meaning concurrently with the above activities), we cast the fall show for Twelfth Night Productions, a limited double feature of classic suspense radio programs for Halloween weekend done in the same format as It's a Wonderful Life last year. Actors in period costume performing the plays on a stage set like a period radio studio with live sound effects and, in our case, live music on a 1929 Mighty Wurlitzer.

My favorite poster design in a long time!

So, as always, incredibly busy, but working on stuff I actually enjoy and creating business opportunities along the way. Still honing and tweaking the Ordinary Angels pitch with my buddy in LA as well. Back to that in a bit...

What We Did Last Weekend

2011-08-15T08:27:00.000-07:00

Some of this...

A bit of this...

A little of this...

A distracting amount of this...

Even some of this...

But we would never do this...

Sunday Comics

2011-07-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

As the printed newspaper goes the way of any other extinction, the funnies have naturally migrated to the web. Brian and I are having a blast creating the vintage pulp adventure Airship Daedalus, published twice a week. It's an homage to the great pulp comics masters like Will Eisner and Alex Raymond.

We're also on Facebook and Twitter.

Wednesday Means...

2011-06-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

...a new episode of Airship Daedalus!

Each Sold Separately

2011-06-29T00:40:00.000-07:00

Although the core parts of The Collectibles have been cast, we did manage to lock down Dennis Kleinsmith as the evil Doctor Flaming Skull. As he wrote in his email, "What actor would ever refuse a character called 'Dr. Flaming Skull'?"

I know, right?

Dennis Kleinsmith

We're even talking about installing a lighter in the back of the action figure we're making, so that when the lever is flicked, the flame pops up out of the doll's head. Of course if it were a real toy, it'd be a lawsuit waiting to happen, even in the 1970s.

Readers of this blog might remember Dennis played Lucifer in Ordinary Angels. He's a lovely man and a genuine talent - an actor casting directors should be taking more notice of.

So our cast is looking good...

Brian Sutherland

Brian Sutherland (who you might have seen in the Washington State Lottery commercial) is playing the team leader in crisis, the patriotic hero called Super Star. One part Captain America, one part Superman, one part Megalith, and several parts Evel Knevel.

Lisa Skvarla

Actress/stuntwoman/martial arts instructor Lisa Skvarla is the Amazon warrior princess known as Ultrafemme. She's culled from the archetypes of hardy characters like Xena, Sif, Wonder Woman and a little dash of She Hulk... without the green skin.

Dan Humphrey

One of my favorite partners in crime, Dan Humphrey, is stepping in front of the lens as The Quick, faster than fast, caffeine fueled hypoglycemic speedster that is a direct style parody of The Flash, Kid Flash, Impulse and Quicksilver. Some might remember Dan from his brief appearance as Cyclops in our music video for Kirby Krackle's "On and On". Hmmm. Typecast much?

Wonder Russell

The lovely and talented Wonder Russell is portraying the insecure Shield Maiden, who makes her living as a "bubbler" (a term used in superhero MMOs to describe defender archetypes, who will often project defensive or power boosting bubbles of energy on teammates). She is based on defenders such as Sue Storm, Violet from The Incredibles, Stargirl and Maxima. Wonder is also an alumnus of the "On and On" video, having played Rogue.

Frank Acosta Jr.

Veteran actor Frank Acosta Jr. is playing Aguaman, Latino Lord of Atlantis. An eye injury involving a commercial albacore hook caused Aguaman to be put on injured reserve, and now he mostly does filing and data entry. He, of course, is based on the iconic masters of the deep, like Aquaman, Submariner, Tempest and Man From Atlantis.

Joe Downing

My favorite badass (and no relation, I swear), Joe Downing is playing the sociopath vigilante Death-Wish. Relying on physical training and gadgets instead of superpowers, Death-Wish has a conspiracy theory for everything. The character is equal parts Batman, Punisher, Deadpool and Deathstroke the Terminator. Joe was also seen in both Ordinary Angels and "On and On" (as a ninja of The Hand).

Trish Loyd

Of course the Power Posse need someone to man the front desk, and that someone is the psychic receptionist called Receiver. Our own Trish Loyd will be getting her psionics on with this role, which is based on a long history of comic book telepaths and mega-psychics like Jean Grey, Raven, Psylocke and Scarlet Witch.

Casey Kinared

And then there's the Power Posse's agent and corporate liaison, Vance Vermicular, portrayed by Los Angeles based actor Casey Kinared, who has done several Seattle film projects in addition to his work in SoCal. Vance is based on every corporate tool who has ever uttered buzzwords like "leverage our human assets" or "shifting the paradigm".

Also...

2011-06-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how out of shape I am after our long, soggy, indoor winter. We spent the beautiful sunny day yesterday doing yardwork, pruning the tree over our front walk, and digging up the top of the rock wall in order to plant some ground cover. It wasn't like we pushed ourselves. We wore our big bucket hats and our gloves and sunglasses. We took our 1-liter water bottles. But I guess simply bending over becomes problematic after age 40 if you don't do a lot of gardening year-round to stay flexible.

And today, I feel like I've run the 100-meter hurdles. With a full pack.

Yikes.

Time to get back in shape, he murmured under his breath for the seventeenth time this month.

The Collectibles

2011-06-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

This is the new webseries being co-produced by Dan, Landon, Cherelle, Jonelle and myself. If you like awkward docu-comedies like The Office, Modern Family, Arrested Development and Parks and Recreation, or costumed superheroes, or both, you'll want to check this out.

We just locked in our main cast, and we're currently in preproduction for a mid-August shoot.

Meanwhile, I'm revising and honing the OA pitch.

And I finally got a new phone (after carting around my slider for a couple years). Loving the Android.

Busy as a Triple-Booked Bee

2011-06-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

As you can see, the schedule has been a bit full as of late, and it shows no sign of letting up any time soon. Between coloring and lettering a couple Airship Daedalus strips a week, there have been almost nightly Skype teleconferences with production partners and advisers both near and far, a new web series project, revisions to the OA pitch, and end-of-year school events/family plans.

Kayleigh, Raechelle and I performed our first "gig" as Heartsick on Saturday, as per Raechelle's post. It was a nice, low-pressure way for Kayleigh to unveil her guitar skills in a public setting. Afterward, we went to Steve & Steph's to celebrate Steve's birthday and serenade him a bit as well.

The Northern Empires book has been submitted to Amazon for POD, and pending a minor issue with the spine text, should be available soon. The first proof looked gorgeous. It's a good addition to the Arrowflight Second Edition line.

Screened The Whisperer in Darkness during SIFF with production partner Landon. There was a lot to like (especially the lighting and photography). There were also some questionable choices made (the bane of being a filmmaker is having an opinion on everything). But overall, another achievement for the HPLHS.

The next few weeks are heavy on the preproduction for the aforementioned web series, as well as nailing down the OA pitch a bit more. Mad props to high school filmmaking buddy Scott, for his patience and amazing insight on said pitch. We're fortunate to have his assistance, and grateful for it. On the web series, we're joined at the producer level by the Gore Sisters, with whom I've worked twice previously. They did costumes, makeup and props for my music video "On and On", and costumes and props for Darlene Sellers' "Second Season". They are crazy good at what they do, and their spirit and enthusiasm is infectious. Really looking forward to doing this project, which I will fill you in on as is appropriate.

Until next time...

Take a Deep Breath and Look Around

2011-05-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

I don't like it when software I depend on to produce product for my livelihood decides not to work. Fortunately, while Adobe Acrobat Pro is deciding to be a whiny bitch, there is a plethora of tasks I can get done. Like write a blog post while my CS4 installer copies from my work box to the external hard drive.

Had a splendid meeting with Landon yesterday, chatting about upcoming projects in addition to OA. We've revised the pitch to be much more salable and dynamic, more capable of creating the kind of excitement we need cable network people to feel.

The brain trust of Landon, Dan, Trish and myself is also generating a slate of new projects to work on, to keep us practiced in our craft and relevant in the Seattle indie film community, and to serve as a creative distraction while awaiting responses to the new OA pitch.

Also, we have raccoons in West Seattle, as you know. But it's not an everyday occurrence to see a big adult moseying through our side and back yards in broad daylight. It actually came down from the giant tree in the neighbors' yard, down our side of the fence, up onto our back porch (where we stage the scooped cat litter for transfer to the alley cans), then ambled nonchalantly around to the back, and finally disappeared into the bushes. The cats lost their little cat minds, freaking out in the kitchen window while I took some snapshots.

Checklist.

2011-05-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Arrowflight - Northern Empires sourcebook: done. As soon as Gavin gives the pdf a pass, I'll be putting it up for sale online, and arranging the POD run through dtrpg.com and Amazon. Next up, Shriek X, Star Legion XPG and The Mystic East supplement for Arrowflight. I also have gear splatbooks for Arrowflight and RADZ started, but they're victims of work-on-'em-when-I-can syndrome.

Airship Daedalus: is it in you? Are you following it? Are you decoding the ciphers? For a secondary learn-as-we-go webcomic project, this thing is proving to be a blast and a half, and has led to a few expansions of the property. Firstly, we've been given ten pages in the next edition of Mash Tun. So that's cool. Then I have the script for a ten-page one-shot story in the following issue. We also are happy to count actress/singer/producer Wonder Russell (Rogue in the "On and On" film I directed for Kirby Krackle), who has put in a bid to play the character of Doc in any screen venture we attempt with Daedalus. Although I'm a bit gun shy to go all out on a Daedalus film just yet, Ms. Russell did indeed encourage a teaser/trailer/proof-of-concept project which we could showcase at ECCC next year, as well as using as the basis for a Kickstarter campaign to fund a web serial. In the meantime, I've already translated Chapter 1 of the webcomic into an old-time radio drama. We'll set that up this summer and post it to the website. There's also an RPG of the property in the works (with plenty of legwork already done from the first time I tinkered with the setting back in the late '80s).

Ordinary Angels: We got some incredibly helpful feedback from an old high school filmmaker buddy who now works at Disney. I'm adjusting the pitch this week.

Spent Raechelle's birthday being sick. Possible ulcer and a sinus infection. Recovered enough to co-host our combined birthday bash at the Mop & Bucket, and promptly relapsed. Spent my own birthday in the doctor's office, but bucked up enough to go see opening night of Thor with the fam and some friends. Finally went on antibiotics and both issues seem to be clearing up just fine. But now Raechelle and Kayleigh are both sick with what I've termed The Snot Monster - so much so that we had to skip the trip to Bellingham for May Birthdays. We're rescheduling for June.

Tyler turns 17 tomorrow. I don't feel old enough to have a 17 year-old son. Hopefully I never will feel old enough. I will say that Tyler has undergone an evolution, emotionally as well as physically. It's such a far cry from where we were just last year (and especially 2008-2009). We're all breathing a huge sigh off relief and are very hopeful about his future.

It's amazing that I found the time to put up this post, but now I need to get back to the checklist...

A Brief Word from Our Sponsor

2011-05-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Emerald City and Beyond

2011-03-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

Once again, Real Life caught me by the ankles, turned me upside down and demanded my lunch money. Many times over the past couple weeks I wistfully reached for my browser link to compose a blog post, only to have Real Life smack my hand away. Real Life is a bully, but we must face him.

Brian Beardsley & Todd Downing show off copies of Mash Tun #1

So, Emerald City Comicon was a success all around. The Airship Daedalus booth was on the side wall of Artist Alley, in the prime strip anchored by Mike Mignola. Brian sold some original Daedalus pages, and for the first time I actually thought of marketing myself as a writer. Ended up selling a few of my personal Red Dwarf RPG collection, which was nice (as well as some Ordinary Angels DVDs). Steve & JD both did very well. Landon and I shot a bunch of material for the con - mostly panels and events. Raechelle minioned (verb: to minion), and the kids came down with friends, all on their own. Rae actually has a more concise rundown of the weekend, which I highly recommend reading.

One of the cool things to come out of the con was the reaction to Mash Tun, Brian Meredith's pulp comic anthology magazine. Airship Daedalus had five pages and got some momentum from that, and afterward we asked Brian if we could have ten ages in the next issue, and he said "sure!" So I wrote a ten-page one-shot story, which Brian Beardsley roughed out for artist Ryan Potter to do the finished inks. As with the twice-weekly strip, I will do the colors and lettering.

The day after Emerald City was over, Dan, Trish, Landon and I finally buttoned up the Ordinary Angels series pitch and sent it to Landon's contact at Fox. There are more developments on that front, but I can't really say more at the moment. Fingers crossed.

And I have Arrowflight: Northern Empires in layout. It's gonna be a nice, hefty tome.

Daedalus Aloft!

2011-02-27T06:25:00.000-08:00

www.airshipdaedalus.com went live with the first strip/episode ("stripisode"??) at 12:01AM. Of course there's only one strip up so far, but we will release a new one every Wednesday and Sunday. I'm really looking forward to it.

It's also my dad's birthday. He would have been 67 this year. He'd just turned 61 when he died. Time marches on. I still miss him.

Brian Beardsley came over to meet about the site launch and ECC yesterday. He brought the table banner, which looks awesome, all six feet of it.

After Brian left and Tyler went with his uncle to their Arrowflight game, I took my girls out to pick up a few household and party prep items. Raechelle decided to host an Oscar party tonight, and dang it, if she ain't just cute enough to get her way. She was a manic twister of cleaning frenzy last night, which I actually love about her.

Anyway, didn't sleep much. Might crash out this morning for a while. Don't want to be dozing through the Oscars.

Counting Down...

2011-02-22T10:23:00.000-08:00

It's T-minus five days to Daedalus, and counting. The site is coming together (although not finished yet), and we've got the Twitter account up and running. Brian and I have the first month and a half in stockpiled strips, a table at ECC and a 5-page preview in Mash Tun #1.

Tick tick tick...

1990 Onward...

2011-02-08T15:03:00.001-08:00

1990 is really the threshold of a huge transition for me personally, and for us as a couple, and from here on out, I return to a bullet-less narrative. Such things are useful to make notes and point out important events in a sequence of formative years, but at this stage in the story, I am (for all intents and purposes, in body if not at heart) an adult. I know it's a lot to cram twenty years of highlights into one post, but look at it this way - it's one post, and then I'll be done with this brain dump.

I spend the rest of 1990 writing, making music and leading a pirate themed household of over thirty people in the SCA. When 1991 arrives, it is a new decade, and things are continuing to change. I become the desktop publishing coordinator at the brand new Kinko's in Mountain View, and Samantha contracts at Hewlett-Packard doing database management. Mark gets me into The Cult, Mother Lovebone, Public Enemy and Soundgarden. In the midst of this harder stuff, I become smitten with the jangly West Coast songwriting of a young band from Santa Barbara.

We begin to look at buying a home. Even with help from the family, it is readily apparent that we could afford little more than a double-wide in the South Bay. We begin to do some serious soul searching. And Tears Fell has been getting some traction, more college airplay and national fans, thanks to Prodigy. A music 'zine in Austin, Texas starts supporting the band with glowing reviews. We could stick it out, slave away at the indie music business in the SF Bay Area, or we could move somewhere else, somewhere more affordable, where we could actually raise a family. My mom and stepdad have moved to Ferndale, Washington. We have friends in Bellevue, Washington. We remember falling in love with the Evergreen State on our way to Vancouver in 1986. We do our research, we make lots of calls, I check with Kinko's corporate to see if I can transfer to a store in the Seattle area, and they find me a spot as the DTP coordinator at the Bellevue store.

Perfect.

We notice the club music and alternative shoegaze music of the 1980s takes on a distinctly angry vibe, in the form of two Seattle bands who both release landmark albums in September 1991. This doesn't stop us from Seeing Transvision Vamp and the Candy Skins live (with a shirtless Cy Curnin performing an acoustic set). On a boat. We go to the first Lollapalooza festival. We also get to see Concrete Blonde on their Bloodletting tour with Andy Prieboy supporting. My inner goth is very happy. Happy goth. It is the last stop before the Seattle music scene seeps into everything. We realize we will be walking into the lion's den of a powerful cultural movement, and we're okay with that.

In October, we host the Fourth Annual Black Pelican Dead Man's Party & Hallowe'en Ball. The theme is pre-20th century authors and poets, and it's a good old fashioned murder mystery, complete with bad poetry and ghost story competitions. It will be the last Black Pelican to be held in California.

In mid-November, Samantha and I pack our world and our cats, Ace and Gryphon, into our 1980 Isuzu P'up and a U-Haul trailer and leave the state we've called home for 20+ years. It's a two-day drive, especially when the poor little truck keeps overheating on the hills and we have to keep stopping to let it cool.

Our friends Garth and Shura let us stay at their home in Bellevue for a couple weeks while we look for a place to live. We find a two-bedroom apartment in Renton, and I drop by the Bellevue Kinko's to let the manager know I've arrived safely. I'm informed that, despite having just relocated from a thousand miles away and having a start date from corporate, the manager has given my job to someone else. I head back to the corporate office in Seattle to complain, and am told that I can take a lower-rung job at the downtown Seattle store. I bite the bullet, working swing shifts for a week until I just can't conceal my anger at being dicked over by a company I served for 5 years through college and beyond. Fuck Kinko's.

I do temp work, and Sam lands a job with the state at the Seattle Vocational Institute. Good salary and benefits. She tells me to write for a year. I do exactly that.

At the end of that time, I have three novels, a screenplay and three short stories (two of which I sell immediately to horror magazine Midnight Zoo) and one I will sell later (to Northwest Gamers Network). We see Sarah McLachlan and The Sundays in concert. We're impressed enough with Peace Love & Guitars opening for Sarah that we go see them headline at the Crocodile Cafe, and meet a couple West Seattleites our age over a spilled beer. While embracing the grunge culture of my adopted city, I still nurture my old tastes by way of Bel Canto and Tori Amos. I delve into Native American spiritualism, and attend my first sweat lodge. There, I meet a woman on a similar spiritual trajectory, and she becomes a friend to Samantha and me. At the end of 1992, the three of us move into a big 1915 craftsman home above a retail spot on California Avenue in West Seattle. Our rent is $650 a month, with our housemate carrying a third of that. I have long hair and a beard. The hair will come and go (mostly go), but the face fuzz will pretty much move in permanently.

After months of rejection form letters, I get a nibble. Time Warner's sci-fi imprint is casting the net for new authors, and my cyberpunk "street opera" is kind of exactly what they're looking for. I send in the manuscript. The woman at Warner disappears. I'm informed that she is no longer working for the imprint, that she has gone somewhere else, taking several manuscripts with her. I have no way of tracking her down. My inner conspiracy theorist will spend the next few years browsing the sci-fi bookshelves for anything resembling my novel.

We're watching the Batman animated series and the television spin-off of the Highlander film.

