How About That?

If sitting in with a jazz quartet for $10 and the two times I got paid union rates for a couple of trumpet gigs technically made me a professional musician, then I guess I'm now, technically, a professional writer. I got word last night that a webzine wanted to buy one of my stories. It came on the heels of another rejection, so needless to say I feel pretty good.

I'll put the link up when it's up, which should be sometime next month. That's when I'll send the inevitable mass email rather than making it a "Bandwidth Conservation Post."

For those keeping score, that's:

1 sale
4 in circulation
3 withdrawn

Okay, actually that was more for me to see where I stood.

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Unfocused, Still

I've been posting today from the coffee shop that I once believed could serve as my home away from home the way this place used to. It's not quite there. I've finally had to accept the fact that, as counter-intuitive as it would seem moving to I-town, there just isn't a place where I could work like I did in A-town.

It's times like these, like at any other "job," where there's nothing else for it but to just get to fcuking work, unfocused or not.

I did get one thing accomplished. I subbed another tale to the place that just rejected me. That's something, right? One thing. One thing I can point to that, even if I end up jerking off for the rest of the day, I can say I got done.

Please, no comments about how ostensibly hard I'm being on myself. This isn't about being hard on myself or a potential cautionary tale about work/life balance. This is about one of those many instances where the rubber needs to meet the road in order to do what you set out to do.

Because, as the gentleman on the left says, What you're supposed to do is act like a fucking professional.

I think I need to get some reading done. I suspect that's been part of my problem lately: not enough creative input to fuel the creative output.

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New Books

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I've finally taken the amazon.com plunge and discovered its crack-like ease of addiction. I guess there goes my devotion to local book stores(?). Anyway, it enabled my financially-challenged @ss to get two writing books that are worth a good 75% of the writing books I have so far.

Ursula K. LeGuin's STEERING THE CRAFT is a series of ten exercises on the writing craft that can be done alone or in a group. It's a book that I can always go back to (and have at the local library several times) whenever I feel like I just don't have siht.

I have no real interest in writing plays (at least for now), but when I borrowed TO BE A PLAYWRIGHT by Janet Neipris and saw some of the general writing advice she had, it was too good not to eventually buy. I can see why a lot of writers (especially comic book writers, believe it or not) are influenced by playwrights.

Go ahead, discover how easy it is, if you haven't already. You can start with my wishlist icon over to the right. You know you want to.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

"Yeah, weekly--whatever," I hear you say. I don't blame you. But, here's something. Via DISContent, among other places, I give you...

My Top 25 TV Characters

The rules are:

• No puppets or cartoons, otherwise Kermit and Homer would definitely be on this list.
  
• No mini-series, otherwise I'd definitely include Philip Marlow from THE SINGING DETECTIVE.
  
• No reality show people, otherwise Matt Kennedy Gould from THE JOE SCHMO SHOW would be on here.
  
• All characters must be regulars on the show.

Okay, so here we go.

The Doctor, DOCTOR WHO - Even before Travis Bickle, here was a character who brooks absolutely no crap from anyone, in all of space and time!

Kwai-Chang Caine, KUNG FU - Too bad we no longer live like in the Old West where one could just wander the earth with no identification, mind your own business, and kick the crap out of anyone who tried to screw with you. Yeah, you better believe that no one tried to make him build a railroad, either. He'd have shoved his foot up their white...but, I digress.

Archie Bunker, ALL IN THE FAMILY - See, if only all small-minded bigots were like him. In fact, most of the small-minded bigots I ever knew were just like him. They'd more or less keep it at home, toss out a few of their outdated views over dinner with their inner circle, and then could at least treat my minority ass with a modicum of politeness even when they let something slip that they maybe shouldn't.

George Jefferson, THE JEFFERSONS - See "Archie Bunker," except add cash!

Kerr Avon, BLAKE'S 7 - "Underneath that cold exterior beats a heart of pure stone," says one of his crewmates on the battlecruiser Liberator. Even if you don't buy the political allegories of B7 or even just don't like it because it's a cheap British 70s sci-fi show, the show does manage (unintentionally) to chronicle one man's slow decent into paranoia and psychosis.

Gareth Blackstock, CHEF - I'd love to be enough of an expert on something to be able to heap mounds of verbal abuse on people, and just have them take it because they want to be around you and learn your stuff.

Cmdr. John Koenig, SPACE: 1999 - As the episode "The Exiles" shows, Koenig has no compunctions about kicking a btich out the airlock (literally!) to save his command.

Capt. Benjamin Sisko, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - His character was definitely no throwback to Captain Kirk, but he was no wussified "diplomat" captain on a luxury liner, either.

Det. Lennie Brisco, LAW & ORDER - I'd love the ability to be at a gruesome crime scene and make snarky remarks about the victims.

EDA Benjamin Stone, LAW & ORDER - He's a model on how to professionally display utter contempt for someone, like the scum he questions on the witness stand.

EDA Jack McCoy, LAW & ORDER - I love watching his self-righteousness override any sense of compassion. He doesn't care, he doesn't give a fcuk, and he just doesn't wanna hear whatever you have to say that would get in the way of how he prosecutes a case.

Det. Robert Goren, LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT - Those mannerisms are just too fun. Creepy, but fun, especially the way he always bends over to one side when he's interrogating a suspect. Plus, what kind of cop carries around a leather portfolio? I always think he looks like an insurance salesman with that thing.

ADA Ron Carver, LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT - He may be quiet and soft-spoken, but he's basically Shaft with a law degree.

Col. Eli McNulty, E-RING - I dunno, I just like the way Dennis Hopper would say one of two lines almost every episode: Either, "Let's go get those sons of btiches!" or "Let's bring our boys home!"

