Short And Sweet

Tags

award, Maidu, Modoc, Native Americans, The Burning Ground, The Modoc Well

Just got back from a super trip to New York City, my old hometown—though these days I go as a tourist. I made a great discovery there for those who find fascination with Native American culture, which I’ll detail in a future post. For now, in my jetlagged state I’m headed up to Anaheim today for the Rolling Stones concert. How could I not love a band whose members are older than me!

I did return home to a bit of cool news from the San Diego Book Awards Association. My Native American-themed ghost story, The Burning Ground, is a finalist for their 2013 award in the category of SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror. Needless to say, I am honored. The awards will be presented at a ceremony later in June. And no, I will not wear a tux.

And speaking of Native American-themed horror novels, The Modoc Well will be available for free Kindle download on Friday, May 17^th, and Saturday, May 18^th. Like the Maidu in The Burning Ground, the Modoc people roamed a broad area of northern California, though closer to the border of Oregon. I drew upon some of their mythology to create a rather nasty demon that, after being dormant for well over a century, has risen again to cause its share of havoc. Enjoy!

It’s No Mystery: This Movie Is Funny

Tags

Burt Reynolds, guilty pleasures, Hank Azaria, ice hockey, Mystery Alaska, New York Rangers, Russell Crowe, sports movies

In retrospect, I could have written about Mystery, Alaska as one of my many Guilty Pleasures. The thing is, I never thought of this outrageous 1999 comedy, with a cast of solid actors and a load of memorable lines, as a film that I had to feel guilty about throwing in the Blu-Ray player. Then, while doing some research, I discovered that it received a bunch of reviews ranging from “mixed” to “awful,” and that it bombed big-time at the box office. Who knew? But then again, who cared? I’ll be watching it once a year until the Writers’ Afterward summons.

I love feel-good sports movies in general, and this ice hockey story fits the bill. Russell Crowe plays John Biebe, sheriff of the eternally frozen Alaska town of Mystery, where the populace lives for its “Saturday Game,” a four-on-four pond hockey match, basically a public scrimmage. As one player, town stud Skank Marden says, “I play hockey and I fornicate, ’cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather.”

A mainstay in the game for many years, Biebe is about to be replaced by a talented high school kid, so decree the town fathers. As he deals with this, two major changes loom over the little isolated town. First, a big box chain is considering Mystery for one of its stores. When a representative comes to town and stops by the grocery store, he is shot in the foot by one of the hockey-playing clerks.

Sheriff Biebe contemplates his early retirement.

The sheriff asks the rep if he’s okay. His reply: “No, I’m not okay! Do I look okay? The fucker shot me! What the fuck-ass fuck of a bum-fuck shithole town is this? I make a business call. I give him my card. And the hick-ass fucker shoots my foot off! Cock-fucking shit!”

The second major change is the result of a Sports Illustrated article about Mystery’s hockey players, written by Charlie Danner (Hank Azaria), who left the town years earlier for the big time. Now he returns with a promise of a televised Christmas week hockey match between the town’s amateurs and the New York Rangers. He also still has the hots for Biebe’s girl-next-door wife, Donna (Mary McCormack), whom he dated in high school. Against opposition from the town’s most prominent citizen, Judge Burns (Burt Reynolds), the residents vote to allow the game.

So now things move forward in earnest as a real hockey rink is built for the game. The town even gets a Zamboni, the tractor-like conveyance that’s used to smooth out the ice between periods. The town’s mayor gives wholesome Donna the big news, and in what is arguably my favorite line in the film, she replies, “A Zamboni! I’m gettin’ wet just thinkin’ about it!”

Soon the media arrives in the form of a TV reporter. While interviewing Skank Marden outdoors she tells her cameraman to stop shooting; seems her fingers are frozen. The helpful Skank says, “You need to rub ’em on a nice, warm Yuletide log.” When she asks for clarification he says, “Look, Christmas is a lonely day for a guy to be chokin’ his own chicken. And as women reporters go, I find you supple.”

There are subplots, of course, as the story moves forward. Skank has an affair with the bored wife of Mystery’s mayor; for a short time the Rangers refuse to participate in the game; and we have a teen romance between Stevie, the town’s new star player, and the daughter of uptight Judge Burns. (Stevie is knocked unconscious at a practice and brought back with smelling salts, at which point he blurts out, “I’m a premature ejaculator!”)

But the game is the thing, and it finally gets off in all of its overhyped ESPN glory. Though not before the mayor conspires with Little Richard—yes, the Little Richard—to sing the American and Canadian national anthems in slow motion in order to literally freeze the Rangers, the game time temperature being below zero. Judge Burns has agreed to coach the team, and

The men of Mystery are totally into their match.

he reinstates Sheriff Biebe as a player. (The TV reporter roams the stands interviewing locals. She asks Biebe’s little boy if he sees his daddy out on the ice. He replies, “I have a toy pony. He takes big shits.”)