In 1993, I meet Ron Dugdale through a bulletin board posting at the local comic shop, advertising an RPG group. He, his wife Glenda and I become partners in The Gamut, a game/hobby/collectible store at the West Seattle Junction*. I walk two blocks to work every day. We frequent the local dial-up bulletin board systems, creating new friends and networks. It's quite the bohemian existence. Eddie Vedder frequents our store, dropping $500 at a time on Star Wars models and other geek stuff to kill time with while on tour. We host the first Magic: The Gathering tournament in the Seattle area. I get into Warhammer 40K. We have a core group of gamers who test out our various house games and systems. One of these entails adapting the Cyberpunk system to a fantasy setting. I use the setting of my earlier fantasy fiction. Ron adapts the name of the system from Cyberpunk's "Friday Night Firefight" to "Friday Night Arrowflight". The system would change over the next 8 or so years, but the name Arrowflight would stick. I get super into Red Dwarf, and wonder what an RPG set in that universe would look like. Bah, I think. Someone's probably already made one.

In August, Samantha and I decide to go off active birth control. We don't actively try to get pregnant, just don't try not to. It works. By September, we're expecting. Shortly thereafter, Samantha is fired from SVI. We consider a wrongful termination suit due to the timing of the pregnancy, but chicken out of the confrontation. Sam finds a job with a friend who manages the used bookstore (and who also works the Ticketmaster booth at Easy Street Records and drops a lot of her disposable income on Magic cards at my shop). I get involved with TCI Cablevision's access program, working on a few episodes of Political Playhouse and enticing the producer to take on my sci-fi/comedy pilot, Flotsam. In November 1993, our friend at Ticketmaster grabs us front row seats to Dead Can Dance for our wedding anniversary. I'm awestruck, and will never become un-struck.

Our housemate begins dating the weapon master for the Highlander TV show (he lives and works up in Vancouver). In early 1994, she moves out, and our bookstore friend moves in. We're devoted X-Files and Brisco County Jr. fans. We see Sarah McLachlan play in Bellingham at the WWU student center on the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy tour. In May, our son Tyler is born. I'm also informed by Ron that The Gamut can't afford to pay my salary as the manager, but that my investment in the company is still good. I start job hunting while Sam continues to work at the bookstore, often taking young Tyler with her. I temp. A lot. During the summer, we shoot Flotsam. I also see Cocteau Twins live.

In September, I get a gig in the art department of a custom T-shirt printer. In October, Garth takes me to lunch and tells me about a videogame startup that is opening soon and that might need artists. I call for an interview and end up being the first non-management hire. In November, I start as the concept artist for Boss Game Studios.

At Boss, I meet another artist, Hans Piwenitzky. He's a fellow gamer and sci-fi geek, only six months younger than me, and we become good friends. Programmer Peter Giokaris comes aboard soon after. Peter is a Toronto native and electronic music composer in his own right. He gets me into Recoil, H and Die Warsau.

It is the beginning of the 3D boom in videogames. The Sega Saturn, 3DO, and the Sony Playstation are new platforms. Boss being the sister company of Boss Film Studios, we are treated to visits from founder Richard Edlund, who regales us with stories of the "photochemical days" of film. He welcomes the digital era of effects, personified by Boss Films' latest project, Species. We are taken to premieres. We are flown to LA for the first Electronic Entertainment Expo. We are given a VIP tour of Boss Film Studios, which contain artifacts from Ghostbusters and Alien3 and 2010. We are greeted by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man's head (the real honest-to-gawd thing from Ghostbusters) on the lobby floor, and are invited to "go ahead - kick it around!" by the pipe-smoking man who shot THE FUCKING TITLE CRAWL in Star Wars.

In March 1995, we buy a little 1922 craftsman home in West Seattle, just a block from Westwood Village, a somewhat dilapidated shopping center. I'm at Boss throughout 1995, working on several projects that never finish and one that will be published three years after we began and long after I leave. I go from Boss to their competitor, Zipper Interactive, in 1996. We start a remodel project on the house that will last into 1999, but it doubles the square footage of our home. In 1997, I become the lead designer on the first phase of Allegiance, a space shooter MMO, which, while all but abandoned by Microsoft, would find a hard-core following that lasts to the present day. While working on Allegiance, Ray Harryhausen comes through my area on a tour. It somehow falls to me to explain to the man who inspired me to get into film and animation in the first place how 3D animation works. He's very self-effacing, downplaying his massive contributions to popular fucking culture, while every member of my team is bowing in homage. Some Navy brass are also given a tour of the IMP facility, and in return, I'm invited to go out on the USS Ohio, a Trident missile sub, in Hood Canal. Halfway through our little jaunt, we receive word that a Russian envoy wants to do a spot-check on the sub, as per treaty. The civilians are offloaded to a boat and taken back to Bangor sub base.

At home, we're watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena and the short run of Roar with a young Heath Ledger in the starring role.

About this same time, some friends and I found the Mythos LARP society, a fantasy tweak on the strictly historically-based SCA. That morphs into a strictly historically-based LARP group called ReNaction ("ReN" for "Renaissance", "Naction" for "enaction"). A couple years are killed between both groups, and we have fun making boffers and hitting one another with them. Our Wiffle bat/garbage can lit sport comes full circle.
In September 1997, our daughter Kayleigh is born. In October, when my contract is over at Microsoft, I take a job as the Entertainment Group Lead at Visual Dynamics, trying to turn industrial design concepts and tugboat simulation software into a marketable game property. I feel it's a setup for failure, but I follow through for a year. When my job at VDyn dries up, I freelance for some time, doing contract art and design for various game and software developers. It's a crazy time in the videogame industry, and there's a lot of upheaval in the Puget Sound area.

Blade sets the stage for the Marvel revival to come.

In 1999, my brother Gavin and I record a Star Wars geek parody of Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" on my Tascam 4-track, "Livin' La Vida Yoda". Gavin writes the lyrics, I settle on the band name Bitter Tastting Omelette (after a line from a National Geographic documentary on giant spiders of the Amazon). We post it on a GeoCities website and it becomes one of those Things Which Grow Bigger Than Its Creator. It's immediately attributed to Weird Al Yankovic, which he denies on his website.

I get a gig with the West Coast Bethesda Softworks studio in Olympia, which is purchased by ZeniMax Media. I commute 100 miles a day (round trip) for six months, job hunting the whole time. Although I really like the art director at Bethesda, the environment and corporate politics there are among the worst I've experienced. I keep my head down and build tracks for the never-to-be-published Skip Barber Racing. It's a low point for me in the industry, and a low point in my marriage. I feel like a meal ticket. Between the day job and the publishing company, I have little to no time off, and what I do get I try to spend with my family. Samantha is doing theater. A lot of theater. So once I get home from my evening commute, she passes the kids to me and heads to rehearsal. We are little more than roommates for much of the year.

Things look up when I contact HyperBole Studios in Seattle, who is about to be purchased by Tremor Entertainment in LA. They are ramping up three teams, and in February 2000, I am hired as the art director for the company. My corner office looks out over Belltown and the Space Needle. I manage really talented people and we have an incredible amount of creative input. I hire Steve Hartley, who will become a close friend and collaborator. It's a great work environment and I am happy for almost a year. But Tremor pulls out of the purchase agreement, and suddenly we're not only cutting two of the three planned teams, we're trying to keep the one team we do have together. We start producing animated webtoons for entertainment content right at the end of the dot-com bubble, selling a couple series to Atom Film in an attempt to stop the cash hemorrhage. The bubble bursts, and my team is the last one out as HyperBole shuts its Seattle doors, its two principals retreating to LA to lick their wounds.

X-Men continues Marvel's streak of pretty decent film adaptations of their comic properties.

I begin composing electronic music under the name Starbug, taken from the name of the small scout ship in Red Dwarf. I set up shop on MP3.com, making friends with other artists, like Sipping Soma,Trespassers William, Red Delicious, Solaris (the electronica artist, not the Hungarian prog rock band), Deep Mosey, Pamela Zero and Dogfish. The latter is a fellow West Seattlite.

By this time, Deep7 has been in operation for over a year. Originally founded by Samantha, Ron Dugdale and myself in April of 1999, the intent is to create tabletop RPG material for download in electronic format. At this point, there is no fulfillment model, and we have to chart our own course. Some of the market is highly resistant to paying money for downloaded content, but there is enough enthusiasm for our products that we start to gain a foothold. We work hard, releasing title after title in our 1PG game line (simple beer & pretzels RPGs) as well as prepping our premium fantasy game, Arrowflight, for release. We start to think about a license we could get that would allow us to really grow. I suggest Red Dwarf, and finally there is agreement. No British game company has released a licensed RPG of the property, so we decide to make inquiries with Grant Naylor Productions, and lo and behold - nobody has ever contacted them about making a Red Dwarf RPG. We get the license and produce the game we as fans always wanted to play. It remains a proud milestone in my publishing career. Ron leaves Deep7 in January of 2002 over creative issues. He remains a close friend.

Samantha and I seek marriage counseling. It works. We achieve equilibrium in our marriage. Life is good.
While Deep7 is establishing itself, I keep working a day job, doing art and design for TrainingTek, an aerospace education startup that implodes within six months, owing employees thousands of dollars. I join the Hoyle group at Sierra, working on Casino Empire before Vivendi Universal cut a swath of job carnage in early 2002. Although I dodge a bullet in the first round of layoffs, I am cut in the second round, along with folks who had been with Sierra for ten years. I swear to myself that I will never work for someone else (at least not in a direct at-will employee capacity) again. I continue to freelance, but most of my focus is on Deep7 products. Arrowflight arrives just in time to compete with a shit-ton of fantasy titles, many of them OGL. Nevertheless it gets positive reviews, and becomes an alternative to the d20 mania sweeping the industry.

Spider-Man continues Marvel's winning streak. They appear to have perfected their formula. On the DC side, we're watching Justice League and loving it.

Throughout 2002, Samantha has a continuation of her kidney issues after having done the Atkins diet for over two years. Repeated infections, chronic pain, surgery. She gets a kidney scan, which shows something unusual. The doctor who delivered our children and who has been our family physician for almost a decade sends her in for a full torso CT scan in August. She gets the phone call days later and I watch her face sink as THAT WORD etches itself into her brain.

Cancer.

Not some easily treated variety, but a rare form only seen in older males. Adenocarcinoma, unknown primary, has set up shot on her liver with a main tumor the size of a baseball. Twenty-two smaller tumors spread across the liver and both lungs. Not knowing what lay ahead, we charge forward bravely, refusing to surrender to some premature biological death sentence.

Joss Whedon's Firefly graces our television set in September of 2002. It's a great distraction from what's happening with Samantha. In October, my father is diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma.

We release the Red Dwarf RPG in January of 2003, to pre-sales of over half the print run. In February we release the Red Dwarf A.I. Screen. Our company is paying our mortgage, and the game is getting great reviews. That summer, we take the family to GenCon in Indianapolis. Sam is between chemo treatments, but the cumulative effects are visible.

The theatrical release of Daredevil is disappointing, although some of the visuals are Millerific. Discovering the Director's Cut on DVD in 2005 will redeem the film for me.

We struggle through the next year, releasing more game titles and working on a third Red Dwarf supplement, the Series Sourcebook, which will have every episode from the existing eight seasons broken down into playable bits for the game.

2004 and 2005 are a blur. Although the Red Dwarf RPG has been successful, we're being crushed under medical debt, and we're not able to put as much time into the company and its products as before. In May 2004, my dad sends the family to Greece and Italy as a "make a wish" kind of thing for Samantha. She's sick the whole trip, but we get to see some amazing sights in mainland Greece and then recuperate for three days in Venice. It's the last family vacation we'll take with Sam.

Samantha's health takes a nose dive in February, and she dies at home on April 12th. I go into a deep state of shock for the next two years. We hold her memorial party on May 1st. My father tells me he's going in for surgery to remove the two cancer tumors that have popped up on his brain. He makes it through the first surgery and actually comes to dinner for Tyler's birthday on May 17th. He goes in for the second, but develops an infection which requires a third emergency surgery. I spend two weeks visiting him in the UW hospital ICU. He seems to be rebounding, but has a pulmonary embolism and dies on May 30th.

It's the second barrel from the Shotgun of Fate. Life will never be the same.

In July, I start the Rhymes With Drowning blog, and pretty much everything since then has been discussed. Sewer flood, hose burns down, blah blah blah. In retrospect, the book chapter would be called Overcoming Horrible Odds Despite Repeated Blows to the [Metaphorical] Groin.

It's a long, strange road. But it makes sense why I like my geekery gritty. I can't relate to unicorns farting rainbows. If doesn't have to do with the pain, sweat and bloody mess that is human existence, I'll pass. But if it's got a tribal beat and carries a banner of epic mythology, human ambition and Overcoming Horrible Odds Despite Repeated Blows to the [Metaphorical] Groin, I'm totally there.

*A Garlic Jim's pizzeria lives there now.

1986-1990

2011-02-06T04:32:00.000-08:00

I delve into film craft. Stand By Me becomes a high bar in film narrative among my crowd.
In college film studies class, I'm steeped in classic cinema. My eyes are opened even wider to the iconic imagery of the great silent films and European visual storytelling. Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bette becomes an all-time favorite of mine. I see Marillion for a second time in concert, the Clutching at Straws tour. The Name of the Rose impresses the hell out of me. The Princess Bride does the same, for enitely different reasons. And then there's RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven's ultraviolent dystopian "future of law enforcement" that foreshadows the crumbling of Detroit. Verhoeven is not subtle with his social commentary, but I find it a refreshing mockery of Reagan-era indulgence.
Samantha and I are clubbing. A lot. I get into Killing Joke and The Damned.
From this point on, I will rarely be involved in an RPG group that doesn't have one or more females in it. Usually that female is Samantha, but later we'd have a group with a 50/50 gender balance. The experience of roleplaying games with well-adjusted, emotionally mature people with social skills and other interests would spoil me, as it does not fit the stereotype. Females entering the RPG hobby en masse will eventually happen with the release of Vampire: The Masquerade in 1991.
David Beach and I continue recording under the Pig SynoNym name. We also begin preproduction on the Kings film, the script of which I've now completed. We cast my brother Gavin as the young lead and, in early 1987, shoot some scenes in the foothills of Los Altos with costumes and actors from the SCA. David directs. We shoot for a month. The project is killed.
I begin doing shows at Los Altos Conservatory Theatre in the summer of '87. A kid in the cast of South Pacific gives me chicken pox at age 19. After the show, Samantha and I move in together in a Mountain View apartment. Star Trek: The Next Generation debuts, and I dig it (and hey, that Wil Wheaton guy from Stand By Me is in it, but they really don't write his character very well).
David and I see Love and Rockets headline at the San Jose State student center, with this mostly unknown band called Jane's Addiction opening. I hold a variety of college jobs, from print bindery to working in the cassette department of Tower Records in Mountain View.
After only 4 months in the apartment, Sam gets into the film program at San Francisco State. She goes to room at her grandmother's home in South San Francisco, while I move into a bachelor pad in San Jose with fellow LACT actors. We see each other on the weekends. Sam approaches me about rewriting the Kings script to run as an hour-long film, which she will direct for her film final. David shows me the Star Wars roleplaying game. It ends up living with me, and will become one of my two standards in game design (the other being Cyberpunk 2020). My housemate Len plays Sid Meier's Pirates! on his Apple IIe.
1988: Randy returns from Mexico. I begin an intensive animation program at Mission College in Santa Clara, while maintaining a half-schedule at Foothill. A financial backer sponsors a graphic novel based on one of my superhero properties. I nearly go blind finishing the project on schedule and wither away to 160 pounds, and the backer bails. I learn a valuable lesson about contracts, most notably the need for them. I continue to do shows at LACT, performing, assistant directing and doing prop & scenery design (for which I am paid). We begin to cast the new, improved Kings film.
I make a friend in my animation class, Chris Crowell, who re-introduces me to the SCA and a whole extended group of friends that becomes my family. Four of the group live in a communal house in Milpitas. They are young professionals, and perhaps most importantly, geeks. Through them I get a new RPG group, running a bunch of games from Palladium Books, including a two-year Beyond the Supernatural campaign. I discover Blackadder.
David and I record the Pig SynoNym album Fish Whispers.
My animation final, The Big Surprise, is the only project to include sync'd audio. It receives an A+, and a woman in the festival audience calls me sexist because I show a brief flash of a nude centerfold and equate it with "heaven".
In June, I move back into my dad's house to work (back at Kinko's), save money and continue college. We shoot Samantha's film over the summer on a shoestring with volunteer talent and no permits.
When school starts in September, I join forces with former high school buddy Gordon to create the Mozart Air Raid experimental music project. We release a cassette album, Spork of the Gods. One of the cast members of Kings, Paul Howard, is also a musician, and he sits in on some of the Spork sessions. He also plays on the Pig SynoNym EP Salacious. We end up writing together and spin off a project called Doktor Caligari, named after my favorite German expressionist film. Meanwhile Samantha and I record ambient dream pop music under the name And Tears Fell (taken from Robert Graves' poem The Foreboding), and submit a demo to local record label, Epithet.
Enya's Watermark album proves to be exactly that. I "paraphrase" the signature track, "Orinoco Flow" when composing "Forest of Dreams" for And Tears Fell.
Randy, Samantha and I host the first Black Pelican Dead Man's Party & Hallowe'en Ball. The theme is 1930s murder mystery and I write a very detailed scenario based on everyone's chosen persona.
1988 music: I see a variety of indie Bay Area bands, as well as Moev, who have completely changed their sound from the female-vocal-driven first two albums. I will see Moev again when they open for (Clan of) Xymox in 1989. Thanks to buddy Marc Hochman, I get into That Petrol Emotion and New Model Army. Samantha and I see Voice of the Beehive (with That Petrol Emotion opening). I get Randy into Transvision Vamp. He outlasts me on that journey.
1989: Randy and I drive down to Mexico to visit his friends at the orphanage. On the way back, just north of San Diego, we are rear-ended on the freeway by a guy doing over 90mph. A former stock car driver, Randy recovers without rolling his Honda Accord, and we chase down the perpetrator, cornering him in a Denny's parking lot. Turns out, he's driving a borrowed car, has no insurance, and is on parole. Randy makes the citizen's arrest while I call the cops.
David and I record an entire concept album of synth pop under the name Bandersnatch. The album is entitled Gosh, and features a lot of Lewis Carroll influence. We also record a couple new songs under PigSynoNym that will be rerecorded with the full band Doktor Caligari. Doktor Caligari records an EP, Two Days in Hell. It gets college airplay and we are interviewed on KZSU. Despite our effort promoting the band, it is And Tears Fell which receives the attention of Epithet, and we join the label alongside Autumn Cathedral, Crimson Ivy, Moonpools & Caterpillars, Merv Spiegel & the Penguins, Mute Angst Envy and The Electra.
The Summer of '89, Randy, Samantha, David, my whole family and Chris' crowd charter two sailboats out of St. Thomas, and bareboat in the US and British Virgin Islands for two weeks. Sixteen Bay Area pirates descend on the Caribbean. It is an unforgettable experience. One night, we even run a GURPS Swashbuckling session on board the smaller boat, fueled by inexpensive rum and Coca-Cola.
Toward the end of the summer, my junior high school friend Ginger (with whom I've kept up a correspondence) comes up from San Diego to visit. She meets Paul at a club show and they are engaged soon after. Ginger moves up from San Diego and the two couples (Sam & Todd, Paul & Ginger) move into a house in Fremont together. The household lasts for six tumultuous months. I learn a valuable lesson about living with bandmates.
Although the B52s have been on my radar since "Rock Lobster", I am really impressed by their reformation after Ricky's death and the resulting Cosmic Thing.
Randy, Samantha and I host the second Black Pelican Dead Man's Party & Hallowe'en Ball. The theme this year is 1960s espionage. Again I write an intricate mystery surrounding stolen secret plans. Chris and his roommate Pete come as the men from U.N.C.L.E., making a grand entrance that I will never see matched.
And Tears Fell releases an EP entitled sidhe in November '89. One track, "Forest of Dreams" has lyrics from a poem by Ginger. We rerecord an upbeat version of it while filling out a complete sidhe album. It is selected by Epithet to be featured on a label compilation being marketed overseas. We are written up with favorable reviews in French and Polish music magazines.
1989-1990 music: We see the David Bowie Sound + Vision tour, The Cure Prayer tour (supporting Disintegration), and David takes me to see The Residents Cube E show at The Presidio in San Francisco. I become acquainted with Dead Can Dance. A young Canadian siren, Sarah McLachlan, releases her first album, Touch. The Sundays release Reading, Writing & Arithmetic. It inspires me to come out from behind the keyboard and play some guitar, which has never been a strong suit. Samantha gives me a beautiful Ovation Balladeer 6-string for my 22nd birthday. David gives me a cassette containing Ministry's The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste. It's not my first taste of "industrial", as I'm already well acquainted with found-sound pioneers like Fad Gadget, Einstürzende Neubauten and Art of Noise, but this Ministry is very different than its earlier incarnation. It leads me to listen to Pigface and Alien Sex Farm and 1000 Homo DJs. Also, Nine Inch Nails breaks out with Pretty Little Hate Machine. I embrace my inner Trent.
1990: David & I enroll in the Film/TV program at DeAnza College in Cupertino. Aptos art buddy and fellow comic book geek Mark Holmes is also there, and we reconnect. We break up the communal Fremont household. Samantha and I move into a 500 square foot apartment on the Mountain View/Sunnyvale border. We gain a new And Tears Fell collaborator, Christopher Palmer, who gets me hooked on The Chameleons. We record our sophomore album, Circe.
I see my first episodes of Red Dwarf on PBS during a pledge drive.
Mark introduces me to such diverse cinematic influences as Jackie Chan and Sam Raimi. I'd seen the original Evil Dead back in the '80s, but the rediscovery takes hold this time. I'm transfixed by Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa. That becomes a gateway to Akira, Dominion Tank Police, Appleseed, and Black Magic M-66. I become a fan of Masamune Shirow. As a group, we discover John Woo, Stanley Tong and the wonders of Hong Kong action cinema.
Samantha and I are married on September 29th, 1990.
We return from three weeks in the UK and Ireland just in time to host the Third Annual Black Pelican Dead Man's Party & Hallowe'en Ball. This time the theme is 1950s & '60s B-movies. Randy portrays the scientist whose brain has been stolen. Mark Holmes is Octo-Boy. Again, Chris and company outdo themselves, with sisters Jess and Barbara as alien clones.
Mark and I continue to collaborate on the graphic novel we've been working on, and we make a video for And Tears Fell - Ghosts. My sister Sara shoots the footage. Mark, Rob and I collaborate on several short films while at DeAnza.

