Holding Patterns

The Blocked Project seems to be in semi-permanent hiatus, awaiting the convocation of experts who will hold forth on what will surely be the Magic Formula for the script’s success. That hasn’t alleviated the overall depression and deep funk the failure has engendered. I’ve been burying myself in non-writing activities, trying to spark something somewhere; reading, performing, helping out at the church, playing City of Heroes.

After such a gap in enterprises like this blog, I generally log back on with a jocular “lot of water under the bridge, huh?”, but given the events of the last couple of weeks, that would be in spectacularly bad taste. I would feel guilty even referring to the influx of evacuees into Houston from New Orleans as being a “flood”, you know? Seeing the devastation of the Big Easy referred to in the Chronicle as being of “biblical proportions” also seems suspect to me, for reasons I cannot quite comprehend.

And comprehension is a problem, no matter how many distressing images one sees on TV or how many angry messages one reads on the Net. We are told on the one hand this is happening, then told no, this is not happening… but one thing that is becoming clear: generalities often become that because they contain truth, and the generality that such events bring out the best and the worst in people is so obvious that I am ashamed to bring it up.

Mere miles from me is the now-overcrowded Astrodome, where health scares have apparently prompted FEMA to step in, rumor has it. Go a few more miles and you’re at the relatively new Convention Center, slightly less crowded and apparently more accomodating (they had a little more time to prepare). As more than one newscaster has put it, Texans have opened their hearts (as one Chronicle blogger has groused, “Houstonians opened their hearts! Houstonians!” – and I’m concerned about being petty!) – and this good.

But I am in a funk, so the Cynic is ascendent in my worldview, and he is quite vocal in his musings about how long the charitable outpouring will last. History tells us that once the initial rush is over, charity will taper off, and though I read today that residents of Jefferson Parish are being allowed back in for “brief inspections” of what used to be their homes, this crisis is going to be months in the clearing. Months. At least. How long before the bonhommie sours into resentment? Though there’s another voice inside my head that hopes for the best, that voice is becoming increasingly desperate, and the Cynic’s voice is the one that seems to ring truest.

Of course, the cynic is being egged on by the fact that yours truly is once again looking for employment, and tens of thousands of jobless people just arrived in this town. There is another voice, different from the cynic and the optimist, which approaches that observation with a resounding, My God, but you’re an asshole for thinking like that.

Unfortunately, that voice also rings very true.

Next time, let’s talk about something more pleasant. I have been reading some good stuff. Let’s talk about that, hm?

Stay healthy,
Freeman

September 5, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 6 Comments

The Block

Okay, let’s try some analysis.

The line I’ve been staring at for so long is “I’m not going to school today.” From this line there are two paths obvious to me; one is preachy and boring, and will wind up in the same dustbin of ridicule as Reefer Madness. The other leads to the Columbine Massacre, which would be a sensational, disturbing conclusion no matter how it was handled. Impactful, as we used to say in the marketing world, and it would never, ever fly. More appropriately, it would never make it past the written page.

There is another path, to be sure, the path that eludes me, the path that the script will eventually take. The path that is interesting and entertaining, at least to the people holding that paycheck. The fact that these nebulous qualities are about as concrete as any indication to the direction or even content of the script by these Powers That Be doesn’t help. Add gun-shyness into the mix.

Here is likely the worst part of the equation: anything else I write at this point is at the cost of time spent on the script that is giving me problems now; any time devoted to anything else, the Calvinist angel on one shoulder proclaims, is delaying payday, and that’s bad, it’s so very bad.

Yes, to be frank, I don’t give a rat’s ass about this project outside the money. If I can get to the point where there is anything of me in the writing, that will change, but right now, that magical property of involvement is locked up in a very real and very impenetrable fortress. And writing anything else feels like stealing from myself.

That’s some catch, that Catch 22. And the proper response, as you know, is “It’s the best one we got.”

August 11, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 9 Comments

Alright, Alright.

You don’t really want to know where I’ve been for the past month, do you?

Well, maybe one or two of you do.

By and large, I have been here, sitting on my ass, staring at one line written on a blank page. For weeks. There is a term for this: Writer’s Block.