For the first period the men of Mystery stun their town, the Rangers, and even themselves with their brilliant play in this David vs. Goliath scenario. The thing is, there are three periods in a hockey game, and so…

Okay, no spoiler alert here, in case you’ve never seen the film and have been so inspired by this write-up. I will only say one thing: the ending won’t be what you would automatically assume. This two-hour comedy has its share of poignant moments to break up the raunchiness, which—for me—makes it even more fun to watch. Enjoy!

Myths And Legends: Kokopelli

Tags

fertility, flute player, indigenous people, Kokopelli, legends, myths, Native Americans, seducer, trickster

Writers who, like me, work in genres such as horror and fantasy often mine the rich folklore, myths, and legends of different countries, cultures, ethnic groups and so on to enrich our stories. I thought it might be fun to explore some of the individual entities drawn from these resources, and so I am introducing a new, occasional feature to this blog. And what better character to open this series with than Kokopelli, the “Casanova of the Cliff Dwellers”?

Perhaps the most recognizable symbol in all of Native America, and an icon for the indigenous people of the American Southwest, Kokopelli has been around for thousands of years. Also known as the Humpbacked Flute Player, Kokopelli is a Hopi fertility deity. He is also a trickster, a trader, a healer, a rainmaker, and a storyteller. On occasion he is depicted with a wife or consort named Kokopelli Mana, though she is far less known than her illustrious mate. His name might have been derived from the Zuni words for “god” (Koko) and “desert robber fly” (pelli). Regarding the latter, some of the earliest images of Kokopelli on cave paintings has him appearing more like an insect.

Some say that the hump on Kokopelli’s back is actually a bag in which he carries things, and there are many thoughts on what those contents might be. Perhaps seeds, or songs to accompany his flute playing, or healing medicine, or shells and beads. But first and foremost Kokopelli was a fertility god, and the legends say that he carried babies in his sack to distribute to all of the young women that he seduced. It is said that he would arrive in a village one night, and when he departed the next morning, every one of the village’s maidens would be left with a kid. I’m talking a serious stud here! To support this, many early pictographs showed Kokopelli with an enormous penis. You don’t see much of that anymore, because when the Spanish priests came here to Christianize the indigenous people they “persuaded” them to lose the phallus in the name of decency. Hmm, I wonder to what degree they carried that persuasion. (See my post, “California Genocide.”)

Knowing what I did about Kokopelli a few decades ago, I used his proclivity for seducing young women in part as a prototype for Montanni, the demon in my horror novel, The Modoc Well. Big difference: Kokopelli always left peacefully, with a big smile on his face, while Montanni—well, like I said, it’s a horror novel.

Other stories have his wife, Kokopelli Mana, chasing after the guys while hubby did his thing with the maidens. And another tale (I love this one!) has Kokopelli detaching his johnson and sending it downriver to get a head start on his activities with the young women who were bathing or washing clothes in the water. Something about that image is going to be stuck in my brain for a while, don’tcha know…

But mostly, Kokopelli is known for a lot of positive things, and his whimsical appearance and good nature accounts for him surviving through millennia as a mythical figure. He seems to bring out smiles in just about everyone that sees him. Maybe, we hope, some of his magical properties will rub off on us.

With an icon such as Kokopelli, good old American over-commercialism is a given. For many decades now his image has showed up on every product and service imaginable, and in all regions of the country. Here is an eye-opening exercise: Google “Kokopelli” and see what shows up on the first page. After an entry on Wikipedia, some images, and a wonderful website called Indigenous Peoples Literature we have Kokopelli Gifts, Kokopelli Western Jewelry, Kokopelli Boutique, Kokopelli Winery, Kokopelli Golf Course (a couple of those), and Kokopelli Art. Sigh…

Sure, a great many people have some item depicting Kokopelli, and there is nothing wrong with that. I have more than my share, as you can see. Next to Don Quixote, the “Casanova of the Cliff Dwellers” occupies many corners of our house. But while others may purchase a Kokopelli figurine or shirt because “he’s so cute,” I need to know the story behind the legend. That’s what we writers do; that’s who we are. So hopefully you’ll feel a bit more informed by this brief blog post version.

Writing Humor: It Doesn’t All Have To Be Funny

Tags

Bicycling Through Space and Time, emotion, Harry Chapin, humor, Operation Desert Storm, satire, science fiction, sword & sorcery, Writing

I’ve learned a lot in life through trial and error, or by accident. More specifically, this can be applied to writing. We could say, in paraphrasing a familiar adage: To err is divine.