1984-1986

2011-02-05T02:56:00.000-08:00

Randy, David and I drive down to Los Angeles for a long weekend, staying at Randy's pro photographer friend John's place in Hollywood. John knows Andy Summers from The Police. We take a "demo comic" of one of my properties to the hotel where WorldCon is being held. Our intent is to slip the demo to Wendi & Richard Pini. We find their hotel room, but they've already left to return home.
I take an after-school job at the AMC Old Mill 6 movie theater in Mountain View. Free movies and a paycheck too. Sweet deal. I take Samantha, the cute brunette, to Amadeus for our first date. Over the course of the next year, I'll witness all sorts of cinematic wonder, from David Lynch's Dune to James Cameron's The Terminator. From Back to the Future to 2010 to Buckaroo Banzai. And while Weird Science is more of a John Hughes teen comedy, it nonetheless falls into my sci-fi milieu. And staring at Kelly LeBrock for 94 minutes is hardly a chore.
Alan Parker's Birdy is a cinematic revelation to me, between the incredible cinematography and Peter Gabriel's score.
I continue to write. Whenever honors English assignments warrant (or rather, when they don't specifically forbid), I use sci-fi and fantasy as a theme. I continue to tweak my postmodern rock novella, and start on another - this one a psychological thriller, probably inspired by Dreamscape. I also publish a comic strip, Zingo, in the Palo Alto Campanile newspaper for two years.
In the spring of '85, Samantha, my buddy Konrad and I spend the weekend at Randy's apartment. We all take shrooms and proceed to share an incredible 8-hour trip. Sex on a waterbed on shrooms is an experience I will never forget.
Although A-ha becomes a mighty MTV one-hit pop icon in the US, I'm impressed with the entirety of Hunting High and Low, and follow the band for a few more albums.
During the summer of 1985, several Palo Alto friends and I shoot Project, the supernatural thriller I began writing in Santa Cruz. We get it in the can and school starts before I can edit. I finish post production right after graduation in 1986, and submit it to a young directors' series for PBS. It is broadcast.
Ridley Scott's Legend is released. I am blown away by the production design and cinematography, and it becomes one of my go-to films for visual inspiration. Between that and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which is a fictionalized account of my own senior year), I develop a crush on Mia Sara. I find Ladyhawke to be solid medieval fantasy with an unfortunate disco muzak score.
1984-1986 music: I see Howard Jones, Love and Rockets, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Marillion, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, U2 and The Stranglers in concert. It's a good time for alternative music. David Beach and I start a mostly electronic music project called Pig SynoNym. I get into Joy Division, New Order, Bauhaus and Tones on Tail. I'm big into Shriekback and Depeche Mode, and Simple Minds and Tears For Fears are everywhere. Fellow high school writer Scott Burgess turns me onto Japan, Bill Nelson, David Sylvian and that crowd. I embrace the Cocteau Twins and their ilk on 4AD records. Fellow music addict Gordon Kelley turns me onto Moev and Dalis Car. My musical palette grows by leaps and bounds. David get's me into The Church.
Randy moves to El Rancho Milagro, an orphanage in Ensinada, Mexico. He will spend the next two years constructing dorms and doing maintenance.
1986: I take my brother Gavin to Transformers. I sort of missed out on the whole transforming vehicle craze, and he's far more into the toys and the mythos than I, but it is nonetheless Orson Welles' last film (one other project was released posthumously).
Samantha and I take a road trip north to Vancouver BC for Expo '86. It's a great adventure to be out and about on our own. On the way, We fall in love with Washington State. This will be important later.
Flushed with the success of Project, I tackle the next logical film - a medieval fantasy. A totally rational and level-headed decision. By this time I'm working swing shift at Kinko's, and I copy my scripts for free.
After a short hiatus from RPGs, I join Samantha's group at Foothill College. The game is a homebrew system and setting, run by a woman who is probably the best improvisational storyteller I've met thus far. New friendships are made, as are preparations to shoot Kings, our medieval fantasy film.
Highlander comes out. I eat it up, warts and all. Aliens proves to be exemplary, successfully merging the sci-fi, horror, action and war genres into one tight, well-made movie. "They'll never top this," I think. And I'm right.

1980-1984

2011-02-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

My dad moves out in January of 1980. It's a surprise to everyone. I'm devastated. Turns out he's been miserable for years and doesn't have the tools to express or cope with his frustration. Later he'll delve into the Bay Area self-help movement and transform himself into a much better person, but at this point, all we know is that he's gone. My mom does what she can to keep us afloat - quite literally. That winter sees the worst rain in Santa Cruz in years, and the liquefied hill comes down on our house and in through my sister's bedroom window. I bring hot tea to my mom, who is hip-deep in mud, trying to divert the water away from the house with a shovel, with only our realtor Mary for support. It will be some time before I can forgive my father for, as I saw it, deserting us.
Saturday morning cartoons now include Thundarr the Barbarian, Space Ghost, the new Superfriends and Godzilla. We're growing up.
I begin hanging out with the Beach brothers a lot, creating improv comedy "radio" broadcasts that we record on cassette and sell to our friends at school. We spend a lot of time together, between school and our church community, and with Adam a year older and David a year younger (and their adopted sister Lyn the same age as my sister), I pretty much become the middle Beach brother. Adam introduces me to the wonders of Dr. Demento, National Lampoon, jazz and KISS. My mom is none too fond of my exposure to the latter, believing the urban legend that KISS stands for "Knights In Satan's Service". She'd overcome that programming (and the sensationalized press regarding D&D) later.
During 4th, 5th and 6th grades, I begin my freelance art career, drawing rad pictures of dragons and superheroes for classmates... for a price. I spend some of this filthy lucre plugging quarters into the arcade machines. Defender, Asteroids, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Battlezone get most of my attention. I also start designing my own take on Wacky Packs.
Due to financial necessity, my mom moves us to a rental house in Aptos. My dad resurfaces and tries to make up for months of lost time by doing fun things with us kids. He and I get our NAUI skin diving certification, going on dives off of Monterey. We go for weekend visits at the sailboat he's living on in Santa Cruz harbor. He takes me to see The Empire Strikes Back. We sit with his brother, Russell, who is stoned out of his mind and really enjoying the movie. I've now been collecting Star Wars action figures for a couple years, and send in cereal box tops for the special edition Boba Fett and Bossk figures. I get the Millennium Falcon for my 12th birthday. My crush on Carrie Fisher becomes the standard by which all of my other crushes are measured. She's probably the only (and I mean only) reason I see Under the Rainbow multiple times.
The aforementioned uncle Russell gives me a boxed Dungeons & Dragons basic set for Christmas 1980. I crack it open but am not able to grasp the arcane rules. It will sit on my bookself until a junior high buddy re-introduces me to D&D in 1981.
I start making 8mm films with my friend Mike Day. They start with miniature effects like blowing up Hot Wheels cars with fire crackers, and eventually increase in scope to all out slasher and action fare. I begin formulating a story based on my Blue Shark comic, set in space.
For Easter 1980, I am given ELO - A New World Record. It changes my life. I become an Electric Light Orchestra junkie. It's my gateway band. From here on out I will become extremely passionate about music. A lot of that will have to do with a chance meeting while camping at Nisene Marks over Labor Day weekend with my dad and his girlfriend, Katherine.
So, yeah, Labor Day weekend, 1980. We're camping in Nisene Marks, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, when we meet a fellow hiker. He's 21, a local photographer, with long hippie hair. Randy would become my big brother, my mentor, and best man both times I married. Meanwhile my mom is dating a widower with two kids around my age, and we spend a lot of time together on camping trips and the like. I continue developing my scifi movie concept.
In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark comes out. David Beach and I are there. We move from the rental house to a fourplex. I go to visit my dad and Katherine one weekend and dad takes me to see both Outland and Excalibur. My mom is furious. Randy introduces me to Pink Floyd, Van Halen, David Bowie, The Police and Peter Gabriel. I completely geek out in Dragonslayer. Clash of the Titans allows me to relive the classic Ray Harryhausen fantasies of my earlier childhood.
A junior high friend asks me if I've ever played Dungeons & Dragons. I show him the boxed set sitting on my shelf. He shows me how to play and runs a short adventure for me. I'm hooked. David Beach and I set up elaborate Halloween theatrics at his house. This year, we set up a fantasy tavern in their carport, dressed as medieval fantasy heroes, and offer to guide trick-or-treaters down the many steps and across the "drawbridge" to the front door, battling monsters (our friends in rubber masks) all the way. I am bitten by the theater bug. My buddy Brent talks his mom into getting us into Conan. At 13, we're absolutely okay with the swordplay, gushing blood and plentiful boobs.
1982: Here comes Tron. I'm floored, not necessarily by the execution, but by the promise of digital effects. E.T. comes out. I see it several times, identifying not only with Elliott's discovery but with Michael's responsibility as the older brother and protector in a single-mom household. Poltergeist scares the crap out of me, and I go back to the theater several times as well. Since he's over 17, Randy acts as my guardian and takes me to see The Road Warrior. I'm smitten by the setting, the production design and the stunt work. And it doesn't hurt that Virginia Hey is also featured in Playboy about the same time (warning: link may contain breastesses). Having a big brother who has a subscription to Playboy and can supply the beer is a great setup. I think at this point my mother has given up trying to protect me from the horrors of rated R movies, as evidenced by her taking me to Blade Runner. I see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at least five times in the theater with my buddies. We also take in The Beastmaster, and revel in the gore and the boobs. I have a huge crush on Tanya Roberts. The Dark Crystal ignites a whole new part of my storytelling brain. I also manage to see Heavy Metal and Escape From New York on cable.
I begin reading Ray Bradbury. I devour his books, reading them repeatedly. I begin to study special effects techniques in film. Randy introduces me to Missing Persons and Berlin. I begin to listen to Frank Zappa and the Surf Punks.
Throughout 8th grade, I'm involved in a group playing RPGs at lunch. D&D is soon replaced by Traveller, Boot Hill, Gamma World and Top Secret. I also begin to write short fiction, inspired by the ever-increasing amount of science fiction and fantasy material available. And I continue to act onstage. I'm given the first Actor of the Year award at Aptos Jr. High School upon graduation.
During the summer of '82, David Beach and I enroll in an intensive theater workshop through San Jose State University. We stay at my grandparents' home in San Jose, and there we discover MTV. Of course at this time, it's pretty much Men At Work and Quarterflash in heavy rotation. But it does introduce me to Kate Bush and U2. Randy takes me to my first rock concert, Humans at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Some friends and I start a combat sport where we make "armor" out of cardboard and athletic padding and garbage can lids, and try to hit each other with Whiffle bats. An early form of LARPing? A subconscious extension of SCA combat? Both entities being unknown to us, we have fun with it for a summer.
In late 1982, Randy, David Beach and I publish Zingo Magazine, a comedy comic 'zine. Randy pays out of pocket for the print run and we sell individual copies to our friends and classmates upon its release in early 1983. I start developing my own fantasy roleplaying game, based on my short fiction.
My dad marries Katherine on New Year's Eve, '82. My mom marries her boyfriend Robert in June of '83.
1983: We move from the fourplex in Aptos to a rental house in Santa Cruz, on the golf course at Pasatiempo. Randy takes me to a midnight double feature of The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Hunger. In the latter film, I'm introduced to Bauhaus and lesbian sex (with Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve, no less). Later that year, I breach curfew staying out all night at a cast party for the school musical, get completely wasted and crash out at Randy's apartment. I am grounded for the last 8 weeks of school. I end up with pneumonia, which makes socializing a moot point anyway. But I am allowed a furlough for opening day of Return of the Jedi. Although not the story quality of the first two Star Wars movies, I am satisfied with this ending. I finally see Alien in my scifi lit class.
I read a lot of Stephen King, but quit after finishing Cujo - pissed that he killed the kid. I start listening to Euro techno bands like Kraftwerk and Yello, while drawing - and collecting - more comics. Frank Miller's run on Daredevil and the Claremont/Smith era of the Uncanny X-Men are tops on my list.
By 1983, I am pretty good at the Star Wars arcade game, and have the number 2 high score on the Tempest machine at the Chuck E. Cheese's in Capitola. Wire frame 3D for the win!
During the annual summer visit with my dad, I volunteer at the Palo Alto Children's Theatre, helping with some set building and other duties. I'm enlisted to help raise a big parachute as an awning over the outdoor theater, where they are staging Romeo & Juliet. A cute brunette girl holds the ladder I'm on. This will be important later...
1984: Randy and David and I see Berlin in concert. Talk Talk opens. Later that summer, Missing Persons. Seeing Terry Bozzio drum live in person inspires me and I write a novella set in a dark future with clones and corporate warfare and rock music. It might be influenced a bit by Streets of Fire, and it would probably be called "cyberpunk" if the term existed yet in our lexicon. But William Gibson's Neuromancer wouldn't be published until July, and wouldn't reach me until college. I also begin writing a supernatural thriller with characters based on my theater friends at Aptos High School. Ghostbusters is released. I buy in.
I form my first garage band with David Beach, Ed Havens and Randy Rhodes (not my mentor Randy). Flying Pigs, named after Pink Floyd imagery from Animals. We crank out a few songs and plan a horror movie tie-in with the band. That core lineup will fragment into many other garage lo-fi projects, many with a porcine motif.
Late that summer, there is a change of custody. Gavin, Sara and I go to live with dad and Katherine in Palo Alto. I look forward to the change of scenery and the opportunity to make new friends (read: new girls). I enroll in Palo Alto High School as an incoming junior. In theater class, I meet a cute brunette, who I later discover was the same cute brunette who had been holding my ladder at the Children's Theatre. Things start off tentatively, but by November we're a couple.