Richard Fish, ALLY MCBEAL - Because I respect any man who can declare: New firm policy, listen up! Anybody who sues this firm or me, personally, we all drop whatever cases we are working on. We devote all of our intellectual and creative efforts to ruining that person's life. Are we clear? I don't want to stop short with just getting even. Retribution is not strong enough. Ruin, that is the goal. Irreversible, irreptutable, irrational ruin! New firm policy!

Remington Steele, REMINGTON STEELE - Because he taught me what a metrosexual was before there was even a word for it.

Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries, ARE YOU BEING SERVED - The quintessential stereotypical gay man...or is he? Maybe he's unisex?

Henry MacNeil, GOOD VS. EVIL - He's a proud Brother with a 'fro and an orange Volvo, kicking Morlock ass, and saving souls with weapons soaked in the blood of an innocent.

Dave Lister, RED DWARF - What do you do when you're the last human being alive stuck 3,000,000 years in the future? You tough it out and make the best of it, that's what. You learn and you grow, but basically stay the same sort of person.

Spock, STAR TREK - Yes, he's all kinds of cool. But we share something. We're both more comfortable with being the second-in-command, taking charge once in awhile when we have to, than the head honcho.

MacGyver, MACGYVER - Proof that a Swiss Army knife and some duct tape can make you all kinds of cool, even when you're rocking a mullet.

René Artois, 'ALLO 'ALLO - All he wants to do is run his cafe and keep his affairs with his two waitresses secret from each other and his wife. He manages it, even though he's got Nazi's on one side, the French Resistance on the other, and downed British airmen in the cellar. See, that's called poise.

Quark, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Yes, a greedy, manipulative criminal from an alien race devoted solely to the making of profit. But, he's also the sort who would sell food to oppressed aliens at cost which makes him, in terms of cultural relativism, kind.

Denny Crane, BOSTON LEGAL - You can't tell me that this guy isn't cooler than Captain Kirk. I love whack-job characters who can get away with things like brandishing a loaded rifle in a courtroom in Boston, Mass.

Donald Ulysses MacDonald, MONARCH OF THE GLEN - See "Denny Crane," except replace Captain Kirk with Doctor Who.

Is this 25? I didn't even count, to be honest.

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Brain Dump

I've been feeling very ADD lately and I've got too much stuff in my brain, so today I'm just going to dump it all out as I go about my business so I can get some fcuking work done!

And yeah, I turned the comments off. You know why?? Well, no reason really. Just felt like it.

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Oregon: A Place to Retire?

(Via one of the many mailing lists I have to sort through)

Police: Nurse, 51, kills intruder with bare hands

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- A nurse returning from work discovered an intruder armed with a hammer in her home and strangled him with her bare hands, police said.

Susan Kuhnhausen, 51, ran to a neighbor's house after the confrontation Wednesday night. Police found the body of Edward Dalton Haffey 59, a convicted felon with a long police record....

Under Oregon law people can use reasonable deadly force when defending themselves against an intruder or burglar in their homes. Kuhnhausen was treated and released for minor injuries at Providence.

Haffey, about 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, had convictions including conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, robbery, drug charges and possession of burglary tools. Neighbors said Kuhnhausen's size -- 5-foot-7 and 260 pounds -- may have given her an advantage.

So, the next time comedian Mo'Nique says to show a big girl some respect, you better listen. Or, it could mean your @ss.

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Be Careful What You Say

This article seemed to acknowledge all the caveats with the experiment. That doesn't stop the implications from beng disturbing.

'Vegetative' Woman's Brain Shows Surprising Activity

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 8, 2006; Page A01

According to all the tests, the young woman was deep in a "vegetative state" -- completely unresponsive and unaware of her surroundings. But then a team of scientists decided to do an unprecedented experiment, employing sophisticated technology to try to peer behind the veil of her brain injury for any signs of conscious awareness.

Without any hint that she might have a sense of what was happening, the researchers put the woman in a scanner that detects brain activity and told her that in a few minutes they would say the word "tennis," signaling her to imagine she was serving, volleying and chasing down balls. When they did, the neurologists were shocked to see her brain "light up" exactly as an uninjured person's would. It happened again and again. And the doctors got the same result when they repeatedly cued her to picture herself wandering, room to room, through her own home.

Whatever this does to the quality-of-life debate, whichever side proves more capable of co-opting this research to their argument's advantage, imagine the possibility of knowing, scientifically, that the person you're talking around and about is more than likely listening to and processing what you're saying.

Maybe it's time to take a second look at that living will. Most (but not all) people I've ever talked with generate one on the premise that they'll be an utter vegetable, unable to even know what's going on around them. But what if we're not?

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My Weekly Rejection Letter*

*Okay, not really. This would imply that I'm submitting at a rate that would get me a weekly rejection, which I'm not--yet.

After a scathing but fair critique of my latest submission, the silver lining read:

As noted above, the quality of your prose is quite good and we
appreciate the fact you sent this story our way.

Of course, it's another plus that the mag bothered to critique it at all. So, what to send next...

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Another One Bites Is Bitten By the Dust

Okay, everyone knew Timothy Treadwell was bound to get it eventually. And, you could say this was only a matter of time as well.

'Crocodile hunter' killed by stingray

Roger Maynard in Sydney
Monday September 4, 2006
The Guardian

Steve Irwin, the passionate conservationist who shot to international fame as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed today in a freak accident while diving off the north Queensland coast.

In a bitter irony, the man who risked his life handling one of the world's most dangerous reptiles was mortally wounded by a stingray, a usually passive sea creature which attacks only if threatened. Irwin, 44, was stung in the chest by the stingray's barbed tail, which whips up in a reflex action. The accident happened while he was filming a TV documentary called Oceans' Deadliest at Batt Reef, near Port Douglas.

Personally, I think the animals are rising up.

Crikey!

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