Case in point: in the ’90s, after a long run of writing and publishing sword & sorcery, sword & planet, and adventure fantasy novels, I decided to write something funny—as much to entertain myself, but in truth, with the hope of a possible book deal. Being a serious bicyclist at the time a comedy-science fiction story, Bicycling Through Space and Time, with a character named Jack Miller (me) as the eternally wisecracking protagonist, seemed a natural.

I decided to write about half a dozen chapters and see if I could sell it as part of a proposal. So Jack meets an alien named the Old Guy in downtown San Diego (he’s the only one who can see the alien) and learns that an extra gear has been “installed” on his 21-speed mountain bike, a gear that will allow Jack access to other worlds, dimensions, the past and future, literature, and so on. By the end of six chapters Jack has visited a world of giant talking sea slugs that think he’s a gross-looking life form, and another where, incapacitated, he’s dumped into a cartful of animal manure by a strange little dude who plans on taking him to a witch in order to be cured. There’s a whole lot of silliness in those first fifty or so pages.

I wondered, maybe too much? So I changed gears (no pun intended) and wrote a chapter titled, “Cowboys and Indians,” in which Jack rides back in time, winds up in 1890s Austria, and encounters Adolf Hitler as a kid. No need to recap that here; check out my post, “Writing To Vent.” It proved a gut-wrenching chapter to write, but I did it, and it got added to the other six. I sent it off to the Berkley Publishing Group and went on to other things.

Sometime later I received THE CALL. An editor from Berkley loved the concept, thought the humor was outrageous, and wanted to publish the book. She then confided in me that the emotional Hitler chapter put it over the top for her and for others to whom she was accountable. Keep up that balance, she advised me, as I forge ahead.

Well, all I could say was, WHO KNEW? I went on to write other silliness in book one, including Jack meeting a gorgeous cat-woman named Hormona the Vulvan, a journey to a world called Areelkrokka, where he encounters a Darth Vader-like baddie named Atoris the Evil, a light-enshrouded being—possibly God himself—named Ralph Ralph, and a whole lot more. But toward the end of the book Jack rides into the Rock ’n Roll Afterward, a sort of career-specific heaven, where he meets one of his (my) idols, the late Harry Chapin. I’d mentioned Jack’s (my) late dad earlier, and the effect that Harry’s song, “Cat’s in the Cradle,” has had on his (my) life, so this was a natural. Another gut-wrenching chapter to write, and even though I finished up Jack’s travels on a world with pink Pepto Bismol pools and giant mushrooms shaped like Richard Nixon’s head, the balance was there.

Berkley came through with contracts for two sequels.

So now I did know. In the second book, The Ultimate Bike Path, I maintained that balance, including another emotional scene that took everything out of me while writing it. Jack bicycles into Doggie Afterward and meets his (my) German shepherd, Barney, who had died a while back. You can check that out in my post, “A Dog Story With A Ghostly Ending.” A solid break from goofiness such as Jack’s romp through a world of old horror and science fiction movies, his encounter with a Rastafarian rat riding in a bedpan on wheels, and so forth.

Then, humor became anger-driven satire in the third book, The 22^nd Gear. I began writing the book in early 1991, about the time Operation Desert Storm, aka the Gulf War, came to a head. As wartime images flashed on the TV screen I grew angrier by the day over the insanity of war, of humans killing humans for…what? Differences in ideology, desires for more land, WHATEVER. So I had Jack bicycle into a world where, as so informed by a “killer whale/iguana thing” named Jerome, the inhabitants of four countries, by name Yodonomoho, Doyomohono, Hoyomonodo, and Nohodoyomo, fight endless bloody battles with one another. These humanoid life forms are identical in every way, save for their color. I take plenty of shots at all of this madness before having Jack put an end to it by—sadly—showing them a force of destruction far greater than anything that they possessed. After that it was back to more craziness as Jack rides to adventures with Don Quixote (see my post, “Tilting At Windmills”), visits the Hell of the Jewish Mother, and much more.

Bottom line: we all like a good laugh—or two, or ten, or twenty, so if you’re writing humor, have a ball. But remember, balancing it out with some emotion can go a long way in rounding out your character(s). And in my case, it helped sell three books.

One final thought: this is a two-way street, so if you’re writing a serious novel—thriller, horror, whatever—don’t overlook the fact that humor is (hopefully for all of you) a natural part of our lives. Having evaluated a gazillion manuscripts I can assure you that many were deadly serious from page one till the end—and that isn’t realistic. I’m not talking a standup comedy routine, just something to occasionally lighten the somberness or intensity of your narrative.