1976-1979

2011-02-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

Because the house we were building on the side of a dark and muddy hill in Aptos is not yet finished by the time school starts, we live in a trailer at the KOA in Watsonville. My brother Gavin comes along in October of '76, and I am a latch-key kid for the first time in my life. I come home from the last stop on the bus route, let myself into the trailer, make a snack and watch Dark Shadows reruns before tackling any homework. I start to fall more deeply in love with comic books, as they are often my only source of escape. May of 1977 comes and goes, and I am only peripherally aware that a major cultural event has occurred. We move to another campground, this one in Felton, and between swimming lessons and Slurpees and more superhero action figures, an infatuation with the Teen Titans comic series blossoms (ironically during their most haphazard and rudderless period).
My third grade teacher, Mr. Miles, reads The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe aloud to his class. I'm hooked instantly, and read the Narnia series of books over the next couple years.
It is during the summer of 1977 that I discover Star Wars, mostly through my cousins, who had begun to collect all things Star Wars, primarily the comics (as that summer there is little in the way of toys ready for sale). Of course, like any nine year old boy, I fall in love with the mythology and the world, sight literally unseen, and began the campaign to get my parents to take me to the movie. Because of the whole trying-to-build-a-house-while-living-in-a-trailer-and-working thing my parents were doing, it isn't until September or October of 1977 that my folks finally take me to see it. Fortunately, this is a time when a blockbuster like Star Wars (and you notice I use the title that was used on the marquees, not the subtitle, A New Hope, which was retroactively tagged onto everything) could stay in theaters for an entire year on a first run. Needless to say, it is a paradigm shift in my sci-fi consciousness, and sets a high bar for everything to come. From then on, the Star Wars mythology would join Star Trek and the Marvel & DC superhero canon as the basic building blocks of my geekdom.
We move into our not-yet-complete house in Aptos just before Christmas, '77. By this time, I'm already writing and drawing my own comic series about the crew of the futuristic submarine Blue Shark, with myself as captain and my friends rounding out the crew. By 1978, I'm addicted to Mad and Cracked, and draw my own movie parody comics as well. I hang out with my bestest pal Josh Geller, devouring Battlestar Galactica, The Incredible Hulk and Buck Rogers. Erin Gray makes me feel funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class. I also start to notice one or more Charlie's Angels, and develop an animated crush on the female sidekick in Plastic Man. Don't judge me. Y'all think Daphne's hot too. The first Micronauts begin to infiltrate my collection of toys.
Sometime in this period, I catch THX-1138 on TV at my cousin's house. The computer control room set looks like every office my dad worked in.
Josh and I have sleepovers in a pup tent on my back deck, running a power cord for the little black and white TV. We stay up late watching Saturday Night Live, amused by the antics of hosts like Steve Martin, Eric Idle and Carrie Fisher.
I continue my love affair with classic fantasy adventure movies, like the Sinbad films, Jason and the Argonauts, pretty much anything Ray Harryhausen did effects for. Many of these classics are shown in the Rio Del Mar Elementary School cafeteria in an after school entertainment program for fifty cents (including popcorn).
1978: I meet Adam and David Beach through school and church. This will become important later. Also, Josh gets an Atari 2600. We play lots of Space Invaders and Missile Command, and spend an obscene amount of time listening to Steve Martin comedy records. My parents take us to a drive-in movie and I manage to completely ignore what's on our screen in favor of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I watch without sound. That summer, I believe a man can fly.
1979: Alien is released. It's rated R. My parents won't let me see it. My friend David Cordero has the alien action figure (what was Kenner thinking, marketing a toy based on a rated R movie?). I am jealous of it. Star Trek: The Motion Picture arrives - I am there. I am not entirely thrilled. Also, my parents take me out of public school and send me to St. Francis boys' school in Watsonville (currently a co-ed high school, back then a boys-only middle school). I am Catholic for a month, an altar boy even. Unable to handle the extreme dogma and punitive atmosphere, I get my parents to put me back at Rio Del Mar, where I'm suddenly "the new kid" again, even though I'd been going there since third grade.
Quark, Man From Atlantis and Project UFO are on my regular viewing schedule. The crew of my comic book retrofit the Blue Shark to make it space worthy. You can see where this is going...

1973-1976

2011-02-02T13:44:00.000-08:00

1973 is a big year: my sister Sara is born, and we move from suburban San Jose to another part of suburban San Jose. It's a quiet cul-de-sac including other families with kids my age, a block away from my first school. From '73 to '76, a real geek awakening occurs. On my 5th birthday, my grandfather gives me a crisp $5 bill, with which I purchase my first G.I. Joe and extra outfit (and have a few cents change left) from the local Toys 'R' Us. Super Friends, Underdog and Speed Racer make their presence known. And both the original Star Trek series and the animated Star Trek series are in my standard rotation, while Syd & Marty Krofft productions like Wonderbug, Land of the Lost, Lidsville and H.R. Puffinstuff are standard viewing on Saturdays.
I continue my obsession with all things aquatic, influenced by hours of Sea Hunt and Flipper reruns and The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and the fact that I was swimming like a fish by age two (and would continue to take lessons throughout my childhood). Invariably, the first outfit purchased for a G.I. Joe type toy would be the SCUBA set, and he'd start having adventures in the bath that very day.
I pick up a fascination with classic horror films due to the presence of Bob Wilkins on Bay Area television, and to my dad's Saturday afternoon viewing preference (when we're not out sailing on Lake Vasona). I also develop a liking for Toho giant rubber monster movies, especially Gamera.
Interesting juxtaposition - Perhaps due to my dad's experience with military service, or to the bad taste in everyone's mouth from the Vietnam conflict, we are not allowed any toy guns. No replicas made of plastic or wood, no cap guns, not even brightly colored squirt guns (we had other water weapons, but none of them were "gun" shaped). Yet I had a collection of little green army men, and G.I. Joe sure came with his own arsenal of plastic weaponry. In hindsight, I can understand not wanting your kid to simulate first-person gunplay, but I was definitely doing my share of third-person shooting with my action figures. Perhaps there's a reason that to this day, I prefer third-person action/RPG videogames as opposed to first-person shooters.
I often visit my dad at work. He's a computer programmer and data analyst in what will eventually become Silicon Valley. I marvel at the big, spinning wheels of magnetic tape on refrigerator-sized computers. I play an unofficial "Star Trek" game (with ASCII characters) on the terminal in his office. He brings home stacks of used punch cards that I draw on or make into cutout characters.
The neighbor kids and I play superheroes by cutting out masks from construction paper and pinning bath towels and pillow cases around our necks. Comic books aside from Disney characters and Archie begin to find their way into our home. I am Superman for Halloween two years running, made possible by a costume lovingly crafted by my very craftarific mother. The camp '60s Batman series is in syndication and is featured every afternoon on KTVU channel 2 as the main feature after a smorgasbord of Jay Ward cartoons hosted by Captain Satellite and puppets Charley and Humphrey.
Up to this point, Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden have symbolized female sexuality for me (usually in their evil twin brunette guises - go figure), but things are about to change as femininity shifts to become synonymous with strength. Yvonne Craig as Batgirl stirs something within my very prepubescent loins, but it is Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman who really gets things rolling. Of course, I am already a rabid Six Million Dollar Man fan, with my Steve Austin action figure (complete with roll-up latex condom skin), so incorporating Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers into my pre-adolescent fantasy stable is as easy as creating adventures for my legion of Mego action figures (including Marvel and DC superheroes, Mad Monsters, Super Knights, Robin Hood, Star Trek and Planet of the Apes characters). My first figure is Aquaman.
Sometime around '75, I play my first game of Pong on a friend's home system from Sears.
Bicentennial fever starts in 1975 and reaches a fever pitch July 4th, 1976, which we spend very quietly at my mom's parents' place out at Half Moon Bay. I add the Mego knock-off Heroes of the American Revolution action figures to my collection. It's rather comical to see George Washington and John Paul Jones do battle with The Hulk, but by golly I am absolutely riveted.
The summer of '76 is spent (when we weren't swimming or playing outside) camped out in front of my dad's parents' console television, watching reruns of 1960s programs like Lost in Space, Banana Splits (and every Hanna-Barbera animated series ever made), and The Monkees. We would pick up stakes and build a home in Aptos, California in August 1976, upending my friendships and social life, such as it was. To cope with the move, I take my imaginary worlds with me. Space: 1999 also makes its appearance on my radar, but I don't really get into it for a couple years.

The Early Years

2011-02-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

1968-1970: Born in (West) Germany in 1968, my father a Staff Sergeant in the US Army. '68 is arguably the height of the Vietnam conflict. Anti-American sentiment abroad is common. My parents pack me around Europe in a baby carrier and return home to the San Francisco Bay Area of California after my dad musters out in 1969. We move from San Carlos into a house in San Jose (I'm told that may folks paid $22,500.00). My little brother, Matt, is born in August 1970. I wish I could remember Europe, but my conscious memory really begins here.
1970-1972: Matt overdoses on iron supplements in April 1972 and dies at age 19 months, just shy of my 4th birthday. My family is devastated. Perhaps not so strangely, between the loss of Matt and molestation at the hands of my dad's mother, my memories of this time are hyper-aware. My television diet consists of Sesame Street, Mister Rogers Neighborhood, The Electric Company, Villa Allegre, Captain Kangaroo - normal kids' stuff of the era. Star Trek is in syndication and I often watch it with my dad, along with Monday Night Football and Saturday morning cartoons, the bulwark of which is Bugs Bunny (and all the classic Warner Brothers shorts). I also recall seeing my first anime: Adventures of Pinocchio, and Prince Planet, as well as Kimba the White Lion. Super Chicken and Spider-Man are also in my consciousness, and the cornerstone of my toy arsenal is Action Jackson.

As a side note, 1972 is apparently a big year for me in the art world. I am constantly drawing. On any surface. With anything that will spread ink, wax or graphite. Some of it (like a mini graphic novel about Snoopy saving a deep sea diver, which my dad copied and distributed around his office at work) is pretty mainstream, while some is incredibly bloody battlefield imagery of wounded and dying soldiers. I think we can safely say the news footage from Vietnam has an effect on the consciousness of this young artist.

My Life as a Sci-Fi Nerd

2011-01-31T13:38:00.000-08:00

Or, As You Geek It.

So I'm reading Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek, and his story about the Star Wars toy trade that led to his five-dollar candy and videogame spree jarred something loose in my consciousness. It seems that your general geekery is pretty well established in American culture now, almost ubiquitous. As Patton Oswalt recently wrote in Wired, "now all America is otaku". But it wasn't always like this, and I think my generation (which is also Wheaton's) has had a unique experience coming of age in a time of technological innovation and mass media influence in popular culture.

For this series of entries, I conceived to assemble a timeline of the influences that shaped my particular brand of nerdery. Or should I say, nerdaliciousness. As Amok says in The Specials, "Quit making up words." The following bullet points should help illustrate how geek culture infiltrates real life and impacts a person.

I've divided up the eras into separate posts so that it's easier to follow. But it's still lengthy. Better pour a nice warm beverage and have a seat.

Operatic Metropolis

2011-01-24T12:26:00.000-08:00

Raff came over yesterday to screen my brand new copy of The Complete Metropolis Blu-Ray. I had screened it shortly after its arrival a couple weeks ago, but it's a whole different experience when you're watching with someone else, conferring, riffing and looking at a piece of cinematic and cultural history with new eyes.

One thing that Raff said that really made sense is that watching most silent films is like watching opera. The acting is histrionic, the blocking a large-scale pantomime. Most modern audiences (aside from the history geeks, film geeks and film history geeks) simply don't have the skills required to watch and enjoy a vintage silent film. Culturally, our attention span has atrophied. After 80+ years of war, cultural revolution and political scandal, we've become jaded. The general populace finds it impossible to watch, say, Lon Chaney's Hunchback of Notre Dame without muttering a collective, "How quaint," or, "You mean I have to read these title cards?" or, "Bored now - is American Idol on?"

As a film student, I was forced to watch several silent classics. Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari were among them. We got some Mack Sennett and some Harold Lloyd, some Buster Keaton and some D.W. Griffith. I even did my final report on Charlie Chaplin. And although my vintage film aesthetics were honed in a scholastic setting, for whatever reason Fritz Lang's Metropolis wasn't part of the curriculum. I had to seek it out later - first in the form of a public domain chop-fest based on the American brutalization of the original, then in the form of Giorgio Moroder's glorified music video, and finally in its 2002 restored version. But I was not prepared for what is essentially Lang's original cut (minus 5 or so minutes we'll probably never find), with a brand new symphonic recording of Gottfried Huppertz's original score. It was like watching a whole different film, with characters and entire plot threads resurrected when they'd previously been excised.

So, while silent film appreciation is a dying critical discipline of a dead art form, The Complete Metropolis is nonetheless a compelling and gorgeous restoration of an influential science fiction masterpiece, full of social commentary and not-so-thinly disguised forecasts of the future.

Without Lang...

...there would be no Blade Runner.

Without Maria...

...no C-3PO.

Also, it's especially enjoyable with Kelpie.

Emerald City is a-Comin'

2011-01-23T23:45:00.000-08:00

Things have been crankin' here at the CerebraMill. Turns out we're much closer to our Ordinary Angels pitch than we presumed, and preparation continues on the Airship Daedalus property which launches officially the Sunday before Emerald City Comicon.

In brainstorming promotional ideas for Daedalus, Brian Beardsley and I were chatting about getting some cheap plastic secret decoder rings made, a la the classic pulp radio & television serials. But then I had the idea of taking the secret code element and merging it with a collectible postcard...

Character bio on the front:

Cipher wheel on the back:

Every Sunday we'll release a new strip, and include an encoded message for our faithful readers. It might be a clue to future story events, or it may be some hidden background elements. In any case, I can assure you it will never say, "BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE." Unless Ovaltine suddenly decides to sponsor the site, in which case all bets are off.

It's One Louder, Innit?

2011-01-05T08:27:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to This is Spinal Tap for all the great references to eleven we can make regarding the new year, including the title of wifey's current blog entry.

It's been a busy holiday season, hence the whopping TWO entries for December. Let me fill you in on what's been going on:

Opened and closed It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at Kenyon Hall, which I've talked about extensively here.
Finished and submitted our Airship Daedalus feature for the debut issue of Mash Tun, to be released at ECC this year.
Christmas was low-key and we did zero traveling, which led to a much nicer, calmer and less stressful holiday within the immediate family unit. I got some DVDs (including the out-of-print Dead Can Dance Toward the Within live concert, taken from the tour Sam & I got to see in the front row on our anniversary when they played the Moore Theatre in 1993) and some cool books and some very useful gift cards, with which I got this, and this, and this.
Hosted my family for a post-Christmas Christmas gathering on the 29th. I baked a ham, roasted potatoes and made my specialty salad (mixed baby greens, red grapes, dried cranberries, walnuts and feta cheese with a raspberry walnut vinaigrette dressing). My stepdad brought homemade orange cheesecake. You know you're jealous.
Got to have drinks with Muriel, who has the distinction of being the catalyst for Raechelle's and my meeting. Rae tells the story in her post, and of course the whole thing is laid out in our blogs.
Spent New Year's Eve at dinner with Steve, Steph and Isabella, followed by drinks and snacking and general merriment at Dan & Trish's with some other friends as well. The kids went to spend the night with Uncle Gavin & Aunt Michelle in Poulsbo, playing boardgames and having fun.
Seahawks second string QB Charlie Whitehurst (aka Clipboard Jesus), in combination with a fired-up defense and the loudest fanbase in the NFL, led our rather pitiful 7-9 team to a wildcard spot in the playoffs over the shellshocked St. Louis Rams. Although it's great that we got the division title, here's two things to consider: 1) winning that game reduced our 7th round draft pick for next year to 21st at best; 2) Even if the Hawks can overcome New Orleans this Saturday (which is actually a possibility, given home field advantage, the aforementioned loudest fans in the NFL and a seriously injured New Orleans roster), it's doubtful.that the first team to clinch a division title with a 7-9 record can compete against the eastern division teams with their 12-4 stats and their serious-football-playing. I hope the division title is worth it in the long run...
Got turned on to Pomplamoose, a duo from San Francisco. You've seen them on the Hyundai commercials. I've been seriously inspired to record again. Thanks a lot, you talented cuties.
Took the kids to see Tron: Legacy. Pros: decent follow-up to the early '80s classic, amazing visuals, good cast, amazing visuals, and amazing visuals. Cons: major plot holes, jarring CG in the flashback scenes trying to "youthify" Jeff Bridges, major plot holes, cheesy Neo/Matrix finale... and did I mention the plot holes?

So that's pretty much how I spent my holidays. If I have a resolution for 2011, it's to post a bit more often (and have interesting things to post about!).

Olde Time Radio Show

2010-12-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

Our production of It's a Wonderful Life opened last Friday, and the show has gone really well so far (despite the double indignity of whacking my skull on the control room door on my way to the stage on Sunday, followed immediately by my involuntary power slide from the second step onto the floor, knees first (of course). The Wurlitzer is like a whole character unto itself, and doing my best Hugh-Beaumont-meets-Walter-Cronkite-meets-Orson-Welles while wearing a tie and sweater vest is really putting me back in the period. My one complaint is that my jaw, which has not been naked in a good four years, is really cold right now. And the stubble is really annoying between shaves. Fortunately this weekend is the last three shows, and Friday morning should be the last razor-shave for some time.

Meanwhile, I'm editing the first world resource for Arrowflight, entitled Northern Empires; I'm outlining Ordinary Angels season 1 episode 4; and I'm coloring and lettering the Airship Daedalus comic strip. It's going to be a busy new year...

Opening Night

2010-12-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

For my Puget Sound peeps: come see It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at Kenyon Hall in West Seattle. It's a great story performed by local actors (portraying 1940s radio actors) in a real historic vaudeville hall, complete with a Mighty Wurlitzer.

I will be playing Joseph, the Superintendent of Angels, on stage with some old Twelfth Night compadres.

We run Friday, Saturday and Sunday (matinee) for the next two weeks. Make some time for this one - you'll thank me later.

2011: A Geek Odyssey

2010-11-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'm happy to announce that 2011 will see not only our pitch-ready materials for the Ordinary Angels television series, but I'll be joining artist Brian Beardsley to promote Airship Daedalus at Emerald City Comicon in March. Coinciding with ECC with be the a four-page teaser of Airship Daedalus in Brian Meredith's new pulp anthology comic magazine, Mash Tun.

And then there's stuff like this that makes me all kinds of happy:

As one of my Facebook buddies observed, "Indiana Jones and James Bond in one movie..." With Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Steven Spielberg producing. And Jon Favreau at the helm.

Yes, it will be an effects-laden sausage fest. But it will be an AWESOME effects-laden sausage fest.

That, plus the Thor and Captain America films (still not sure about Green Lantern) will make 2011 a good time to be a geek!

Loving the Challenge

2010-11-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

It's a great feeling to have two very different development projects on the grill and be kicking ass at both of them. Ordinary Angels is contemporary, collaborative, and incredibly deep, as witnessed by last night's production meeting, wherein Trish, Dan and I fleshed out the climactic two-part episode, weaving together subplots and characters from throughout the five-season arc. There is no doubt in my mind that the viewer will be satisfied.

Airship Daedalus, by contrast, is just deep enough to inspire me as the writer, while challenging me with the constraints not only of the pulp genre, but also with the sequential format of the comic book. I started producing my own comics in grade school, moving up to making indie 'zines and comix in the 1980s, and web comics in the late '90s and early '00s. So I'm no stranger to the format. It's just very different to be writing for comics again after writing in screenplay and stage play format (not to mention long form narrative fiction) for so long. Different and very satisfying.

