May 29th, 2009 by Neal

I’m on the last two chapters:

That means that this draft has added, I think, sixteen thousand words. Which is cool. It means if I add another eight in the next draft, I hit my target just fine, with room to spare, and all I’ve basically added is some dialogue clarification and some descriptors. Should get good.

May 28th, 2009 by Neal

Despite a perfect storm of bullshit from three differing fronts today that threatened to drop a fecalated Marky Mark in my very lap, I have managed to somehow edit a chapter. I’ll be damned if I know how I did it, but I’ll take it.

The second draft nears completion. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day in that regard. Nonetheless, it’s heading in the right direction:

May 27th, 2009 by Neal

I just plowed through a bunch of Errol Morris. His early stuff is rather strange, covering hick civilizations and their odd posturing and belief systems. It ached for me, because though it was largely pointless in many respects, these were a lot of the people I grew up around and knew, in respects. Grandma in particular.

There’s a parlance that infects you. I was trying to describe it to my friends today, the whole way so much can be explained through a person’s dialogue, but the irony was that I couldn’t appropriately convey the way it works. I could only think of rambling examples, but that’s all it tends to be, a pointless series of observations that, when cobbled together, makes a person’s character and describes who they are. I think of Gregory MacDonald’s work in that regard, when I consider it.

I was catching myself doing it, and thinking about it. I said something would be a kick, and it wasn’t, that was just the expression I used. Like when I say, “My mom just got out of the hospital.” and then you respond, “Cool, man!” And you don’t mean cool. It’s like Salud. You mean, “I acknowledge what you just said.” And have a kick, do a time, take pleasure, and got enjoyment are all ways of saying, “I will.” It’s hard to explain.

Sometimes, however, there are no other ways to properly explain what you say even in a high parlance. A good example is an old timer expression I learned while caregiving from hicks I was watching over, mentioned above, “Took/take pleasure from.” It was always in description of a quirk or an enjoyment of a personality trait. Like:

“Well, she had her a cat that had six toes, and that was one of those things she took real pleasure from, I guess. Yeah. She took pleasure for some time.”

I guess the reason is that my buddy Alessandro, who is hanging out at my place for a while, knows me very well, and he got me a taxidermied Piranha all the way from Venezuela. I have it in my front window, and I assuredly take pleasure from the way people will react when they see it, in the same way my Grandmother, in her odd way, took pleasure from things.

I realize that in my writing I speak one way, and in person I speak in completely another, and they don’t mix. I am awkward in person, and when I can slow down, I speak well. I take pleasure from that.

Communication being the utter goal, even notwithstanding a complete acceptance of failures in that regard, it’s weird to struggle with the language even so, despite so many years of working with it. Finding little nuances. It’s a definite science, and there’s a knack, just like there is for fishing. I often wonder why I took pleasure from words instead of tooling an engine, given that it seems my genetic predisposition. It lets me relate to Hal, and gives me a place to work from.

Speaking of which, work goes slow, but continues apace. Word count tomorrow.

May 18th, 2009 by Neal

I’ve decided to not speak to my thoughts about Star Trek at all, given that it’s controversial, given that it doesn’t really matter, and given that I’m much more obsessed with the nuance and minutae of another piece of material.

It’s a bad time to be talking about it right now, given that I’m fighting some fucking gnarly food poisoning, but because of it I can’t sleep, so why not?

In short, I’ve been a Green Day fan since they saved my fucking life. Sounds like a joke, sounds like a cliche, but I don’t give a solid shit. They did. Artists can do that, and some artists can do it in a heartbeat, and Green Day have always been that band for me. You can make your valid and sound arguments that they took money for their work (and there’s still something to be said for money not being a motivating factor, despite the aging rational punk inside of me sneering at Johnny Rotten’s butter commercial compared to Sid’s lonely grave). You can make the argument that if one goes from three minutes or less to mostly five (as 21st is) and forsake the grinding guitars in favor of piano ballads, you’re a differing genre and thusly contradictory in some fashion. I’ve heard all of the arguments.