Example: there are many tense scenes in my ghost story, Fire Dance, especially in the last few chapters. At one point my two main protagonists, Tracy and Mark, have been through a series of hellish experiences and, among other things, are exhausted. But their work is not over, for the many benign spirits who have been trapped for over a century in the ruins of a desert sanitarium have freed themselves and are overrunning the retirement town of Smoke Tree and scaring the crap out of the residents. Mark and Tracy gather up the spirits and lead them back into the desert. As the ghosts follow along and the worst appears to be over, Mark looks at Tracy and grins. She wonders, “What?” His reply: “Who ya gonna call?”

Lightening it up? I hope so.

RODRIGUEZ ROCKS! Last month I wrote about Sixto Rodriguez, the “forgotten” 1960s-’70s singer who now, in his seventies, has become a major rock star. (See my post, “Success For Sugar Man: Better Late Than Never.”) Last week Jacqueline and I went up to see him perform in Los Angeles. He needs some help getting out on stage, but once that guitar is put into his hands—awesome picking and singing! Overlooking the rude L.A. audience, we had a great time. And yeah, I got the tee-shirt.

SWORDS & SPECTERS: for the first time I’m making available for free Kindle download my sword & sorcery novel, The Quest of Tyron, sequel to The Sword of Tyron. Dates are Friday, April 26^th and Saturday, April 27^th. Enjoy!

Guilty Pleasures: Cat People

Tags

Cat People, erotic horror, John Heard, Malcolm McDowell, Nastassia Kinski, New Orleans, panther, werecat

You might feel a bit…well, sleazy watching this 1982 “erotic remake” of the 1942 movie that bore the same title but, understandably, had way less sex and violence. I suppose that would qualify it as a guilty pleasure. But even though it wasn’t a box office smash, Cat People is a dandy horror flick that garnered mostly positive reviews, including a great one from the late Roger Ebert. It also offered an award-winning, pulsating Giorgio Moroder score and a title song, “Putting Out Fire,” by none other than David Bowie. (I still own the old LP.) Watching it again recently after a lengthy hiatus made me wonder why I waited so long.

The film opens with a surrealistic dream setting from way back in time, where a number of black panthers sit in a tree. A primitive-looking young woman is being offered to the cats. A close-up of her face suddenly morphs into the bemused expression of a young woman named Irena (Nastassia Kinski) as she arrives at the New Orleans airport. She is met by her weird brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell at his creepy best), whom she hardly knows. They were separated many years ago as kids when their circus-performer parents killed themselves.

Paul takes her home, where she meets his housekeeper, Female (Feh-MA-lee), played by Ruby Dee. As they relive some old memories we sense that Paul is lusting after Irena, who is a virgin. When it gets too much for him, Paul splits.

That same night a prostitute enters a room at a no-tell motel to meet her john—who happens to be a panther. She is mauled, but survives. Three zoologists, Oliver (John Heard), his girlfriend Alice (Annette O’Toole), and Joe (Ed Begley, Jr.) tranquilize the cat and put it in the local zoo.

The next day, with her brother AWOL, Irena tours the Big Easy and winds up at the zoo, where (of course) she becomes fascinated by the panther and sits there for hours sketching it. When Oliver sees her there after closing time and approaches, she runs away and—surprising herself—leaps way the heck up in a tree. Oliver talks her down, befriends her, and offers her a job in the zoo gift shop.

During Irena’s first day on the job the panther tears Joe’s arm off (really gross scene), and he dies from blood loss. The panther (Paul; but you knew that) escapes, and when Irena goes home that evening, Paul shows up and wants to have sex with her. Their parents, he tells her, were also brother and sister, both of them Cat People, or werecats, products of an ancient heritage. They can only mate incestuously with each other, otherwise dire consequences will result.

Thinking her brother whacko Irena jumps out the window, lands (cat-like) on all fours and runs up the street, where she flags down a cop car. Paul, naturally, is gone when they go back to the house, but a police dog sniffs out an animal cage in the basement, replete with gnawed human body parts. This is where Female tends to Paul on his “bad hair” days. She refuses to talk and is arrested.

Oliver, who is falling for Irena, invites her to stay with him. She does, but tells him that they can’t have sex just yet. She is worried about what Paul told her, and she also finds herself doing weird things, like chasing after a rabbit on all fours and devouring it after Oliver takes her out to his bayou cabin.

Back in Oliver’s house days later, Panther Paul shows up. He has killed another woman (seriously gross scene) and knows that, in order to stop, he must mate with Irena, so he wants to kill Oliver to get him out of the picture. But Oliver and Alice kill the big cat, and later, when Oliver does an autopsy, he finds human parts inside (major gross scene). What remains of Paul then disintegrates.