Happy New Year

2010-11-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Celtic New Year/Samhain.
Also, Feliz Dia de los Muertos.
Also, this happened. Fun times.
Also, this happened. Nice to see, San Francisco. Well done.

More Pulp

2010-10-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last month when I went to check out my buddy Brian Meredith's new comic show, the aptly-named Jet City Comic Show, I chatted with another indie comics buddy, Brian Beardsley of Night Rail Press and Studio B Media. We've known each other for about ten years, and have often chatted about collaborating. This time, something clicked, eyes widened, plans were made.

The project is based on an old pulp property of mine from the late '80s. Of course it had its origins as an RPG, but being pulp, it's perfectly suited for the comic book, podcast (radio serial) and web series (film serial) media. Brian's character studies are already coming in, and I've written the opening 24-page salvo. Our goal is to deliver a classic two-fisted pulp adventure serial, complete with evil occultist proto-Nazis, zeppelins, ape men and rocket zombies.

Meanwhile, Ordinary Angels series development continues apace.

Stay tuned...

So, Kickboxing is Out...

2010-10-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

We attended our first kickboxing class tonight, and within the first 15 minutes of aerobic warm-up (during side-kicks, which makes me chuckle, because I think of Bruce Campbell as Coach Boomer in Sky High), my left knee popped out of joint. Suddenly I remembered why I don't do impact aerobics, mostly because my knees have looked like this since the 8th grade.

As I wrapped my right foot around my left calf and extended both legs, popping the left knee back in place (a handy little maneuver that always produced a very audible pop and makes Raechelle shudder in horror), I was taken back to a scary time just before Sam died, when I was confronted with the fact that I was way over my ideal weight, and not doing anything to remedy it. Fortunately I'm already in the active mindset - I just need to be... differently active. Low impact aerobics: walking swimming, recumbent bike. The stuff I was doing back in '05 and '06 and '07 that allowed me to slim down and not pop my friggin' knee out at the slightest provocation.

So, kickboxing is out. Wii boxing is in.

Sigh.

Back to it, young man.

Angels and Geekery

2010-10-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the Ordinary Angels series production bible, and I'm learning more about angelic lore than I ever thought I would. More than I knew existed. There's some cool stuff in the various apocryphal books of contemporary biblical-era lore. For instance, bet a lot of my readers didn't know that King Solomon was given a mystical ring that gave him the power to bind and control fallen angels, and he used them as slave labor to build his great temple. That's some straight-up D&D action right there.

That's right. The Temple of Solomon, built by demon slave labor.

Who knew??

Speaking of D&D, this ran across my Facebook filter today. I find it funny because I'm a gamer who loves football, but finds fantasy football somehow geekier than RPGs.

Talk About a Throne Room

2010-10-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Downing sent me this from work today. It's an actual modern toilet, just made to look like a Renaissance era privy. Talk about some serious period decor for your castle...

I joked that at the price tag of twelve grand, it should not only wipe and polish in back, it should be sure to give you a happy ending in front. Too much to ask? I think not.

And just why is my wife sending me photographs of vintage-looking expensive crappers? It may have to do with the plan to build up next year, adding on a master suite. And the girl needs to plan way in advance. Reason #467.2 why I love her.

UPDATE: This premise was apparently potent enough with the missus for her to do her own blog post on it. Well, not "on" it...

Back in the Saddle (or the Ink Well)

2010-09-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

It's been a crazy year, but I'm finally starting to get my groove back. It's probably not surprising that it's taken this long to recalibrate life, new house, new marriage, new projects, distractions of summer, etc. And there's something about autumn that brings me back to a creatively balanced place - distinct from the vibe of any other season. For me, autumn is perfectly encapsulated in David Sylvian's "September" from his 1987 album Secrets of the Beehive, which remains one of my all-time favorite albums in all of forever time. Sorry for the overstatement. I've been watching too many Larry Blamire films recently with my ocular face holes.

Speaking of Larry, I just picked up his two most recent films: The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and Dark and Stormy Night. Lost Skeleton is the sequel to the original The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and takes us to the darkest unexplored reaches of the Amazon with the same core characters (or their twins) as well as a host of new ones. Of the two, Dark and Stormy Night is by far my favorite. The production value is quite high, and rivals Young Frankenstein as a genre parody, this time of the "spooky old house" mysteries of the 1930s.

The situation with Tyler has improved immensely, and that has led to a direct decrease in marital stress between Raechelle and myself. It's been a couple very tense years and a lot of work, but we have a much better, more productive, more intuitive direction. It's good.

We're in the last quarter of development work for the Ordinary Angels television series. Our deadline is January 1st to have the full pitch and all related materials done. I've been delving into a lot of research, and really finding some cool stuff to use. Between OA and new Deep7 material, I'm getting a lot done. It feels good.

A Life Remembered

2010-09-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

We awoke early on Saturday morning, dressed in our Sunday best, filled up the gas tank and the tires and headed north to Bellingham. The immediate family gathered at St. James Presbyterian Church to remember and celebrate the life of my grandfather, Jack Tyler Brown. My mom's cousin Judy and her daughter Kat (with whom I'd grown up) had flown out for the event, Kat coming all the way from Florida.

It was more formal than my dad's memorial had been, or Samantha's for that matter. But totally appropriate for Jack. I was holding it together pretty well until the bagpiper played "Scotland the Brave" as the processional - which had been used as the recessional at Sam's & my wedding. So that was a kick in the gut. There were hymns and scripture readings, and a duet of congregation members who play ancient instruments played "Amazing Grace" on a concertina and hurdy gurdy - which unplugged the dam and let loose the waterworks.

Opa holding me in Germany, 1968

There was a time of sharing remembrances, where folks in attendance stood up and talked about my grandfather and what a good guy he was. And then it fell to us. My brother went to the lectern and spoke of "moments", a very loving and evocative tribute. Then I followed with the piece at the bottom of this post. My stepdad Robert finished up with the tale of his whirlwind courtship of my mother almost 30 years ago, and how he was welcomed by my grandfather into the family.

Opa and me being goofy, circa 1981

Laughter punctuated the mistiness here and there, but when the veteran color guard marched down the center aisle and performed the flag ceremony, all eyes gushed. The flag was slowly and methodically unfolded and held at a slightly upward-facing angle while "Taps" played and we barely remained upright. Then they re-folded Old Glory and the naval officer presented it to my grandmother, who had not expected the ceremony at all.

Opa holding his grandson Tyler in Seattle, 1994

The congregation gathered in the reception hall and partook of the buffet while my photo montage cycled on my laptop. The family then retired to my grandmother's house and shared stories and photos and wine. Rae and I made a vow to travel north more often and spend some time with my grandmother, as there is much family history I feel I need to absorb. It seems like no matter how many times you hear the old stories, there's always something new to discover.

Omi & Opa at my wedding to Raechelle, 2009

Anyway, this was my tribute:

Jack Tyler Brown was the kind of guy who made an impact on people. Whether through his naval service, his teaching career, his church community or his family. I have no doubt everyone here could tell a story about how my grandfather impacted their lives. I could speak about how he connected with others, how he never met a stranger, how he thrived in a marriage of almost seven decades, how he served his country, how he was an icon to his students, how he always had a hug and a smile for a visitor. But I’m going to be selfish for a moment and take this opportunity to tell you about how Jack Brown impacted *my* life.

It was due to my being born on an Army base in Germany that Jack was known as “Opa” to his grandchildren. When Jack and Dorothy came across the Atlantic to see their first grandchild, they were given the German names for their station.

“Opa” did with me all the things a grandfather should do with a grandson: He taught me how to fish, and how to clean what we caught. He taught me how to make homemade ice cream, and how to grow scarlet runner beans and tomatoes. We built things together. We explored the beach or the dunes or a mountain trail, and afterward collapsed in a recliner and snoozed in front of the ballgame (something I know my siblings experienced as well). We were silly. We were incredibly silly.

Staying with Omi & Opa during the summers of my youth, whether at their cabin in the Sierras, or their home in Florence, Oregon, are some of my fondest memories. Weekend mornings, the smell of coffee and newsprint, sharing the bed and the Sunday comics section with two laughing grandparents and one of three consecutive dogs.

And while all of these wonderful moments do add up, what was even more powerful is the message he gave to me. I was smart. I was able. I was capable of achieving anything I set my mind to. And it didn’t matter what that was – as long as I lived worthy of life.

That is how Jack Tyler Brown impacted my life. I will treasure his memory, just as I will miss his hugs and his laughter, and his amazing pistachio bunt cake.

A Loss.

2010-09-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

My grandfather died this morning. I'm still processing. You can expect a memorial post when I can string together more than one coherent thought at a time.

Peace.

Augtober

2010-08-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

We survived our almost 100-degree heatwave this month with a combination of two new ceiling fans (which made it possible to sleep in the hotbox known as our bedroom) and various cool beverages that may or may not have had fermented and/or distilled spirits within. We hosted a long-overdue housewarming/summer bash, wherein I made skewers and Rae forgot to pace her intake of aforementioned spirits. It will be awhile before we host another, but man was it fun. Lots of friends and neighbors in attendance.

The other news this month was threefold:

Firstly, my 93-year-old grandfather took a fall and fractured his hip. He underwent a partial hip replacement and looked like he might fully recover, but he developed an infection and his blood-pressure, which is normally low, dropped and he's not a candidate for more surgery to treat the infection. So he's now in hospice care. The family, as always, has circled wagons, and are surrounding my grandparents with support and love. The grandparents just celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary this year.

Secondly, Tyler has made some pretty fundamental changes via professional medical and psychological help, including a revision to the diagnosis given by the UW Autism Clinic earlier this year. Without going into too much detail, we now have a much more solid diagnosis and a much clearer direction for future progress. We're all cautiously optimistic.

Lastly, my brother Matt would have turned 40 on Saturday. Talk about your gut-punch. Wow.

On the up-side, we finally released Arrowflight Second Edition. It's been eight years since the first edition was released, but our fans understand I've kinda had some stuff going on...

So now we're in the last week of Summer break, and the kids go back to school as the weather turns gray and cold again. I can't say the rain isn't welcome. Our yard looks like a hayfield. And with that, I will leave you with Upside Down Stretch Cat.

Post Haste

2010-08-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

In an effort to get something up before August is completely over, take a gander at this:

The guy who put it together has made "premakes", or retro-style trailers, for a bunch of well-known sci-fi and genre films, including The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Ghostbusters. With all the recent hype surrounding the upcoming Avengers movie, I thought it apropos to start the discussion with something a bit more off the beaten track. So there you go.

I will get an honest-to-gawd post up soon... no, really.

Student Films

2010-07-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are some of my college film projects. Please keep in mind that they were made 20+ years ago, on real, actual FILM. Time and environment have contributed to a certain level of degradation (but that happens to us all eventually).

First up, Like Cockatoos. Inspired by the song by The Cure, this was my second-year animation final at Mission College. The first year, my short film The Big Surprise earned an A+ as it was the only film in the class to use synced audio. For the second year, I expanded my scope and drew hundreds of 11x14" "cels" in the incredibly messy medium of charcoal. Shot on 16mm, the project ran late, so I was forced to turn in a backup project for my final. Said backup project used some of the footage from Like Cockatoos, but was a weaker piece in general, despite earning an A-.

Next, Ding Dong's Day Off. When fellow filmmaker David Beach and I enrolled in the Film/TV program at DeAnza College, we found old Aptos High School friend Mark Cordell Holmes in our class. Mark and his creative partner Rob Wison and I teamed up on a couple shorts. This is the first. Mark directed the film segment (on good old Super-8 film, transferred to pro VHS for editing) of me as the victim, freaking out when confronted by Ding Dong the homicidal clown (played by Rob). What are you gonna do with that pie, Ding Dong? Mark, Rob and I all appear in the video PSA segment (Mark is the Robert Stack-esque spokesclown, as well as the guy under the car). This is by far Raechelle's most favorite thing I've ever done. /sarcasm

Last but not least, Rob's Dream. I decided on the title after we'd turned in the project with a slightly different name. Okay, a very different name. Leather Biker Chicks in Bondage. We wanted to get the attention of the class. Shot on Super-8 in black & white for the dream sequences and color for the waking sequences, the three of us co-wrote, co-directed and co-performed in it. We shot all over the San Jose foothills and Palo Alto, including my alma mater, Palo Alto High School, and the once-famous graffiti-covered back alley of the New Varsity Theatre, which is now a Borders Books. In the running shot starting at about 4:06, Rob actually sat on the hood of Mark's car as I shot hanging out of the passenger side window. Now THAT'S guerrilla filmmaking!

While in the edit bay working on Rob's Dream, I was approached by David Beach to put together some video footage to portray the television making love to its human admirer in his short film Tube. Using nothing but soap operas, game shows and commercials, I think I managed to come up with a pretty sexual sequence of images.

In other news, while searching through the archives of mostly fire-damaged materials to put on YouTube, I ran across the raw footage of Samantha's San Francisco State film final, Kings. I think it's all there, pending the actual tape being intact. Sigh. There's a long-term project if I've ever seen one.

Enjoy.

Happy Birthday to Mucha

2010-07-24T23:00:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post a quick message to observe the 150th birthday of the man who is certainly my favorite Art Nouveau painter and possibly one of my favorite artists in any movement. Alphonse Mucha. Wikipedia has a pretty thorough biography, so I won't go into historical detail. What I will say is that Mucha was arguably at the center of a movement which successfully combined commercial art and fine art for the first time in history. Some art historians criticize the movement as a "youth" trend or for "lowering" fine art to mere advertising design. I prefer to think the Nouveau movement elevated advertising design to the realm of fine art (and don't think fine art lost anything in the bargain).

Like Mike Myers, I tend to think art is art, either good or bad. But to draw an artificial line between "high art" and "low art" is both disingenuous and counterproductive.

Here's to you, Mr. Mucha. Your art continues to inspire many, and will always hang on my wall in some capacity.

Mmmm. Sacrilicious!

2010-07-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Warning: While I absolutely respect the individual right to worship as he or she sees fit, I also believe equally in the necessity to balance faith with a certain amount of levity. If you are someone who takes his or her religion extremely seriously and can't appreciate some poking of fun, you'd probably better skip this post.

This morning started with a breakfast across the street at our neighbors' house: orange-pineapple mimosas, blueberry pancakes, fresh fruit, cream, and a quichey thing with an Italian name that I forget. It was fan-friggin'-tastic. The sun was out and it was a gorgeous day (and still is, as I write this) - perfect for wandering half a block to set up our camp chairs and watch the West Seattle Hi-Yu Parade. And among all the usual suspects (police motorcycle formation teams, marching bands, drill teams, floats, clowns and pirates) were a handful of the local churches. In our neighborhood, the Catholics and Lutherans are predominant, evidenced by a bajillion churches and parochial schools within a 10-block radius.

This in itself is not unusual, nor do I have any problem with a person's personal display of faith (so long as it's not infringing another person's rights). I was raised Presbyterian, follow a Judeo-Christian moral code, have many Christian friends, and am a pretty open guy when it comes to that stuff. But it creeped me the heck out when the Lutheran church started handing out lollipops. Not just any lollipops. These were large confections in the shape of various-colored crosses... on a stick.

Really??

Here's where the history geek meets the marketing guy in me and they have a brainstorm. First of all, early Christians, is the logo you want - your brand, if you will - really the device used to execute your dude? What happened to the fish? When the Romans converted, were they just that much more literal? What if Jesus had been beheaded? Would His followers wear little guillotines? What if He was drawn & quartered? Shot? Garroted? Burned at the stake? Under different circumstances, modern Christians might well be adorning their churches with a dunking chair or wearing miniature stretching racks as signs of their faith. Point being, the Roman crucifix was an instrument of terror, torture and slow execution. Using it as a holy symbol has always seemed more than a little morbid to me. Not exactly the kind of symbol you want to use to attract people. The fish is a good one, and I've seen some churches use the butterfly as a symbol of the Resurrection. Those not only make sense, but are far more attractive to the layperson.

But that's just one (unaffiliated) person's opinion, and those of you who like the whole crucifix deal, knock yourselves out. I am just giving my readers some background so that they can understand how bizarre I found passing out crosses made of candy to promote a religion. Using the guillotine again, for example: "Look, kids! They'd put someone's head through this hole and drop a heavy blade down the middle, severing it from the body! And it's made of candy!"

Of course, the jokes started flying immediately. Rae said her salvation tasted kind of like Pledge. Amy found it challenging to reach hers through the tight plastic packaging. I told her she really had to work at attaining her salvation, but when she did I assured her it would be delicious. Someone said Jesus tasted funny. There was no way I was gonna stick a Roman execution device in my mouth, no matter how delicious, so I took mine home to share with my readers. Tyler was brave and volunteered to try his salvation-on-a-stick (and he finished it), but complained that salvation left a strange aftertaste.

I guess this kind of falls within the realm of "odd marketing tools". No matter what, it made the day much more festive.

* * *

Work continues apace. Editing the On And On BTS reel, and finishing layout for Arrowflight 2nd Edition. Rae is taking me out for a dinner date tonight. It's been awhile since we've done that. And it's a gorgeous day to do it. Heck, it's a gorgeous day to be alive.

And that's my mode of worship. ;-)

Back Into the Swing

2010-07-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

And we're not talking about a big band jazz movement or an apparatus of childish amusement. As Raechelle posted, we recently spent a week in West Virginia with her folks. Although the actual travel was awful (my daughter apparently thought the sight of me crammed into a tiny Midwestern Airlines seat was both "pitiful" and "comical", but I assure you my back, neck and shoulders were not laughing one little bit), the visit was great. I love my in-laws and I loved a week full of having zero requirements after the past month of kicking ass and taking names on the On And On video.

Just the same, I missed my boy and I missed my cats, and I missed not having to strain to breathe normally (temps in WV were in the 90s with high humidity). The trip back was a bit easier on the back, whether from taller seat-backs or slightly more legroom.

But from the moment we touched down in Seattle to the time of this writing, I kind of feel there's something amiss. I can't put my finger on it, but I've had a "grrr" in my head since we arrived, and I'm working on pinpointing it. It could be merely the shock of going from stressful to stress-free and back to stressful. Dunno.

Things on the professional front are good, and even more promising now. The video got over 5,000 hits in 5 days, and has been getting near universally good response. Dan and Trish and I have partnered with a fourth collaborator on the Ordinary Angels series, to help hone our pitch and get our collective foot in the door.

I've also been capturing old college (and earlier) films to digital for archival purposes. I might share some links here and on Facebook. And of course there is the yard to tame. Raechelle and I got to mowing this week, and today I replaced the trimmer line, edged the entire yard (front and back) and pruned a tree in the back which has been scraping the side of the house (and sounds downright creepy whenever there's a breeze).