I used to fight them when I was a kid, I mean, I really did. I used to stand by DIY and fucking punk vs. poseur and it was a hill I would have been proud to die on. I don’t know if it was my violent, irrational, visceral reaction to grunge, a bias I’ve since gotten over, or maybe it was because punk broke for the second time (third if you count the hardcore period) in the early nineties just as I was on the cusp of the apotheosis of my relative dysfunctions, but Green Day came at just the right time for me.

I wrote some of my first poems to Dookie. I used to walk streets in the early morning with nothing but a tape recorder with the volume turned low blaring Basket Case. It used to get me complaints from my customers, though I kept it quiet. A few understood.

I wanted to kill myself that year, which is something I don’t really admit to hardly anyone, because then I sound like a fucking emo kid, but it’s true. I tried once. Didn’t work out. I didn’t even get to the implement, and it’s not a good story for public consumption outside of, say, stuff I’ll write later.

David Byrne says: I’ll tell you later!

Dookie was the first tape I ever played so much that it skipped. People laugh when I tell them that. They don’t realize that if you play tapes enough, they will fucking skip.

At any rate, Welcome to Paradise, a song about wanting to leave home, She, a song about a woman who seeks to find fault in argument and sow chaos, Fuck Off and Die, a song about being sick of people, they all made sense at the time. I remember being 23, which is about how old the members of the band were when they wrote that album, and thinking, shit. Look where they were, and look where I am. I was ashamed and humbled. People look at Orson Welles and think that. I look at Green Day.

Insomniac comforted me in a very angry period. Nimrod brought me peace after a bad breakup, and helped me acknowledge that the rigid structured set of things I thought made a thing a thing (in this case, punk) could be annihilated and still survive if the spirit was strong. Warning helped me cope with another bad breakup (with the woman I’m still with today). And then, there was a long silence. Billie Joe got arrested for a DUI. I thought the old constant was something I’d have to reminisce on. I was dealing with Bush and the fucking war and all of the awful things that made me leave college a week before I would have graduated.

Then American Idiot.

To this day, it’s my dream project. I wrote a script based around it, a kind of new Tommy, and I would quite literally kill most any of you for the shot to have it made. It’s that close to my heart. I am a man with ten thousand songs in my damned music player, and a rack full of CDs fine and foul that would probably change your life. And if you don’t have a rack like that you could share with me as well, then shame on you. That’s the only place where I think it’s fair to keep music elite.

I considered it then, and I still consider it the finest piece of rock music pressed to plastic. And now vinyl, apparently. Fuckin’ kids.

So, 21st.

The new album hit me at a convergence of bankruptcy, artistic success, and most importantly, going from a neighbor who pounded the walls and made me turn off my bass, to my new house, where the rad lady next door characterized herself as “loud people.” So I upped the bass to human enjoyment levels, and the first full album I listened to in my new monitor womb was an album I waited five years for.

There is only one song on it that’s even remotely average, and of course, that’s the one they’re playing on the radio, just like they did with American Idiot.

There’s one song that’s only above average, and that’s Christian’s Inferno. But it grows on my every time I hear it, because it’s an important part of the narrative.

The narrative in this album is much, much thinner and vague than American Idiot. But that’s fine, because though it’s billed as a rock opera, the album is really just more of an album with interconnected thematics. There are characters, but it’s not like American Idiot, where there was a clear beginning, middle, end, and connecting tissue that my mind was able to instantly string into a beautiful story.

Instead, it’s a mallet that hits you in the head repeatedly with blue collar working class post-modern apathy, angst, and hope, often all in the same song. And usually the way Jesus intended it, with three chords and a fucking chorus that the most lowly working class man or woman could hit.

See, I don’t truck with the idea that Beethoven is the highest art. I can understand the beauty of the music, and I love it myself, but I like bringing it down and keeping it high. Meaning, I think Issa and Basho had a point when they point out the most zen fucking thing on Earth is farting and cleaning outhouses, and a poet’s job is to make that thankless task beautiful and have a point.