Though few scenes from the 1942 version are duplicated, there is one that stands out in both versions. Irena and Alice, of course, have been jealous of each other from the get-go. Alice is out jogging one night and swears that someone is stalking her. She finishes at a gym and decides to take a swim in the pool. Hearing a growl while undressing, she jumps in the water. The lights go out, and she hears more growling. She screams. The lights go back on, and there stands Irena, who says something snarky and leaves. Alice finds her robe torn to shreds.

The smitten Oliver, disregarding Alice’s warning, finally has sex with Irena, who changes into a panther but flees before she can hurt him. Panther Irena is subsequently trapped on a bridge, but she escapes. Oliver heads for his bayou cabin, figuring that’s where she’ll go. He’s right—but she is Irena again, having killed an old caretaker. She first begs Oliver to kill her, but he refuses. Then, having had a “glimpse” of her feline ancestors, she accepts her destiny as a werecat and tells him that she wants to “be with her own.” He ties her down and again has sex with her. (Does this guy have a problem? Ya think?)

In the final scene Oliver is again at the zoo and apparently back in the good graces of Alice. He takes some raw meat to a cage containing (can you guess?) a black panther, where he proceeds to hand feed it and stroke its neck. End of story.

Yes, the 1982 version of Cat People is strange, atmospheric at times, and definitely erotic. Aficionado of the genre or not, you’ll find it a fascinating two hours of viewing time.

Finding The Time—And The Discipline—To Write

Tags

creativity, discipline, fear, passion, rejection, The Master of Boranga, word count, writer’s block, Writing

Having been a teacher, coach, editor—and, of course, a novelist—for the past couple of centuries, I have heard it all from wanna-be writers about how difficult it is to make themselves sit down and begin writing a book, which at the least should be 70,000 words in length. I can empathize with these folks, because that’s exactly how I started out. More on that shortly.

During the ’90s I taught a multi-week writing course at a community college. The fee being only a couple of bucks, I’d usually start out with anywhere from forty to seventy students. At first I thought, This many people are writing novels? Then, I learned that up to half of them had never put word one down on paper; they were just checking out what the process involved. For a couple dollars and a few hours, why not? So I’d start my lectures, and by the second or third week the class would be reduced by a third, a half, even more. This remained consistent through all the years that I taught at the school. Most people are just not prepared to make the commitment to write a book—and a big commitment that is.

Consider this: all of the great ideas in the world, all of the great storylines, all the desire, the ambition, and everything else won’t mean a freaking thing unless you actually sit down and start putting those words down on “paper.” This may be one of the hardest things to deal with, and not only for the wanna-be writer, but even for someone who has written for a while. (See my post on Writer’s Block.) The key word here is DISCIPLINE, and without a doubt it deserves our attention.

I related my own story in a different context once before, but it is logical to expand upon it here. I spent the first half of my life knowing that I was going to be a writer, even saying that I was a writer…and in all that time I hardly wrote a damn thing. Looking back now, I think a great deal of this had to do with FEAR. Most writers I know, me included, deal with buckets of fear—the fear of not being able to follow through and finish a full-length novel, the fear of ridicule, of rejection if and when the book does get done. It can paralyze you.

So for years I came up with every excuse I could to not start writing. “How can I write today? The goldfish died.” Or, “Can’t start tonight, there’s a great truck ’n tractor pull on the tube.” Or, “I was gonna start this weekend, but the surf’s up!” (Not valid for those living in Iowa or North Dakota.)

Yeah, there’s always a “next day” to get started. But my “next day” came for real in the late ’70s with a simple New Year’s resolution. No, it wasn’t, “This is the year I’m going to write something.” I had been there and done that, and it didn’t work. The resolution I made: “This is the year I’m going to get my first rejection slip.” That

                    My first rejection.

sounds negative, but consider this: in order to receive a rejection slip you must send something to somebody. And in order to do that, you first had to write it. So I wrote an awful suspense/ghost short story and sent it off to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Back it came with this little form rejection postcard. Success!!! That postcard still hangs over my desk.

With that barrier broken I wrote my first novel, an adventure fantasy story titled, The Master of Boranga, and I never looked back. Even with a long hiatus in my writing career for personal reasons I have written over thirty novels, with more to come.

WHAT ABOUT MAKING TIME TO WRITE?

Good question. It was easy for me back then—at least for a while—because I could do it full time. But before long I found myself racing toward the poverty line and had to get real, which meant getting a job. Still obligated to write a novel under contract with Zebra Books, I would go out to my portable office (a beat-up old Ford Pinto) in the parking lot and write during my lunch hour. Did that amount to anything? Since I kept an ongoing word count it was easy to check, and when I completed the book some months later I discovered that I had written over 30 percent of it during lunch. Does every hour matter? I think so.