So although my head is still not back to normal, life is... at least somewhat. And I'll adapt and persevere, as always...

Howdy, Stranger.

2010-07-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

While I'm not back from vacation in the hot & humid hills of West By God Virginia, the music video for Kirby Krackle's single "On And On" just went live on the interwebs yesterday and I wanted to share it. This is the project we were breaking our asses to get done before this last weekend so we could have a vacation with a clear conscience. For those of you who aren't Wolverine or X-Men fans, the song is about the character Logan (aka Wolverine), who is one of the most overworked comic book characters ever. It deals with the exhaustion and monotony of being a nearly immortal character whose sole existence is either preparing for or recovering from a fight.

It was shot over four days (two weekends) using two Canon DSLRs (a T2i and a 7D) and an awesome cast and crew of professionals working on tiny stipends and coffee. I'm really proud of my cast and crew, even prouder of my producing partner Dan Heinrich, and extremely grateful to Kirby Krackle for the opportunity to do this project. I'd been joking with JD Green for ten years that I wanted to do a Wolverine fan film once he was age-appropriate (because as much as we all love Hugh Jackman, he's sure not an authentic physical representation of the character, whereas JD exudes Logan-ness from his every pore).

Anyway, we finally did it, and it's a piece we're proud of. Feel free to re-post and forward to your comic book geek friends.

I'll be back in a few days with more regular posts. For now, I'm enjoying the slow pace of a hillbilly vacation. Where's my banjo??

All Apologies

2010-06-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a few weeks without news, but it's for a good reason, I swear. I've been nose-down in this music video project for this band, and although I can't go into detail at the moment, I will soon be able to tell all.

Your patience is appreciated.

Missing Dad

2010-05-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

Five years ago today, I was a widowed dad in his mid-30s, trying to raise a couple kids while half in shock and half bracing for my dad's own cancer crisis. Five years ago today, we adopted our dog Wiley. That very afternoon, I called my dad in the hospital to let him know we had a new family member of the four-legged variety. He didn't have his speech capabilities back after the third emergency brain surgery and could only cry into the phone, happy in the knowledge that we were protected and loved.

Five years ago today, mere hours after my phone call to him, I got the call from the hospital that he had suffered a pulmonary embolism and that the crash team was working on him. Five years ago today, I lost my dad. It was the second barrel in the shotgun of loss, barely one month after losing Samantha.

Although I'm well down the road life has set before me, I still remember that time. Whereas many of my memories are clear and vivid, everything from that time is tinged with fog, like an old photograph. As if it were not quite real. Makes sense, really. Who would want it to be?

Love you, Pop. Always.

Adorable.

2010-05-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

This showed up in my Facebook newsfeed this morning. Friggin' great Iron Man fan parody. Enjoy.

Dang.

2010-05-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

My, how time flies when you're in preproduction and fighting a cold. Simultaneously. Yes, it's been quite the circus at the Circle-D Ranch over the past couple weeks. It occurs that the last time I posted was just prior to Tyler's 16th birthday - which was, to be diplomatic, a less-than-stellar event. While I won't go into specifics (for the sake of Tyler's privacy), it would be naive to pretend that his issues have no impact upon the family; they do, in a big way. I remember what being 16 felt like, and much of our patience derives from that. But there are much deeper, organic issues at work, which make for a very tense, difficult family life. And we'd be remiss as parents if we just shrugged, chalked it up to mere adolescence, and let him self-destruct. So we've taken a much stronger position and begun vastly more comprehensive therapeutic measures.

So that's the homefront. Oh yeah, and I got Kayleigh's cold from a couple weeks ago. That was fun.

Now, onto the work stuff, wherein I am tasked with directing the music video for "On And On" by Seattle nerd-rock band Kirby Krackle. I have a complete behind-the-scenes post forming in my head, but right now it's a bit premature. What I can say about the project is that it's a fan film for a beloved comic book character, as well as a promotional video for the band. And we start shooting in a week. It'll be great working with some of my favorite film folks, as well as some new contacts.

I also picked up Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection, which has everything I could possibly need for my dual vocation of publisher & filmmaker. Finishing that last portion of Arrowflight Second Edition and storyboarding "On And On".

It's very exciting.

RIP Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)

2010-05-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

The art world lost one of its treasures yesterday. Frank Frazetta was one of my idols, not just in his professional career of more than half a century, not just because of his revolutionary painting style and realistic treatment of human anatomy, but also because the man pioneered illustrators' rights in the world of commercial art. It is because of the latter that many of my working artist friends retain the copyright to their work after delivery. Used to be 100% work-for-hire. The pulp magazines would pay artists a pittance and end up owning the original art. Frank was among the first to employ the concept of publication rights and various licenses. Nowadays, work-for-hire contracts are the exception.

In the above paragraph, I noted his realistic treatment of human anatomy. Famed for painting lush fantasy landscapes populated by scantily-clad barbarian warriors, princesses and slave girls, Frank put meat on his subjects. Unlike the subjects of artists to follow, like Boris Vallejo (who used bodybuilder models), Frank's characters weren't slick and full of unnecessary detail. They might be muscular and huge, but it wasn't overstated. His men were just as naked (if not more so) as his women. His women had curves. They had boobs, and tummies and dimpled asses. I think it was probably my exposure to that ethic of "normal-as-beautiful" at such a young age that somewhat influenced the physical traits I found attractive in a partner.

He was also the master of capturing an incredible amount of energy in one moment and putting it on canvas. Look at any one of his hundreds of pieces, no matter if it's an action shot or a character in repose; the people in his paintings are simply exuding an energy of their own. They're alive, in that one moment captured.

There is simply too much to write about Frank, his influence upon generations of artists, illustrators, filmmakers and photographers. About his influence upon popular culture in general. About his influence upon the business side of commercial and fantasy art. But his legacy is clear, and will be felt for generations to come. I'm proud to have lived in his time.

Fair winds, Frank.

Iron Man 2 Rocked My Ass Off

2010-05-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

It is always a welcome surprise when a director who got started on quirky romantic comedies (like Swingers, Made and Elf) is able to take an enormous cast of Hollywood A talent, stupid money and make a summer blockbuster action flick based on a comic book -- and a sequel at that -- and pump it full of pathos, humor and action without letting it go off the rails.

Once again, Jon Favreau, you are the man.

I won't go into any spoilers, but I must mention that the cast is amazing, from Robert Downey Jr.'s "second act" portrayal of playboy Tony Stark to Mickey Rourke's sinister Russian bad-ass, Whiplash. From Sam Rockwell's sleazy military industrialist, Justin Hammer, to Don Cheadle's idealistic Colonel Rhodes, to Samuel L. Jackson's acerbic Nick Fury, to Scarlett Johansson's sleek and bringin' it Black Widow.

Let the gals have their sparkly vampires and shirtless werewolf bad boys. When Scarlett dons her Black Widow costume and goes all Emma-Peel-meets-Jason-Statham on the bad guys, it's enough to make any boy lose his geek shit.

As I've said, no complaints about the acting and script, and the story actually works well, both on its own and as part of a much greater whole. A whole which includes the upcoming Captain America, Thor and Avengers franchises. In fact, stay for the post-credits teaser. You can thank me later. It does get big and loud and intense, but it stays true to vision and never strays off into wackiness.

I guess it just tickles me when a guy who has a gift for character and story gets put at the helm of a big-budget comic book adaptation and pulls it off. It tickles me even more that he does it with the sequel. Bryan Singer has come close. Sam Raimi has come close. And as hampered by 1970s photochemical effects as he was, Richard Doner came close. But nobody has pulled off a comic book movie franchise with the level of character chemistry and good storytelling in the midst of spectacle quite as well as Favreau. That, to me, is impressive, especially in an age where Hollywood is not as concerned with character chemistry and story as it is with the explosions and the toy marketing and let's have Superman fight a giant spider in the third act.

Nice going, Jon.

Sexism is Alive and Well and Living in America

2010-05-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

And it's not in the form you might think.

As a male who came of age in California in the '70s and '80s and who had strong females in my life, I never questioned the issue of gender equality. I had been raised in an ERA-conscious environment, with women demanding things like equal pay and equal social treatment, and I completely agreed with them. Then I turned 18, and had to obey the federal Selective Service law, from which my female friends were exempt. That was really my first experience with our American double-standard, and it just got more prevalent once the scope of my perspective was widened. By then, the genie was out of the bottle, and would not be put back.

The statistics are out there for all to see, but I'm not so interested in the percentage of SIDS and infant mortality cases, the percentage of workplace deaths and war dead of which males bear the majority as I am in the attitudes about males I still see in society at large.

This is not about Justin Timberlake getting repeatedly bashed in the crotch in a television commercial, although everyone loves a good crotch shot, right? And it's not about the fact that it's acceptable to portray a female striking a male in a sitcom and people laugh, but to show the reverse would have sponsors under siege. It's about this casual attitude that somehow males are inferior, that we need some kind of training just to become civilized.

Although that's a pretty extreme blanket statement, two things happened recently that made me really examine this issue. Case in point:

1. The media conglomerate that publishes Parenting and Babytalk magazines recently published an advisory on cleaning your newborn (April 2010), which included downright dangerous advice about retracting an intact boy's foreskin to cleanse underneath, quoting a doctor who is a member of the AAP and should know her own professional organization's instructions on the matter (even if they are incorrect as well). Anyone who knows me will know that genital integrity for BOTH genders is a subject about which I am both educated and passionate. I followed the story as the outcry from parents of intact children became a deafening roar, and parenting.com posted a "clarification" which only confused the matter, going back to the original source of the erroneous information. I visited the link to the posting and found on the same page one of those cute little polls that people can take to feel like they're weighing in on something. The poll was (I kid you not): WHO IS THE BEST-TRAINED MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY? And the options were: My Child / My Husband / My Pet.

Wow. I'm sure it was meant as tongue-in-cheek, but I found it pretty insulting to be equated with a pet or a child in terms of "training". Think of how a woman might feel if the poll on a men's magazine website said: WHO IS THE BEST-TRAINED MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY? My Child / My Wife / My Pet.**

At that point it really dawned on me how prevalent this concept is among women I know that men have need of "training", that they are not good enough just by virtue of being themselves, but that they must be changed to fit an external standard. In checking the editorial staff of Parenting and Babytalk, I found all women. It was a surreal moment, and I imagined the set of Mad Men, but with the genders reversed.

2. As I was standing in line at Safeway buying the food for our Saturday Rock Band birthday gathering, I noticed one of the blurbs on the cover of Woman's Day magazine. This declared itself to be "The Man Issue" and promised to teach women how to "get him to do dishes, stay healthy & much more". Let me repeat for effect: Get him to do dishes. Really? Like it might not be a job he does anyway? Or might it simply be a case of asking for help? I showed Raechelle the magazine with a perplexed smile. She winced at the blurb. The female checker said, "I need to get that issue. Mine needs to be trained better." Yep, she said "mine". Her what? Her man? Needs to be trained better? There was a speech boiling up in me but I held it together well. Raechelle offered a defense for boys whose mothers had done everything for them when they were young, and had been programmed that things like washing dishes were "women's work". I still couldn't believe this woman was chuckling and joking about training her man. I just stood there with a quizzical look, saying, "really?"

She finally caught on that I was somewhat perturbed by the magazine cover indicating that men in general were not capable of washing dishes without female intervention, and waved us off. "Awww, get out of my line," she only semi-joked. A man displaying her attitude would easily be labeled a pig.

I know this is a rant, and I know that rants can often come off as wildly strident. I'm not trying to be. What I do hope is that some of the women who are guilty of this mode of thought will realize that most men are good, and that by and large my generation and those following had nothing to do with the gender power structure of ages past. Many of us have been good fathers, single parents, sole breadwinners, and have done remarkably well after being dealt a shitty hand. I am totally in support of gender equity, but that means exactly what it says. I support a woman earning equal salary to that of her male counterpart for the same job done, but I also support a female Selective Service requirement. Equal pay, equal work, equal risk. It mans there cannot be a double-standard, and true equality cannot exist when sexist thinking is still very much ingrained in our culture, on either side. For instance, I would not buy a magazine which had this blurb on the cover: "The Woman Issue - get her to take out the garbage, stay healthy and much more."** It implies she's deficient and in need of training, as well as being incompetent to take care of her own health. And that's a pretty negative statement to make about 51% of the population.

**I've found that simply reversing the gender language of any advertising, television programming or federal law will instantly reveal the presence of a double-standard where it exists.

I'm So Excited

2010-04-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

And I just can't hide it.

My new workstation arrived today. A week earlier than expected. It was supposed to arrive on my birthday, but this is even better. Now I can get back to doing my own video post-work.

Yay!

Sir Pukes-a-Lot

2010-04-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

I don't often share spousal email correspondence in my blog, but I felt this one was worthy of a chuckle. Fellow readers with bulimic cats, I feel your pain...

From: Todd  

 Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 12:56 PM
To: Raechelle 
Subject: Sir Pukes-a-Lot  

Okay, so this is odd.  Tom has been sleeping under our covers all morning.  Just a few minutes ago, he came out to graze on the few pieces of food left in the bowls.  There was virtually nothing in them.  Within minutes, he’s retching up a clump-o-spewage in the dining room.  Like, a full-on dinner portion.  Seriously, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM??

I think this cat has an extra bile duct.

And that’s not the end of it.  Elvis came over and ate a good quarter of it before I saw what he was doing and shooed him away.  And Tom sniffed at it, then scratched at the carpet as if to cover up his mess. And now he’s sitting in the kitchen by the food bowls, staring at me.  Our cats are insane.

xo

hubby

Of course, that kind of thing is pretty commonplace around our house. What was a bit more of a surprise (and I truly don't know why it would be, in retrospect) was when I came into the bedroom to see Elvis had discovered my open camera case. I mused on Facebook whether my new catcorder had a decent zoom.

Rated xx

2010-04-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Those readers who used to follow Rhymes With Drowning know it was primarily my own therapy focusing on widowhood, cancer survival and single-fatherhood (dads represent, yo!). And they also know that things had taken a corner (big time) when I switched to the aptly-named Life 2.0 (and the Blogspot URL I chose for it). About once a week, I find myself fretting over the fact that I don't post as often as I used to. But then I remind myself that things are comparatively great right now, and I don't currently have a lot of deeply personal soul-sharing to be put out into the Intarwebs. Aside from the occasional family news or professional ramblings from the film and/or publishing arenas, I don't have a lot to report during any given week.

However, there is a whole lot of cool and a whole lot of crazy out there that I can share with my readers. This blog is nothing if not eclectic.

To wit: a Facebook friend just turned me on to a band from England called The xx. I'm always up for new music which is artistic and well-composed, and in my heart I will always be a West Coast alternative kid. The xx pulls every single one of my musical triggers.

Alternative, check.
Male and female shared vocals, check.
Minimalist yet melodic compositions, check.
Distinctive bass work, check.

The xx remind me of the best bits of The Velvet Underground, Scanners and early New Order. The music is hook-y without sacrificing artistic merit for the sake of a hit single. It helps that they have good videos too. Check this out:

I absolutely love the pacing of the edit as it repeats with subtle variations every 8 bars. And the payoff at the end is brilliant.

The xx is just one of a slew of recent bands taking a cue from 1980s alternative, which makes me very, very happy.

Busy as Bees Doing Sweatshop Labor

2010-04-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

A strange metaphor, perhaps, but it seriously seems like someone found the Busy Dial and cranked us up to eleven. What Busy Dial, you ask? I'll tell you.

Firstly, our tenant moved out of the cottage, allowing us to empty both of our storage units and begin Project Studio. Figurative fires were lit under our figurative asses by the imminent arrival of summer vacation for the kids, which means that if I didn't have an actual office to go to work in, I would more than likely get zero work done while the kids were home all day. And more imminently was the visit by my old high school buddy (and co-founder of our experimental college music project, Mozart Air Raid) Gordon and his wife Heather. The great thing about the studio is that it can do double duty as guest quarters, as it has a very comfy (custom-made) pull-out sofa, and is self-contained with a kitchen and bathroom. It ain't big, but it's private and comfy.

The reason for Gordon & Heather's visit to Seattle (from Portland) was a surprise weekend getaway for Heather's birthday (turns out she was born a day after Raechelle, same year even), spurred by the appearance of Florence + The Machine at the Showbox...

[insert all sorts of wacky antics - or "wactics" having to do with digging out last-minute tax records for the accountant]

[also insert Raechelle's birthday, in which she turned 35 and I assured her she was still gorgeous, because I'm good like that]

Now, about F+TM. Raechelle has already put her thoughts to pixels, and it pretty much coincides with my experience. The Showbox was the wrong venue for a theatrical show like Florence, mostly because the stage is in front of an open dance floor, so when there's a large crowd (like for Florence, for example), nobody under 6-feet tall can see anything. In the future, Florence would do well to seek alternate venues like the Moore and Paramount theaters.

Just before the opening act for Florence took the stage, I checked my voicemail to find a message from the accountant. Turns out Raechelle's first-time home buyer status last year + my second-time buyer status + Raechelle's new car + filing married = sweet!

We had a swell weekend, mixing casual hanging out with Gordon & Heather with being productive, including the Barmoire project and some general household organization and tidying. We also had a fun Guitar Night: Special Birthday Edition. Kayleigh brought her friend Lydia, and many strings were strummed. Kayleigh has outgrown her small blue guitar, so she is now borrowing the Ovation acoustic Samantha gave me for my 22nd birthday.

Finishing off the weekend, Raechelle and I went to see The Miss Firecracker Contest, Twelfth Night's Spring production, at Youngstown. It was directed by my stage manager on Deathtrap, and was really well done.

So now we're back to the work week, and I'm juggling several flaming batons at once:

Writing the proposal for an anti-spam PSA with Dan
Putting the finishing touches on the Game Master section of Arrowflight
Making tweaks to the cover of the RADZ hardcover edition
Working on the OA series pitch materials with Dan
Storyboarding a music video for Kirby Krackle, which I am directing
Getting Tyler re-registered for school
Getting bids from contractors about the Studio (electrical, foundations, etc)
Awaiting the arrival of my new workstation
Awaiting the arrival of the high-gain wi-fi adapter for said workstation
Trying to get the new website up and running

That's the Busy Dial on 11.

Aaaaand scene...

Too Cool

2010-04-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

I have to say, despite what the Wedon-haters say, this makes me very excited.

Nerdgasm Alert

2010-04-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

I don't care if you're a film geek, a sci-fi geek, or just a fan of history. This is very, very cool.