Green Day swings it.

I don’t know where it stands in terms of American Idiot, but I know it’s easily number 2 all-time right now. It may become number one as the broader points come to root in my subconscious and I can see the work of the lyrics more instead of getting caught in the music.

Most albums have good music and shitty lyrics at least half the time. Really, most all artists suffer from that. I can’t think of many examples. Usually, one outweighs the other enough to be forgiven, though. My absolute faves rock both, because unlike most, I pay damned close attention to the lyrics with the ear of a guy who’s written a fuckton of poetry.

Good at both, generally, almost always: Rancid, Green Day, Bad Religion, Roger Clyne, Regina Spektor

There are many other bands I listen to, but the above have a fucking ear for the verse.

I think, if American Idiot is my favorite album, I would have to say that 21st has the best lyrics I’ve ever read on an album. Top to bottom. Much thought, time, revision, and care went into it, beyond Know Your Enemy. That track relies more on the creativity with transposing matching verses, which works to a degree, but it’s about average.

Some of the lyrics flat out make you cry if you listen through with an honest heart, the first time. At very least, if you’re not a pussy like me, you’ll get gooseflesh.

I honestly expected to be disappointed, because there’s sure as shit no way to find the concordance of the last album in my life again.

I do, however, have a mischievous little narrative flow in my head for this one. As I listen, I’ll see what develops. If the title track isn’t a cynical Shakespeare style muse about to introduce a tragic drama, I don’t know what is.

My inkling is that it’s a story of the father becoming the son. It’s about the class of ‘13, but it starts out telling how a guy was born into Nixon and moves into the story of a couple of kids born into Bush.

But either way, if you can listen to Before the Lobotomy without busting up a little inside, I pity your cemented heart. Go here and read along.

I have broader commentary and longer thoughts, but my stomach is no longer upset, and I’m either preaching to the converted or being considered an aping sellout, so meh. Point being, if there’s a lesson I can pass along from these thoughts, it’s to fuck what you heard, it’s to not give a shit about what the fuck internet message boards say. Give this one a shot, you won’t regret it.

May 14th, 2009 by Neal

I just played As Tears Go By on Christie Lee. It’s the first time I’ve used my acoustic guitar in over seven months.

I fucking wept.

May 13th, 2009 by Neal

I’m in the new Portland house working right now, and I spent the night last night. So far, so good. Music, at long last, and a window. Though it took until almost noon to get the internet (necessary in editing for research), I still managed:

I spent the morning scoping a few OS Trek shows, as I try and figure out where my ass stops talking and my mouth begins about the movie. The Menagerie ended AWESOMELY, and Mirror, Mirror is great so far.

But right now I’m scuzzy, I’m exhausted, and I need to eat, so I’m gonna knock off early. Moving is exhausting, but this place is pretty rad. I can actually KNOW when the neighbor is gone and can blast my stereo, and I have the bass on, and… it’s just heaven, frankly. So happy.

May 11th, 2009 by Neal

I signed this last weekend at Brave New World in Santa Clarita, a damned fine shop with a damned fine ownership. It was, hands-down, my most successful signing yet, and a solid rocket blast!

The Signal of Santa Clarita was kind enough to devote space to it here.

The woman in the picture, Pamela, was so incredibly awesome. She bought a big old stack of the books to share with her friends and family. I hope they dig them, because I’d feel bad if they didn’t.

I also had a pure cane sugar Coke during a break, which sounds like a stupid thing to mention, but it tasted rather fine.

It’s incredible to have people who didn’t just happen upon my table at a con come to visit. One man drove 45 minutes. It’s flattering, and it’s also scary as hell. I got nervous and bit my tongue so badly that it hurts to speak and eat, but I also got such hope and joy… I hope I did well by Brave New World for their gesture of faith and kindness in flying me down.