I became interested back then in what kind of schedule successful authors kept, and here is some of what I learned. Stephen King wrote from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day of the year except Christmas, the Fourth of July, and his birthday. Judy Blume wrote for a couple of hours in the morning, the same in the afternoon, and then she read her output in the evening. Danielle Steel wrote eighteen-twenty hours a day until her book was done. (I once kept that kind of schedule.)

Through time and circumstance, their schedules might be different these days. I know that mine is. Now that I’m semi-retired and have more time, the schedule goes like this: I take a long walk in the morning and then start writing about mid-morning. Late in the afternoon, four, maybe five o’clock, the “creativity” button in the brain shuts off, and I stop. The usual output is 1,500 to 2,000 words. (You’re right: I’ve always written fast.)

But most of you don’t have all the time in the world, so why even get started, you may think. First off, having a job, a family, a life, does not deter the most dedicated writers. (See my post about passion, “Writers Are Amazing.”) I’ve worked with writers whose books have taken two years, three years, even longer to write. They never gave up, because of that passion.

Perhaps this formula will put it into perspective and get you started. At my peak I could write anywhere from 500 to 700 words an hour, and even recently, having slowed down most aspects of my life, I’m writing 400 to 500 words an hour. But let’s cut that way down for you. A standard, double-spaced manuscript page averages 250 words. ONE PAGE. If you found one hour a day to write one page, at the end of the week you’ll have written 1,750 words. In forty-two weeks, LESS THAN ONE YEAR, you will have completed the first draft of a 75,000-word manuscript.

Doable? Indeed. Just think about writing a novel in smaller increments. Happy writing!

SWORDS & SPECTERS: I mentioned my first novel, The Master of Boranga, which launched the Ro-lan adventure fantasy series. The third Ro-lan book, The Sorcerer of Mesharra, will be available for free Kindle download for two days, Friday, April 12^th and Saturday, April 13^th. Enjoy!

Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3

Tags

Antarctica, flying saucer, horror, James Arness, Kurt Russell, North Pole, paranoia, science fiction, The Thing

Nope, this post is not about characters created by Dr. Seuss. (I don’t even think there was a Thing 3.) It’s about three science fiction/horror movies that share a commonality of title, spread out over the unbelievable period of six decades. This is about—The Thing.

Well, at least the majority of people think that the three films, from 1951, 1982, and 2011, have the same title. But in truth the original bore the longer title of The Thing from Another World. The late James Arness, he of Gunsmoke fame, played the wayward creature from space, and forever after the movie was referred to as simply, The Thing. And if you want to get technical, the 1982 version was promoted as John Carpenter’s: The Thing. But really, who gives a rat’s butthole?

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

Thing 1 is based on a 1938 novella titled Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. The film is a classic, and still has the chops to creep viewers out with its subtle buildup of terror. Some of it can be attributed to the overdramatic weird music that accompanied so many 1950s films of this genre. The story takes place at a research station near the North Pole where a bunch of scientists, Air Force guys, and the requisite good-looking secretary make a startling discovery: a flying saucer buried in the ice, and a humanoid life form that apparently got out of the ship and was flash frozen nearby. They carve out a block of ice containing the humanoid and take it back to study. But the genius guarding it, creeped out by looking at the humanoid’s face, covers the ice with an electric blanket and falls asleep. Oh crap!

Yep, the ice thaws, and The Thing (Arness), brought back to life, escapes out a window into the snow, where it is attacked by sled dogs. It runs off into the night but leaves behind an arm, which excites the scientists no end. As they study it, the arm starts moving. Seems that the alien is a vegetable (a sort of giant carrot) and can reproduce itself—but it also needs blood to survive, as it later kills and bleeds one of the dogs.

Thus begins a familiar conflict: the scientists want to continue studying it, the military guys want to blow it out of its socks. The head scientist removes seed pods from the creature’s arm, incubates them with blood, and they start growing (at rapid speed) a bunch more of the little beasties. Other scientists guarding the greenhouse containing the plants are killed by The

 James Arness as The Thing.

Thing. (Off screen, of course; this was the 1950s.) It attacks again, but the military guys torch it, and it runs back into the snow.

Now all but the head scientist are convinced the creature has to die, especially after it sabotages the heating system and tries to freeze them out. They set up a trap to fry The Thing with electricity. The scientist tries to talk to the alien but is knocked out. After they coax it onto a grid they zap The Thing into oblivion.

The film ends in the manner of most science fiction and horror movies of the 1950s, with a warning. A reporter has been on hand throughout the ordeal, and now he’s on the radio talking to a pool of newsmen in Alaska. He says, “Tell the world. Tell this to everyone, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.”