Apparently, in 2008, a film curator in Buenos Aires discovered a negative of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Not one of the edited-for-general-release dupe negs, but what looks to be the most complete version of Lang's dystopian masterpiece since its 1927 Berlin premiere. This version of a film I dearly love looks to be the definitive one, and I'm drooling in anticipation of its theatrical release this year. Metropolis remains one of the most influential films in all of science fiction, whose presence can be felt in every frame of Blade Runner, Star Wars and The Matrix (among others). I'm so glad we can benefit from the discovery of this previously lost footage.

The Ballad of G.I. Joe

2010-03-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

This Funny-or-Die video was circulating on Facebook this morning. It is full of win on many levels, whether you're a fan of the 1980s-era animated G.I. Joe, or just love playing spot-the-celebrity. And, yes, that's Alan Tudyk as Shipwreck.

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Slow-Mo Dogs

2010-03-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Great use of ultra slow-mo in advertising.

Ass Whuppin' = 1, TD = 0

2010-03-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Specifically, work and family have been whuppin' it.

Last weekend was Emerald City Comicon (or ECC for us geeks in the know), and it was packed. On Saturday, you couldn't move, the floors were so crowded with attendees. I heard rumors of close to 30,000, which is a lot for a venue of this size. Leonard Nimoy was charging $65 a pop for an autograph, and Stan Lee was at the $40 mark (which is the going rate for a lot of celebs these days). I heard from one of the convention workers that between the autographs and photo ops, Stan did about nine grand for less than an hour's work. Not too freakin' shabby.

We went for a couple hours on Saturday to get the lay of the land and place our rally markers: the Kirby Krackle booth and the island at the center of Artists Alley where JD, Brian & Steve were set up. With the time change on Sunday and less foot traffic overall, it was a bit easier to get around. I shot the Kirby Krackle set, which included a guest appearance by Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. The man plays a mean axe and can actually sing - who knew?? I'm just sorry I missed Wil Wheaton singing "Don't Fear the Reaper" in Rock Band.

Since Raechelle already posted a recap several days ago, I'll spare you the play-by-play. It was an excellent convention and every year I am proud of my friends for putting it on. I ended up re-establishing some stale contacts and making new ones, and am happy to have walked away with a music video gig for Kirby Krackle (but that's all I will say at this point).

This week has been a nose-to-the-grindstone experience combined with one day down with a bad back - probably from standing on concrete all weekend. By the time I was done with my Arrowflight Second Edition layout for the day (or got any kind of break during), I was too drained to want to write anything. Missed a badly needed massage appointment too. I apologize, dear readers, and will redouble my efforts.

This weekend is a family one; next week we shoot the last of the Duo shorts. Tomorrow we are going to Alice in Wonderland, and I intend to get some wedding thank you cards finished and some last-minute tax stuff done (we have the majority of it in to the accountant, and just need to dig out a few records).

Oscar Post-Mortem

2010-03-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

And I don't mean the green Muppet on a slab at the morgue.

As with most Academy Awards shows, I watch out of a morbid sense of curiosity at the politics and shenanigans surrounding the crop of films each year, wondering if the films I thought warranted accolades would be the ones the Academy chose. Last night, I was actually not disappointed.

As much as I loved The Hurt Locker, as much as I love Kathryn Bigelow's work, I didn't give her or her best film to date a snowball's chance in hell, going up against her ex-husband's sci-fi epic Avatar (which is currently the 20th highest-grossing film of all time and climbing, adjusted for inflation) and the more socially-relevant Precious (which I would have pegged as more of an Academy-endearing project). I'd been saying for weeks that I thought Bigelow was more worthy of the Best Director award for The Hurt Locker than James Cameron was for Avatar, and that The Hurt Locker was more suited to winning the Best Picture Oscar. But I held little hope that that would be the case.

Imagine my surprise when she won. And her film won. It's kind of vindicating when you've liked an artist for many years and they are suddenly honored. Good for you, Ms. Bigelow. And good for the rest of us wwho have watched and enjoyed your work for the past couple decades. And congratulations for being the first woman to win in the Directing category. About friggin' time.

The format of the show itself was more about the jokes and less about the spectacle, which is fine by me. The one exception was the break-dancing-to-film-scores-number (take note, producers - that was unnecessary and completely silly). And notably absent from the memorial reel was Farrah Fawcett. Whaddupwiddat?

But those quibbles aside, I'm pretty happy with the way the awards turned out, and happy my dark horse took the big two. Now everyone go add The Hurt Locker to your Netflix queue. You can thank me later.

Summer Movie Season

2010-03-02T16:16:00.000-08:00

It's starting early this year (thank you, Tim Burton). Here is a small sampling of the films I'm excited about:

Once again, it looks to be a good year to be a film geek... and a geek in general.

Surfing Waves

2010-02-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

Not literally, which is unfortunate. Even growing up in Santa Cruz, California, I never quite got the knack of it. Oh believe me, I tried. I boogieboarded, bodysurfed and even skimboarded a bit. On land, I made a valiant attempt over the course of about five or six years at skateboarding (even built my own), but to no avail. I think my center of gravity is too high or something. Never felt like I could balance properly. It's just as well, anyway. After a couple concussions in high school, my equilibrium is pretty much limping along. Call me Captain Gaping Head Wound.

In any case, the title refers to the "mild bipolar" diagnosis I was given by a therapist about ten years ago. Whatever you might think about words like "therapist" and "diagnosis", one thing is for sure: it gave me a name to put on the cycles I'd woven into my creative process. The therapist even recommended against medication, saying that my cycles were not wildly out of the functional norms of the manic or depressive zones, and I'd already learned how to "ride the waves" to my advantage. Tempering those waves would be a detriment to my creative vocation. And we all know the majority of the best artists throughout history have been at least a little tweaked in the brainpan.

I can usually tell when a low cycle is coming on, because of the introspection and lower energy. I'm not quite as outwardly bright or social. I'm quiet and monosyllabic, and tend to have a corresponding period of lower self image. And that's when I go into my head and do some of my most creative work. I revel in the focus these low cycles bring, and can be much more prolific than when I'm in an up cycle. Looking back, I can see that the year we moved to Seattle was spent in a low cycle like no other (or lots of them strung together), and it yielded three novels, four short stories and a screenplay. Not bad. On up cycles, I tend to be productive in more external ways: bill-paying, home projects, organizing, etc. Maybe I'm just an overachiever, but I'll take it.

Although genetic and hormonal, it can be modified by outside influences, like the season, music, ambient chaos, and the emotional composition of my partner. And with a lot of real life activity in the past year, the low cycles have been short-lived and few. But now I find myself being extremely productive in the midst of some real personal and family-related challenges. Go figure.

I guess I should be thankful I'm as functional as I am. And I should, as they say, "make hay while the sun shines". Or maybe something more like "make art while Bauhaus broods on your playlist because you're not a farmer and have no reason to make hay in an urban environment."

Speaking of urban non-farmers making art, we've locked in a date for the final Duo short. I will get to work with some of my favorite people again. Dan, Dan, Jessie, Eric, Devielle, Landon, and someone I've been looking forward to working with for awhile now: Wonder.

After years of just doing it, it's an amazingly empowering experience to actually see the patterns and appreciate them for the life skills they are. These are my waves. I've been surfing here all my life.

Oh, the Wackiness

2010-02-17T21:17:00.000-08:00

Well well well, where does the time go?

It's been a week of challenges here at the Circle-D Ranch. Challenges of the familial, personal, professional and emotional variety. I got the results of my blood work, and aside from the bad cholesterol being just over the recommended limit (and which I'm lowering even now with my high-fiber/low-animal-fats diet) everything is in the green. So that's nice.

The weekend was relatively leisurely, considering what we usually have going on. A birthday party for Trish, movies, walks, a live show by ThorNton Creek (followed by hilarity and vinyl LPs at Kim & Tim's), a trip to the ballet for The Mrs., and some non-work-related online time for me. We capped off the long weekend with a screening of the classic '80s fantasy cheesefest The Beastmaster (featuring a shaved and oiled Marc Singer and a notably topless Tanya Roberts in a role that had a huge impact on my adolescence). We muttered MST3K commentary at the screen. I think The Mrs. enjoyed it. I would say it's pretty much impossible to hate a movie that uses the word "phantasmagorical" in the trailer.

After several weeks of Tyler issues being on an upswing, we had a meltdown last night, which meant nobody got any sleep. While trying to keep a semblance of calm, I received a text from Ron in the hospital. Surprise appendectomy. And I've been dealing with a sinus infection/head cold on top of everything else. So there's that.

Then today, Steve H. had to reschedule our Arrowflight art meeting for the third time this week due to car trouble.

Undaunted (or at least not particularly full of daunt), I set my sails and cruised the Sea of Productivity, giving a final once-over to the Arrowflight manuscript before sending it off to editor Mark Bruno in Chicago. I also continued on the preliminary layout. Playtesting should commence next week.

At this moment, The Mrs. and I are on our respective laptops, blogging in bed. I'm sure that says something about us, but I'm not sure I want to know what.

43

2010-02-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

I awoke this morning at 3:30 on the nose. I was in the midst of a very uncomfortable and visceral dream wherein I could not interact, only observe, as a very "amplified" version of my son's birth played out. All the mistakes, all the interventions I now know were unnecessary, the related periods of fetal distress, all the regret and guilt (and the repeated thought: Thank God we didn't cut him on top of everything else...). The dream ended abruptly with a gush of blood as Sam hemorrhaged and my brain kicked into consciousness mode.

I think much of it had to do with Tyler's official report from the UW Autism Center, which tells a pretty clear story of his issues and probable roots. That has weighed significantly on the collective mind of the family recently. I also think some of it has to do with the fact that Samantha would have turned 43 today.

Kayleigh plans to bake a cake, and we'll probably sing Happy Birthday, laugh, cry and remember. As it should be.

Don't get me wrong - I am incredibly happy and pretty darned satisfied with the turns my life has taken since those significant losses. The children Sam gave birth to and nurtured through their early years are both amazing people in their own right. I'm married to a wonderful, understanding woman, who realizes you don't just ignore two decades of history. Each year it gets a little easier. But there's no avoiding it. A very special person in my life had her own cut short. Avoiding talking about how sad that is doesn't make it any less sad. So we observe, and grieve, and thank our lucky stars we have each other for as long as any of us have on this planet.

Happy Birthday, Samantha.

My Novel, Let Me Show You It

2010-02-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

A pillow conversation with The Mrs. a couple nights ago got me to dig up my first two novels, Senses and Visions, intended to be two-thirds of a modern horror trilogy, dating back to 1991-1992. Totally unrelated to that conversation, my friend Hans mentioned the stories during a Champions Online session. Thinking there must be something to it, I went hunting for the novels yesterday, found them, and in skimming them made the following observations:

The first book (Senses) is uncomfortably bad. The prose is pedestrian and the plotting awkward. I was 23 and hadn't found a writing "voice" yet.
What passed for "modern" technology in the early 1990s is hopelessly mundane or irrelevant now. I find that both fascinating and amusing.
On the up-side, the characters and dialog are compelling. It reads like a screenplay. There could be something here to salvage. I don't like throwing away a good idea.
The second book (Visions) is exponentially better. A voice has been found, descriptions and prose are more dynamic, and the characters and dialog are now worthy of being read by a more general audience. It flows well. The action sequences are Steakley-esque, probably because I was reading Vampire$ on a monthly basis and absorbing John's flair for stream-of-consciousness-right-smack-in-the-middle-of-the-fucking-action style by literary osmosis.
Unfortunately, the story is only readable after the events of the first novel occur.
The second book ends on a cliffhanger and there is no third installment. With a file drawer full of agent and publisher rejection letters, I think I felt I was spinning my wheels on the horror/action thing and moved over to urban sci-fi, which led to my third novel, an epic cyberpunk stew called Shihodo, being optioned by Time Warner Books.
The great characters and team/mission based action really lend themselves to a game or TV series type of product. It was briefly on our slate of RPG products back in the early days of Deep7, and it also survives as a videogame design doc (probably from the days when every disgruntled employee of Boss Game Studios was plotting a side project and/or splinter company).
Might be worth an overhaul, to make a single novel. Or just skip that and go directly to screenplay. See where it goes.
After I've got Arrowflight Second Edition out.

P-Town and the Quasi-Mellow Weekend

2010-02-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

ROAD TRIP!
One of the things The Mrs. brings to our relationship is a collection of pretty cool people, mostly musicians, from her past. Add my own cool musician-type people and you've got a great weekend in Portland. Actually, it was only an overnight, technically speaking. But what we managed to cram into 24 hours!

I'm still exhausted.

We left early Friday afternoon, which made it possible to make the jaunt in exactly three hours. The Mrs. surprised me by directing us, not to the Ramada by the airport, but to the Hotel deLuxe, where she'd scored a pretty awesome queen-plus-valet-parking-plus-restaurant-credit deal. We were upgraded to a king room too. Good thing too, because although the rooms are nicely appointed, they're teeny.

We cleaned up, changed and headed over to my friend Chris D.'s house for dinner. Chris used to play keyboards for a Bay Area band called The Rise many years ago, at one point sharing the Epithet recording label with a fledgling dreampop project called And Tears Fell. Chris and I have been in and out of communication for the last couple decades, but recently got caught up again and it was great to finally meet his wife, Laura, and kids (and introduce them to my new bride). After some Italian takeout and some more catching up, we headed off to a great dive bar called Cactus Jack's. SweetJuice started playing at 9PM and didn't stop until the proverbial doors had been blown off the joint. We finally got out of there at a quarter of 1AM, but not before they'd invited a former bandmate up to play guitar, another friend to play sax, and The Mrs. herself to sing on one of their songs. Adam had actually asked us both to come up and play one of our songs at the break, but by the time the second set started, I was exhausted. It did give us impetus to get a few songs ready for public consumption, however.

It was a late night, and we were up by 0830 hours. Breakfast with my Mozart Air Raid bandmate, Gordon, and his wife, Heather. We followed that with a brief stop at Gordon's house before heading back home.

We were so sapped by the time we got home that we just changed into sweats and bummed around for the rest of the day.

Sunday came, and with it some guy time online with Ron & Hans, while The Mrs. went for a walk with Stephanie. I got my walk in when it came time to grab some milk and eggs so that I could make red beans & rice with cornbread for dinner (one of our new faves) while The Mrs. went to get her hair cut. We chilled out to some more Buffy episodes and were happy to flop into bed at 10PM.

So here we are, looking at another week, but with a semi-restful, semi-active and totally awesome weekend behind us.

You Bring the Bullets...

2010-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

...I'll bring the wine.
- Bob Schneider

Dan and Trish are the proud parents of Rosalind Lorraine, who joined us on Wednesday morning shortly after 5:AM. Mom and daughter are doing well, and dad is over the moon. All are understandably exhausted.
Speaking of new babies, Raechelle got her baby fix when we went to have dinner at Nicole and Dan's on Sunday night. Austin is a pretty well-adjusted cutie, and although it's been awhile since mine were that tiny, somehow kids can sense a "daddy" vibe, and I got some big goofy smiles.
Rae and I discovered that I don't snore nearly as much when I wear earplugs at night. I guess that makes a certain amount of sense, if the ears are part of the sinus system. I also slept a lot more soundly last night than I have in several days. 2:30, 3:30, 4:00 and 5:30AM have all been recent wake up times.
Rae and I have managed to get some work done on Green Light. This makes me happy.
Gavin and I have been trading the Arrowflight Second Edition manuscript back and forth all week, and it gets ever closer to being able to hand off to Mark Bruno for editing. Anxious to get this one out the door.
We're heading to Portland this weekend to see SweetJuice play. It'll be nice to have a mini-road trip and an overnight away. Thank heavens for family close by and kids' friends.
One of the Facebook memes of late has been the Doppelganger meme, wherein one posts a profile picture of a celebrity or someone one has been told one looks like. When I was a teenager, I was a ringer for David Bowie. To wit:

But now, a bit redder and a few pounds heavier, not to mention more bearded, it was back to the drawing board. According to facial recognition apps on the web, I'm close to Keifer Sutherland, Jason Statham, and Alan Tudyk. And while Alan Tudyk is clearly a genetic cousin of the Downings (and I've pre-cast him to play me in Green Light), it's still not quite right. So Rae made a couple suggestions:

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Max Martini (from TV's The Unit)
I went with Max. Although if Vince Vaughn had red hair and blue eyes, we're almost an identical match on body type.
Got some paid graphic design work done. Always nice to have a supplement.
We got everybody in the family doing some kind of therapy, except Kayleigh, who moved on after a year and a half of work. It's good stuff. Really helping the process along.
I'm down 6 of the 20 pounds I need to lose. Let's hear it for walking and a dearth of holiday sweets.
I had a little microgasm when I heard Florence + The Machine are touring the States. They are playing but FIVE dates in the whole country, and the West Coast consists of Coachella, Vancouver BC, and Seattle. I've gushed about this band before, but allow me another dribble: if anyone deserves to inherit the Kate Bush mantle in both songwriting and performance, it is Florence.

Compare (Kate) : (Florence)

I can't be the only one who sees the similarity in artistic style.

Geekiest Cupcakes Ever

2010-01-20T07:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Wil Wheaton for sharing the linky love. A~~n evil genius~~ woman named Robin Dahlberg made 100 cupcakes, each with a different game (board, video or otherwise) represented on top. Her recipe appears to be mixing 1 cup awesome with 3 cups win and a tablespoon of epic. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. Allow cooling time before consuming.

Enjoy.

The Power of Insomnia

2010-01-20T04:38:00.000-08:00

For the past little bit, we've had Mercury AND Mars in retrograde, which I guess astrologically means that people not only can't communicate effectively, but they're mad as heck about it. Seemed like the moment that was done (last Friday night), something lifted and we had our energy back.

This is not always a good thing.

Case in point: "having energy" for me is a double-edged sword, because it means that, although I will be productive, I will also get f*ck-all in terms of sleep. Note the timestamp on this post. So when Saturday arrived and I was up at 5AM, I was on a trajectory of crashing early. Imagine my, um, surprise when Rae emerged smiling from the bedroom at 8AM and in the cheeriest of tones proceeded to list all the things she wanted to accomplish that day.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my wife? She is groggy and cranky in the morning, and you are downright perky." I scratched my head, but went along for the ride. See Mrs. Downing's post for all the stuff we did. To hear her tell it, I may as well not have been there (and certainly wasn't present a great deal of the shopping trip - too busy wondering when the twister was going to finally deposit me in Oz). I felt like a rodeo bull rider at times, but I held on for dear life and didn't get stomped or gored. So I guess I win.

Rewinding a bit, on Thursday night we'd met Steve & Stephanie for dinner at West 5, as per our Christmas coupon from them. Some good food, cocktails and plenty of laughs. Then off to a couple venues on the West Seattle Art Walk, ending at ArtsWest. It was a good night out.