This has been tremendously humbling, and above all, depressing. After nearly a year of churning out stuff on demand for the Video Game Project, to suddenly be faced with my own inadequacy has been brutal, to say the least. Not even my usual solution, to watch episodes of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, has worked to soothe the hurt.

It’s like this: I was asked to write a touring show by a local theater, a show about a pernicious social ill (somewhere in there, I seem to have moved from writing about knife-weilding zombies to being the Social Ills Writer. Don’t ask me how that happened). “So,” I asked. “What shape do you see this show taking?” “oh, we don’t know,” was the reply. “We’re sure you’ll come up with something. We just want it to be entertaining, and interesting.”

I wrestled with that a long time. Finally handed in the first ten pages of a script that made a social ill entertaining and interesting. The response, almost predictably, was, “This wasn’t what we had in mind at all.”

The things that leap to mind are many, including the obvious If you knew what you wanted, why didn’t you tell me? I then attempted to fulfill their needs, and have found myself staring at that one line for hours on end, as I realize over and over again that one of the major reasons I don’t own a gun is because I lack the strength to resist the urge to blow my own brains out.

There has been a slight alleviation in this gloom, as it has been decided that I will meet with a Panel of Concerned Experts, which means I will once more be writing by committee, but at least I will by God leave that first meeting with an actual idea of what is needed.

That job at Fry’s is looking better and better every day.

And that, gloomy and demeaning as it is, is where I’ve been. Except for one bright weekend, where I got to hang with my b-movie brethern. Ken has written about it far more eloquently than I could at this point, so I’ll just direct you there.

Oh, and I pulled my head out enough to review the movie Constantine. I think the movie deserves more than the few lines I scrawled about it, but hey: I got something written. Two somethings, now.

August 10, 2005
Categories: Senile Ramblings . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 14 Comments

Digital Sweatshops Again

Wage Slaves is an expose from 1UP.com that almost reads like an article from The Onion, but is all too true.

July 6, 2005
Categories: Old Men Playing Videogames . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 2 Comments

Too Damn Hot to Blog

I remember once being told that air conditioning can only hope to lower the temperature inside a structure by twenty degrees. In my very dim home office (my Bat Cave, if you will) I manage to cheat that down to thirty, by dint of insulation, ceiling fan, and simply not moving. The point is, with temps topping 100 degrees – and that’s without the heat index, which adds our sizable humidity into the formula – I’m still wondering why I live here.

Oh, that’s right. I can’t afford to move.

Ah, well. Life can’t be too easy, or we’d have nothing to talk about.

Visited my parents over the weekend; it had been a couple of months since they’d gotten to spoil their grandson or grandpug. This was the cue for my wife and mother to head out and shop the resale stores. After thirty-some-odd years of living in an almost exclusively male household, my mother is very happy to have another woman around.

For my part, I eventually sneaked out to the local Half-Price Books – I’ve managed to empty the local stores of any interesting material – and spent way too damn much money. Picked up some more Preston & Child blockbusters, mainly to convince myself that good gravy, I could write this. A few comic trade paperbacks. And – the topper, a thick art book entitled Men’s Adventure Magazines.

Written in three different languages – English, French and German – by contributors like Max Allen Collins, the book traces the history of men’s magazines of the 40s through the late 60s. A combination of pulp, graphic exposes (with often bloody photos unprintable in the major media) and skin, these magazines were a pervasive presence through my youth. Titles like Stag, Men, Men’s Adventure, Cavalier… I don’t think Manly Man was a title, but it should have been.

These magazines featured hyperbolic, often salacious painted covers, which were almost always so overwrought as to be humorous. These form the bulk of the book, and the major reason I bought it. I’m sure we all remember studying about the part of World War II when scantily clad French hookers machine-gunned an entire Nazi platoon. Surely, that is in there, somewhere.

It’s too much of a good thing, and I find myself drinking it in by portions. My favorite part of the book thus far – and it is arranged by themes – is “Animal Attacks”. I had no idea that the phrase “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” originated on the cover of a man’s magazine – but there it is, with the cover art to match. Add to the mix of b-movie horrors detailed within this chapter attacks by vicious swarms of flying squirrels and spider monkeys. I had no idea snapping turtles traveled in herds.