THE THING (2011)

Wait, Mike…are you saying that this film is Thing 2? But it came out sixty years after the original, and twenty-nine years after John Carpenter’s 1982 version. So how can this be?

Well, easy. The 2011 version of The Thing is a prequel to the 1982 film, not a remake of either one. I didn’t realize this the first time I saw it, but recently I watched them in the proper order, and it made a lot more sense. To begin with, the setting of the 1982 film had been moved from the North Pole to Antarctica, so when the 2011 version opens with the subtitle, “Antarctica, 1982”…well, duh.

Sticking to the original story—more or less—a bunch of Norwegian scientists at a research station discover the space ship (buried for 100,000 years, they say) in the ice, along with the flash frozen life form. They take the latter back to the station, where a woman named Kate, a paleontologist brought there by Dr. Halvorson, the lead scientist, is prepared to study the alien’s body. But—surprise—it breaks free of the ice and bears no resemblance to James Arness. Instead, it looks exactly like The Thing in the 1982 version—spidery, buggy, crab-like, with tentacles and nasty teeth. It starts killing people immediately, and worse, it takes over people’s bodies. Naturally the scientists want to study it—all but Kate, who seems to be the only one there with a brain. These Things, plural, are now all over the place, and they constitute a threat to humankind. They need to be destroyed.

Unlike Thing 1, but pretty much like Thing 3, the driving plot point of Thing 2 is paranoia in an isolated, claustrophobic setting. With The Thing(s) replicating people, no one knows who’s who, and for good reason. As Kate and the unaffected people begin wasting the creatures, a pair of them meld into a two-headed monstrosity before their respective takeovers are completed. Kate fries this one with a flame thrower.

Spoiler alert: Ultimately, Kate takes out what appears to be the last of the creatures near the space ship, and since the research station is destroyed, she makes ready to drive a snow cat to a Russian station. She’s the only survivor, right? Wrong. As the credits start to roll we see a helicopter landing at the station. The pilot confronts Lars, a mechanic and dog handler at the station who had disappeared earlier. As they talk, an Alaskan malamute bursts out a window and races through the snow. This is—or was—Lars’s dog, but now he’s firing at it with a rifle. You can guess why. He forces the pilot to take him up, and he continues to fire at the dog from the air. End of story.

JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING (1982)

You’re right: the end of the 2011 film is the seamless opening scene in Thing 3. The helicopter follows the dog to an American research station, with Lars still shooting. It lands, and Lars, who speaks no English, keeps firing at the dog but hits one of the Americans. They kill him in self-defense, and the helicopter, along with its pilot, get fried when Lars drops a grenade that he was going to throw. The Americans take the dog in, and a whole lot of OH CRAP!! moments ensue.

Kurt Russell plays Mac, a hard-drinking helicopter pilot. Knowing that a Norwegian station is not far off, the station head sends Mac and a doctor to check it out. At the still-smoldering station they see a lot of the earlier carnage, scenes that we’re familiar with from Thing 2. This includes the two-headed monstrosity, which they take back for study. The “dog,” meanwhile, is put in with other dogs, and it soon transforms into the spidery, buggy monster and kills some of the other dogs. The men (there are no women in this version) fry it with a flame thrower. It’s dead—or so they think.

After visiting the (familiar-looking) crash site they begin putting two and two together and realize what they’re up against—especially when organisms begin taking over some of the men. The theme of paranoia in an isolated, claustrophobic setting is played out to the max, beginning with the head scientist, Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley) who not only trusts no one but also posits that if the organism reaches civilization, life on Earth as we know it will be no more. He goes off the deep end, even sabotaging the helicopter and the snow cats, and they lock him in a shed.

Meanwhile, as the paranoia appears justified and Mac keeps taking out infected guys, a storm hits the station. Power is

       Transformations are a bitch…

lost, as well as any hope of survival. Mac looks for Blair, who is now a Thing himself and has begun constructing a space ship to escape. Using dynamite, Mac destroys Blair and the ship—and just about everything else in and around the station. He then sits down with the only other apparent survivor—who may or may not be infected—to await his fate. End of story.

As a big fan of the old 1950s science fiction and horror movies, I enjoyed revisiting The Thing from Another World. I also got a hoot out of watching Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3 in the aforementioned order. Give it a try. And who knows? Maybe Thing 4 is on the horizon. I just don’t think that I have three more decades to wait.