Friday was all about doing laundry and experiencing the aftermath of Raechelle's fillings. She'd left work early for the dentist appointment, and by the time she got home, she was miserable. Which made Saturday that much more of a freak occurrence. But we ended up doing the pizza-movie night thing anyway, and Tyler had Miles over. We've covered Saturday. She was an extremely clean hurricane. I helped out when asked, but otherwise tended to my own stuff and generally tried to stay out of her way. Sunday was Kayleigh's turn to have a friend overnight. Monday was the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, yesterday I had my second session with the therapist, and now you're all caught up.

Oh yes. Energy. Yesterday was a banner day for productivity. I got three complete sections imported, edited and formatted for Arrowflight, and as if that weren't enough, I was able to muster enough gumption to work on the Green Light script a bit with Mrs. Downing. We managed to get her arc through the second act, and I finally forced myself to sleep at about 11:30.

And awoke - alert and ready - at 4AM. I will have to try to be productive early today, because I know a crash is coming later. Maybe this is the Universe smacking me down and telling me not to be such an overachiever. But I don't know any other way to be.

Which is probably what the therapy is for.

I'm Fine, Thanks.

2010-01-11T17:34:00.000-08:00

I had my first over-40 physical today. It wasn't as bad as the photo above.

I had a nice brisk walk there, and there was no wait, shockingly. The PA who took my blood pressure said it was borderline high, to which I replied, "I hope so. I just walked six blocks and up three flights of stairs - I'd worry if it wasn't on the high side."

Funny how you build certain things up in your head, but it turns out to be pretty minor. Take the prostate exam, for example. After dreading the ol' digit-up-the-rectum party (having experienced it at the [ahem] hands of a crusty--and creepy--old urologist when I was twenty), it turns out my doctor doesn't worry about a prostate cancer test unless something funny shows up in the blood panel, for which I will return later this week. And even then, it's another blood test, not the greasy finger.

Well color me pleasantly surprised.

Until he said he wanted to freeze and/or burn some skin tags off. Which meant some liquid nitrogen in the junkular area, and three shots of lidocaine and an electrocautery zapper in my armpit. Thank goodness I didn't have time to build THAT up in my head, huh?

So the bottom line is, aside from dropping the twenty pounds I knew I'd need to lose, and pending the walk-in blood panel which will tell us cholesterol and thyroid levels, I'm in good shape for a 41 year old dude who's had his ass kicked by life a few times, and whose armpits feel like they've been worked over by a couple Russian sailors.

Tomorrow I start with my own personal therapist. After managing a family dynamic and the grief counseling of two kids, I'm going to work on my emotional engine for a bit. Call it a New Year's resolution. Call it an emotional tune-up. Call it whatever you'd like. The long and short of it is that I believe in being the best father and husband I can be, and that means keeping everything in working order. And the last thing I need is figurative rats in my proverbial engine compartment.

On a totally different topic, this site rocks.

Badasses.

2010-01-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

Two blogs I've taken to recently are Badass of the Week, which features everyone from Stephen Colbert to The Kraken, and Woman: Uncensored, which is a very frank and outspoken blog about attachment parenting. But, just as the blog author Rachele says, I feel like "attachment parenting" is just instinctive and common sense, and many of the so-called modern methods of childrearing are "detachment parenting". Her posts on CIO (Cry It Out) and infant circumcision are particularly thought-provoking and use very effective perspective shifts to shake up old modes of thinking.

So while one blog amuses my inner 16 year-old, the other fuels the passion of my outer parent. Each is badass in its own way. Enjoy.

An Enormous Agenda

2010-01-07T16:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, I said it. I have an enormous agenda. It woke me up early this morning, and it's kept me busy all day (as well as generating a large number of Facebook comments).

After pulling out of the holiday wreckage, I was finally able to get a meeting with my production peeps about three projects currently filling the queue: 1) The Duo Issue #0 shorts, 2) the Ordinary Angels series pitch, and 3) a bid on a PSA gig for a non-profit.

Results of said meeting:

1) Jessie has offered to have a cut of Chapter One ready to screen with his latest film next month. We also strategized about how best to finish the last chapter, with Trish's impending labor (which will take Dan largely out of commission for actual face time on set). The feature pitch is also being put in front of a local producer whose background is in corporate marketing. We'll see what she has to say.

2) Still working on the basic plots for the first season episodes, and honing the pitch. We've given ourselves a six-month deadline, then we're shopping that bitch.

3) Can't really talk too much about this, except to say that we don't have the gig yet, and we do have some strong concepts for it.

In other agenda-related news, I sent Gavin the manuscript for Arrowflight 2nd Edition (or AF2e) after tinkering with it for a week, altering the archaic DEEP system remnants to fall in line with XPG system procedures. Steve Hartley has been working on new interior art, and the cover is coming right along. After Gavin adds some material, I will take it back for more tinkering and formatting into playtest document form.

Hurray for a new year, an enormous agenda, and the will to work it!

Same Hell, Different Day

2010-01-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

No, that's not me being down or pessimistic. That's a statement about hearing lots of people over the New Year weekend mention how awful 2009 was. In general, yeah. It was a high stress year. A lot happened in the world and closer to home. In our family, there were challenges in the child-rearing, house-selling, house-buying arenas, coupled with various health issues and scares. Couples splintered apart. One close friend was diagnosed with (and apparently beat) lung cancer. My grandmother was in and out of the hospital. It was kinda rough.

But here's some perspective:

The planet is still rotating, and revolving around the sun.
Climate change hasn't killed us off yet.
I got married (W00t!)

Honestly, there will always be dark clouds and silver linings to any year. If I look at my own 2005-2009, I can see rough years of Biblical proportion: death of wife, death of father, flood, fire, locusts... Actually, there weren't locusts. But we joked about it, because at the time if I didn't laugh, I would have curled into the fetal position and sobbed my ass off. Come to think of it, I did that anyway. Just not in public. But in the midst of that maelstrom of awfulness there were deep friendships formed, the discovery of strength I didn't know I had, and an outpouring of love and support from my community. I released an award-winning short film and made lots of valuable contacts in the film arena. I also released a tribute CD for Samantha, which directly put Raechelle in my path. Now THAT eats my mind every time I think about it.

The point being, it's fine and dandy to say, "2009 sucked - 2010 will be better!" Heck, it may be true for you. But there are always ups and downs to any 365-day period, and an arbitrary date on a calendar isn't going to make that any different. 2010, for me, holds the promise of progress on the film front, of creative collaboration with my wife, and of finally releasing the long-delayed second edition of Deep7's first premium fantasy RPG, Arrowflight. All good things.

And while all of this is happening, an old friend of mine is dying of cancer. Shura is one of my oldest friends in the area, as Sam & I lived with her and her then-boyfriend Garth when we first moved to Seattle in 1991. I recently got reconnected with Garth, who got me reconnected with Shura just in time to find out not only had she battled breast cancer for years, but that it had metastasized to her bones and liver. And she's now quite literally on her deathbed. Seeing pictures of her taken within the last 48 hours was a huge flashback for me, and I beat my tiny fists against the massive chest of cancer once more, railing impotently from the mountaintop of Facebook. Time may mute the immediate pain, but watching a loved one die far too young from cancer never becomes more okay. Godspeed, Shura. Much love.

On top of that, Raechelle's mom had a heart attack over last weekend, and was hospitalized with stents in her arteries. I know she doesn't like it when people make a fuss, but we were preparing for some very hard news. Thank goodness that doesn't appear to be the case!

So my New Year kicks off with the impending death of an old friend and a health scare for my mother-in-law, and yet -- what a great gift to be reminded of life's finite nature, to be given renewed impetus to fulfill my own potential and not waste a single moment.

To that end, the woman and I are getting back in shape, and I've made appointments with a new head doc (to keep the emotional gears and cogs moving smoothly) as well as my meat doc (for that "You're over 40 - bend over!" physical). And as soon as we receive the report from UW, we'll be getting Tyler's situation sorted out as well.

And with that, here we go...

Last Post of 2009

2009-12-31T10:20:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of enthusiastic posts in recent weeks. It's been a sort of crappy end to a year of extremes - the highs of a new marriage to the letting go of the only home two kids had ever known. The buying and selling of homes in a down market, the challenges of promoting artistic projects in a slow economy, the hand-wringing and hair-pulling of raising a couple of highly-intelligent and often challenging teens, and integrating a new maternal influence into their lives.

It's all been a lot to absorb, much less report on with any sort of regularity.

Safe to say, things are settling down on the home front, just in time for things to get busy on the career front. There is movement on the horizon, and I look forward to writing about it next year.

So, until tomorrow...

Happy Gregorian New Year!

'Tis the Something

2009-12-23T16:31:00.000-08:00

I've polled several of my friends and family, and I'm not alone in thinking this holiday season has been more crabby, bitchy and altogether more grrr than in recent memory. Everywhere I go, people have their blinders on, sometimes even walking right into me - imagine missing a 6'4" 250lb linebacker - with only a surprised look and not so much as a "pardon me". On the roads, it's worse. People stealing parking spots, ignoring basic traffic rules and no concept of common courtesy.

I know that Mars AND Mercury are both in retrograde and the economic environment is dodgy at best, but relax, people. Just be aware of your surroundings and maybe cut your fellow man some slack this particularly rough holiday season. Isn't that what it's all about anyway?

Peace.

Havacar and "Avatar".

2009-12-22T22:18:00.000-08:00

As previously mentioned, The Wife was in a car accident last month and her poor Ruby was totaled. Well, not that either of us wanted to be car shopping the week before Christmas, but she ended up with a very nice replacement. Her blog post is here.

People seem shocked that she's not very enthusiastic about this new vehicle. I told her the other night that it made me sad, but that I understood. I told her that people used to ask if I just LOVED my rebuilt home, and I would tell them I didn't really want the old one to burn down, but if something was going to come at such a high personal cost, then a rebuilt home with upgrades was better than the charred, blackened version.

Same with the car. She didn't want to total Ruby, but if she had to lose Ruby, this is a darn fine vehicle to drive in her stead.

* * *

In other news, I took Kayleigh to see James Cameron's Avatar in 3D IMAX today, and it rocked my world. It pretty much rocked Kayleigh's too. I can see that I'm cultivating an appreciation in her for things like cinematography, sound design and production design.

There's a lot of hype surrounding this film. It's James Cameron, after all, and if he's good at one thing, it's generating hype. I avoided watching Titanic for years just because of the overmarketing and endless hype. But as a guy who builds sand castles and sandboxes for a living (meaning worldbuilding for narrative and interactive media), the moment I saw teen-foot-tall blue aliens riding quasi-pteranodons through a bioluminescent primeval world, I was hooked. I simply HAD to see it. They had me at "flying lizard".

First, let me say that nobody is going to win any acting awards from their work on this film, which I actually find sad. It's got to be brutal to have to work your craft wearing a green bodysuit in a green room with ping pong balls as reference points. But this movie isn't about breakthrough performances. Sometimes, "acting" just gets in the way of the story and takes me out of the setting. That said, Sam Worthington (Macbeth, Terminator Salvation and the upcoming Clash of the Titans) is completely credible in the lead role, and the supporting cast is made up of talented newbies and journeymen actors alike. Giovanni Ribisi is a really great corporate whore, Stephen Lang is menacing (if a bit two-dimensional) as the jarhead Colonel, and the main Na'vi characters are brought to life by some fine talent, including Wes Studi as the chieftain, CCH Pounder as the shaman, and Zoe Saldana as the love interest. Sigourney Weaver's performance was surprisingly wooden.

Keep in mind, some of the criticism Avatar has faced (lackluster acting, simplistic story) was also thrown at a certain sci-fi blockbuster in 1977 - which spawned an entire media empire and popular subculture.

Minor performance quibbles aside, Avatar is important, and I'll tell you why. On the technical side, it has changed the way blockbuster movies are made. And whenever technological advances are made in Hollywood-scale cinema, that technology trickles down to the indie guys, who make better, more creative use of it more cheaply. On the story side, as much as it is an archetype (see Dances With Wolves or Heart of Darkness), it is a really serious look at our own world through the lens of sci-fi escapist entertainment, sort of what the original Star Trek series did.

The basic premise (no spoilers) is that an invading population wants a resource that the native population considers sacred, and that the invaders de-humanize the natives to justify their removal and, if necessary, their genocide. It is our own American history, our broken treaties with the native populations, our strip mining, gold rushes, our smallpox-laced blankets. It is our shame as a nation, and unfortunately we are not alone. It is Belgium in Rwanda, Spain in South America, France in Southeast Asia, Britain everywhere they put down stakes, Australia's treatment of the aborigines. And yet at the same time, you forget you are seeing our own history and maybe learning something because you are watching compelling science fiction.

It always makes me happy when a movie transports me into its world and makes me feel any sort of emotion; it means the film is doing its job. Avatar is very good at placing the viewer in the world. 3D IMAX may have helped in that regard, but more than anything I think it was just a really well-designed world. The ecosystem made sense. There wasn't anything that felt out of place or just there for the hell of it. Even my 12-year-old daughter remarked afterward, "I really felt like I was there." And the sociopolitical message wasn't lost on her either.

I felt it was a good film, both in technical polish and in message. Recommended viewing, on the big screen.

Buwwets

2009-12-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

Last week was pretty much a loss, energy-wise, and this week has not started so well either. We're keeping busy around the house. The granite countertop finally came in, so now the section of kitchen by the stove looks more or less like the rest of the kitchen. So there's that.

Christmas cards have been pouring in, along with prezzies from the family. A couple boxes showed up from the new in-laws last night. Mrs. D. and I each got to open one (not all the way, just to get the wrapped presents out), and I stowed the wrapped packages neatly under the tree. I'm taking bets on how long the bows stay on, since under the tree is where Elvis and Tom like to wrestle, lie about, and gnaw on whatever they can find.

Work has begun in earnest on Arrowflight Second Edition. Deep7 fans have only been demanding it for about five years now, and I need to bolster the company bottom line with some new product. Steve Hartley will be the go-to illustrator, and we've already been in Skype conference mode. Next week will include a couple face-to-face art meetings. I learned a lot on RADZ, and I intend to put that to work to benefit Arrowflight. Happy with it so far.

Although we managed to knock out most of our Christmas shopping last weekend, I still have a few more things to pick up, and some errands to run (including a Christmas Card drop at the post office). Better hit that before the weather goes all wonky again.

That's all I got.

One Year Ago...

2009-12-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

On this day last year, on the very day an arctic front blew in and started Snowmageddon '08, I took Raechelle to Alki Beach and asked her to be my wife.

Three guesses what the answer was (and the first two don't count).

Where did this last year go?? I guess we've been keeping busy.

Mrs. D. and I went Christmas shopping yesterday and just about knocked it all out. I got my second wind about 4PM, which is odd, because I'm usually wanting a nap around that time. We went up to a musician friend's birthday celebration/jam, and we brought Kayleigh with us. She was a big hit, singing songs into the mic and whacking away at the tambourine. I got to strum, Raechelle got to sing. A fun evening for all.

Today consists of a meeting with Ron, some football, and a film screening this afternoon. Seems like even when we don't plan out a weekend, it ends up cramming itself full anyway.

So Be Good (For Goodness Sake)

2009-12-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

I never understood if the lyric meant that we kids should be good for the sake of being good (which seems like sort of a weak argument to most six-year-olds), or more like it was being barked by a tired, cranky parent during holiday purchasing at the mall: "Be good, fer cryin' out loud!"

But I digress.

The holidays walk among us. They infiltrate our society with their holiday glamours and make us all giddy with mirth. Kind of like vampires, but more jingly and less "bitey". Okay, whatever. It's holiday time, which means...

Kayleigh just tested for her green belt in tae kwon do! She's got one more level of green after this, and then she goes into two levels of blue. She's doing very well, and we're really proud of her.

Oh yes, and there's some Christmas decoratin' going on at the New Circle-D Ranch...

In other news, I woke up this morning [blues riff here], and stepped in cat barf. It should be said that stepping in cat barf (in bare feet) first thing in the morning is one of my least favorite activities. Actually stepping in cat barf at any time and in any footwear at all hardly makes the must-do list of pastimes. I should have been more vigilant, but even living with a bulimic feline, I truly didn't expect to make such a warm and squishy footfall so early in the morning.

Later this morning, while getting dressed, I stepped in a cold puddle next to my bed. Apparently the cats had decided to go after my water glass. I threw a towel down to sop it up and quickly inspected the Alphonse Mucha prints stacked nearby for damage. There was some. I don't know how extensive yet.

I loaded Tyler into the car, cursing my feline housemates, unable to thaw my windshield with frozen washer fluid sprayers. Then we sat in downtown traffic for an hour and a half. Let me repeat: it took an hour and a half to get from West Seattle to the University District. Fortunately the folks at the CHDD Autism Center were very forgiving, and we were able to continue with the diagnostic clinic. We'll know more later this month.

That's all I've got for now. Kayleigh's band concert is tonight, after which I will be collapsing in bed for immediate dust-off and evac. And tomorrow morning, I'm wearing my slippers.

RubyRubyRuby Ruby!

2009-12-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Downing's faithful readers know by now that she was in a five-car pileup on her way to work a couple weeks ago, and that as of yesterday, her dear Elantra hatchback, Ruby, was totaled.

I know firsthand what it's like to lose a beloved vehicle, and I know I'd be a pouty boy if Sportacus was ever totaled. But it's hard to give comfort during the transition. I have to remember that there's no quick fix, and you have to let the grieving own their grief.

The reminder actually came to me as I was surfing for cars on the laptop last night. Hyundai doesn't make an Elantra hatchback anymore, and Mrs. D. doesn't want a used car to replace Ruby. So in poking around through equivalent cars, I brought up some Hondas and Kias, but the look on her face said, "nice try, but just let me be sad right now." I didn't want to seem like I was trying to influence her decision in any way (only window shopping for my own edification), so I put the laptop away and let her be sad.

Sometimes it's okay to let your loved one be sad. Sometimes it's okay just to be quiet and hold them.

Moving Forward

2009-12-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

There have obviously been some major events in my life since I stopped the Rhymes With Drowning blog and launched Life 2.0. Much of this past year has been spent talking about the impending move and wedding, and now that those things have happened, I find myself wondering which direction to take this blog.

Rhymes With Drowning was a very public yet very personal journal of a single father going through several kinds of compounded grief and loss. It made sense that when I met my wife-to-be, life had very visibly turned a corner, and Life 2.0 seemed to be the perfect title for a journal of new beginnings. Assuming those new beginnings are not in fact over, I'm planning to keep this blog going, mostly as a journal of juggling professional life and parenting teens with a marriage. And I am adding comment moderation.

* * *

So with that disclaimer and a much overdue paint job to the blog, I bid you welcome to the new and ~~improved~~ different-looking Life 2.0.