And that’s before we even get to the subjects of female pirates and SS sex slaves.

How did these become such a big part of my youth? Besides the obvious, the copies owned by my father and grandfather, never very well hidden at all?

Simply, these mags were on display in stores, right next to Ladies’ Home Journal and Life. Newstands didn’t make much of an effort to conceal them, and as they often wound up next to Famous Monsters or Vampirella, I always found these magazines in my searches. Did these magazines, heavy on the violence and bondage imagery, at all affect my development into what I am today?

Jeez, it’s too hot for weighty ruminations like that, too. I’ll just close by mentioning that the magazine slang for these items was the “sweats”, which seems wholly appropriate, both in subject matter and the time of year in which I’m reading about them. Time to get that scanner talking to the new computer, I’m thinkin’.

“Mad Monkeys Manned the Lifeboats!”

(That image courtesy Men’s Adventure Magazines)

July 6, 2005
Categories: The Wonderful World of Crap . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 7 Comments

Jeepers

In the midst of all the drama and schadenfreude, I forgot to mention that I managed to pen reviews for Alone in the Dark and H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.

Then again, given the quality of these flicks, that may not be such a surprising thing.

June 27, 2005
Categories: The Wonderful World of Crap . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 4 Comments

Unholy Glee

There has been much drama around here of late, though on such a rarefied, general level that it hardly seems worthy of inclusion here. Still, I haven’t done anything here in a longish time, so I should likely bore you with details, anyway.

I believe we’ve already gone over the storms of the last few weeks – after the last dramatic outage I spoke of (Iron Giant vs the Power Station, indeed, thanoseid) there was another outage, this time during the day. Lightning strike on a pole, apparently. Unconnected with that was a major freaking outage that put much of the area northeast of Houston in darkness for the entire night, and that was due to an entire dynamo going down.

That’s not what I’m here to preach about today, brothers, oh no. A little over a week ago, we returned from dinner to find a fire truck parked in front of our neighbor’s house. My wife, Lisa, being the demure, quiet type, immediately leaped out of the car and bellowed to a nearby fireman, “What happened?” Turns out there was quite a gas leak from the neighbor’s meter – the hiss was audible, nearly sixty feet away, and the fire fighter opined that since the repair crew had not yet shown up, it might be, um, wise for my family and myself to make ourselves scarce for the next hour or so. Just to be safe.

Safe is a good thing, so we gathered up our other neighbor, crazy Ronnie, and got back into the car. Where to go for an hour? Lisa went to her defaults, declaring that we should go to Garden Ridge Pottery, so she and Ronnie could ooh and aah over cheap, mass-produced folk art for an hour – especially since there was a Best Buy next door, so my son and I wouldn’t be too bored. I said that could work, since I haven’t been to Best Buy since a Fry’s Electronics – or as I refer to it, “The Man Mall” – opened much closer (and with a far better DVD selection) than Best Buy.

Well, Ronnie had never been to the Man Mall, and the kid was now chanting “Man Mall! Man Mall!” so we went there instead.

Now, much has been written, and in a far more scholarly manner, about the difference between men and women shopping. The hunter vs the gatherer mentality. Suffice to say that even confronted by the incredible bounty of the Man Mall, I was hard pressed to find enough to ooh and aah over for an hour. When I finally caught up with the women folk in the CD section after 55 minutes, and asked “Are you ready?” I was greeted with a disgruntled “We’ve been ready.”

I’m sorry. I will pay for this for the next… oh, however many years I have left… but I immediately flashed on every time I’ve sat, useless and morose, on one of those uncomfortable laundromat chairs that stores like T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s have at the front, for useless and morose husbands. The trip to Walmart for wood screws and twine that turned into a two hour search for bathing suits. The many times my wife has brandished the tenth grotesque wood and paint creation at me, brightly asking, “Isn’t this cute?”

And I replied, in my best Abe Simpson, “Welcome to my world.”

As I said, I’ll pay for that for years.

It was worth it.

June 27, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

The Media Blender

I’ve not had much time to watch TV the last few weeks, and I’ll wager you can tell how much that saddens me. Especially when I was walking through a living room last weekend and saw the previews for two of the last gasps of the reality TV craze, which were so completely odious my mind wiped them clean from memory, leaving only a mental Post-It Note: not watching TV is a good thing, it seems.