May 11th, 2009 by Neal

I’ve been asked in letters and by folks what I thought of the new Star Trek movie, but I’m too busy working to put my thoughts on paper right now. This is why:

But beyond that, I’ll probably put down words later. In brief? It can’t really be said in brief. Basically, there were many, many things that annoyed and perplexed me, and a few things I liked. So far the bad outweighs the good by about 2/1 My inclination is to enjoy new takes and new examinations. James Bond is a prime example. But Casino Royale worked because it was a practical new imagining. It still felt like a Bond movie. The new Star Trek movie is like the Casino Royale reboot, but in a bad way. Take cerebral, diplomatic wargames based around an ensemble cast, and turn it into an action flick with character work for two characters (some of which works, some of which is garbage), and you have Star Trek.

I have yet, two days later, to feel like I’ve seen a Star Trek film. I feel like I watched a summer movie, and an action movie, and an action movie with cool moving parts and a few moments of character, but it felt more like watching Transformers or Terminator than watching Nemesis or First Contact.

Nemesis is where I hoped the new movie would be, a movie where you can go, “Ah, flaws here, here, and here that suck, but a Trek film, for sure. Maybe they’ll get it as good as First Contact next time.”

And, as was pointed out to me, the movie blows so fast that you might miss little subtleties. But then, isn’t impression nine tenths of the law?

I sound negative, and that’s not what I want to come across as. But there are just a few things that make Star Trek Star Trek I felt were fundamentally missing in favor of things designed to (and that point of fact did) please most people.

I’ll go into more depth later.

But one thing I’ll say up front, putting a fucking Nokia ad product placement in the goddamned movie alone was almost enough to make me turn against Abrams. But there were a few good things. More on that later. Back to work.

May 11th, 2009 by Neal

HEED!

I am in LA, and will be so for another day, but I still have the internets, and thereby I got my google alerts, which revealed to me an AWESOME review by Steve Saunders at the WIRED blog.

Yeah! Wired!

R. A. D.

At any rate, he’s very, very kind, you should get over there and check it out!

May 7th, 2009 by Neal

I’m a little late to the party on this one, though I was there for the beginning of it. I just forgot I’d be on a plane and everything, so I hadn’t had a chance to post this yet.

My friends Eric Trautmann and Brandon Jerwa introduced me to Wide Awake in its initial stages, and since then I’ve eagerly awaited the culmination and where the comic would go. The concept (which I won’t spoil for you, you have to read the story) is an awesome one, and Amanda is a character I already want to knuckle into and visit with weekly.

I thought it’d be a regular comic book series, but Eric and Brandon are actually going in a novel direction, a direction that I want to experiment in myself, so I’m watching (and hoping) their project goes really, really well. I’m one of those guys that can read something on the internet or on the computer and enjoy it, as well as buy a regular copy, and I do believe it’s where we’re headed, kicking or screaming or not.

To that end, Wide Awake, their concept, is being developed as a weekly project, starting up soon, whereby you get six pages of story a week for free, and then, in a year, if you dig the story, they go from there, evolve it, transmute it, use a little alchemy and find a happy medium. It just sounds like an awesome concept, and if you can bookmark a webcomic every day (as I know most of you do), imagine a free comic every week. Warren Ellis succeeded in his attempt, and it’s my hope that Eric and Brandon will surpass his ingenuity and bring the world to its damned knees, becuase this is the kind of serialized storytelling I miss. I mean, just crack open the paper and read Garfield to see how low the weekly awesome has fallen.

We need more weekly awesome, and I think it’s here. Newsarama agrees.

But don’t take my word for it, just read it and see.

Get a cool wallpaper, here diminished by my smallor-izing and stealing of it, at the website:

And if you can’t do any of that, then please, any time you see someone misspell the name Trautmann or Jerwa, stab them in the face. That’s completely ancillary, of course. I just see they do the same thing with Eric’s name in print as they do with mine.

I am not Niel Baily. Nor is Eric a Trout-Man, from what I can ascertain. At least… I hope?

But even if he does have gills I am unaware of, these boys can write, so hit it up!