This means that, by and large, I missed the Michael Jackson trial, or, more appropriately, the media coverage of the Michael Jackson trial, except for those pithy, essential parts published in the inverted pyramid of the newspaper stories. That, in and of itself, is a good thing for my quality of life issues. But the aftermath has caused two things to flicker across my screen, seemingly unconnected, yet not:

First, there is this editorial from the Houston Chronicle, about supposed news anchors injecting their personal opinions about the then-impending verdict into the media. To be sure, Court TV’s Nancy Grace is a commentator, not an anchor, but the other perp, Fox News’ (oh what a surprise) Shepard Smith, has no such distinction on his side. The not-so-obvious flip side of this coin is an Associated Press story detailing a poll which shows the sampled Americans consider Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh to be journalists, but not Bob Woodward.

Good God, people get the popular media they deserve, don’t they?

June 14, 2005
Categories: Seething Impotent Rage . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Summertime

As the spouse of a teacher, summer always blindsides me. It makes my life seem so schizophrenic; nine months of being left to myself, followed by three months of “Whatcha doing?” “Wanna go to the store?” “Just checking on you.”

Other things occupying my life:

Remember the storms I mentioned earlier? Lightning struck a tree in my back yard and sheared off the top half. Luckily, given the fact that I love trees, the rest of the tree seems to have survived, but I discovered it is simply amazing that I have managed to get to this point in my adult life, living in a Gulf Coast state, without owning a chainsaw.

Returning to the summer disruption trope, I have also discovered that a simple trip to the store to purchase wood screws and twine can suddenly turn into a two hour shopping expedition.

Lisa also decided it was time once again for a pool in the back yard (luckily, after clearing out the half-a-tree) and splurged on one of those largish inflatables that actually has a circulation/filtration pump. When summer is over, it is going to look like a flying saucer landed, leaving a perfect circle of crushed, dead grass. I have informed Lisa that when my father, aka The Lawn Nazi, comes over for Thanksgiving, she gets to deal with him about that.

I visited the set for one of the video games I scripted; that is to say, the one where the cut scenes are being shot with live actors on a bluescreen soundstage. Many familiar faces there, from my days of jobbing into video shoots as a teleprompter, so I got to play catchup during the ebb and flow of Setting Up The First Shot. This is fairly exciting for a while, but unless you have a specific job to do, a movie set is one of the most boring places on Earth. I was mainly there to record a couple of lines of dialogue, since apparently I do the Airport PA Voice very well.

Oh, yeah, that and I’m researching for a new script that’s due the end of this month. Nope, can’t go into details about that, either.

Yep, I am The Exciting Guy.

June 13, 2005
Categories: Life's Rich Pageant . . Author: drfreex . Comments: Leave a comment

Ooooh! Aaaah!

Very odd weekend. Well, not Addams Family odd, but remarkable in the sense that I’m going to remark on it.

Sunday night we had a bit of bad weather here, and considering that in the last year we’ve lost power every couple of weeks when the sun was shining and birds were chirping in the trees, it was no small surprise that the lights flickered and eventually died late that night – it was a heck of a storm. From the lofty perch of my office, I saw something arc outside before the darkness hit – and then stood out on the front porch and watched as the electricity would return for a minute, only to be interrupted by a basso crackle and the most remarkable blue-purple light from a block away followed by the darkening of houses as far as the eye could see.

Yep, that was no mere blown transformer or downed line, this was something major, and I had to supress the mindless urge to investigate (especially given that my wife would have given me a concussion to prevent me from doing something so dangerous). Power eventually returned four hours later, awakening me at 3AM.

But that was a very War of the Worlds-type experience. Mysterious lights and sounds in the distance. Very cool. Then again, I thought that watching an approaching tornado was very cool, too, so I might not be the best person to listen to in such circumstances.

And somehow, even with all this deathless drama, I managed to write a review for Blade: Trinity.

The light show was better.

May 31, 2005
Categories: Mindless Blather . . Author: drfreex . Comments: 1 Comment

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