Write What You Know…Or Not

Tags

In Her Shadow, narrative thrust, research, The Burning Ground, The Year of Durocher, Writing

Last year, in a post titled, “Writing Novels For Fun And…Fun?” I made the following observation:

When I made the commitment to start writing novels a long, long time ago I began by sticking to one of the basic tenets: Write what you know. I knew Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, Robert E. Howard, John Norman, Otis Adelbert Kline, among others, and my first thirteen published books (and a few unpublished) reflected this influence. Nothing wrong with that; it’s a good way to get started. (But so is writing what you DON’T know, and even writing what you WANT to know—potential topics for a future post, maybe.)

Indeed. As Egg Shen said in Big Trouble in Little China, it’s time to collect. The future is now, so let’s talk about writing what you know…or don’t know…or want to know.

Using my 2012 horror/ghost story, The Burning Ground, as a reference point, I’ll start by saying that I not only knew the genre, but I totally enjoyed it. I read Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Peter Straub, and other spinners of ghostly yarns for much of my life. So when I decided to write The Well, my first horror story, in the early ’80s it seemed a natural, as did the three subsequent novels: Demon Shadows, Fire Dance, and The Burning Ground.

But is just knowing the genre enough? No way, because there are so many more elements to a riveting novel, whatever its genre. In The Burning Ground I open the story during the California Gold Rush, and while I knew a little bit about that event, I didn’t know all that much, and in order to make scenes and settings believable I needed to do extensive research—which I loved doing, and which, I feel, brought the beginning of the story to life.

I did even more research on the Maidu, a small Native American tribe in the Sierra Nevada foothills whose numbers were violently decimated during the Gold Rush. How did this begin? Because I have always found it fascinating to learn about America’s indigenous people, so this began as something I wanted to know. What I subsequently learned about this tribe—their interaction with the whites who overran their land, their burial customs, their legends, etc.—fit in perfectly with the story that I wanted to tell.

Bottom line: writing what you know is a great starting point. But creating a story that will make readers want to turn the pages (I call that narrative thrust) requires so much more. And keep this in mind: if you’ve done your research well, then by the time your story is done you WILL know what you didn’t know or wanted to know at the start.

What I truly believe people mean when they say, “Don’t write what you don’t know” is, “Don’t write what you don’t want to read,” or even, “Don’t write what you think might sell.” I speak from first-hand experience about this. Years ago, when I was writing sword & sorcery, sword & planet, and adventure fantasy stories (all genres that I loved), I became frustrated at earning little money and decided to write what was selling: romance novels. At that point I’d never read one in my life, so I forced myself to read a few—forced—before starting out. What resulted in a few proposals was 100% unadulterated CRAP. I gave that up real quick.

IN HER SHADOW

When talking about writing what you know I offer one of my writers, dear friend August McLaughlin. Once an international runway model, August has written freely about her past battles with anorexia and other eating

August McLaughlin

disorders on her excellent blog. In her psychological thriller, In Her Shadow, the reality of her experiences is manifested in the demons that haunt her two main protagonists, both of whom suffer from debilitating eating disorders. While there is so much more to this powerful novel, it is this one element, drawn from something that August knows all too well, which makes it so memorable.

THE YEAR OF DUROCHER

My most recent writer to find success is Dr. Theodore Jacobs, a New York City psychiatrist. His novel, The Year of Durocher, published last month by International Psychoanalytic Books, is a coming-of-age story that I totally related to (no, not because I needed a shrink), as it involved growing up in NYC during the middle of the last century, lots of baseball and other sports references, a father-and-son relationship, and more. It became clear to me early on that Ted was writing what he knew, since I knew it pretty well too, so I recognized that he was spot on. And while Jonathan Manheim is Ted’s

Dr. Theodore Jacobs

Holden Caulfield in this romp through an era, it is a minor character—Jonathan’s best friend, Mel Schleifer—that is arguably my favorite. Mel, you see, is Jonathan’s guru, his maven, his amateur shrink, if you will. Hmm, I wonder from where Ted Jacobs drew that character…? Highly recommended—and a great example of writing what you know.

SWORDS & SPECTERS: two free Kindle downloads coming up. On Friday, March 29^th, it’s my sword & sorcery novel, The Sword of Tyron, and on Saturday, March 30^th, travel to another dimension in The Shrouded Walls of Kharith (Ro-lan: Book Two). Enjoy!

The Eyes Have It

Tags

Aliens, eyeballs, eyes, It Came from Outer Space, Ray Bradbury, science fiction, The Ultimate Bike Path

In addition to the serious coaching and editorial work that I do for my writers, I also engage in a lot of good-natured banter with them. Hey, why even bother if you can’t have fun! Some of our back-and-forth emails, both text and pictures, often border on the outrageous.

Recently I sent the picture on the left to one of my writers as an accompaniment to some smart-assed remark I’d made. She said that it seriously creeped her out—specifically, the EYES. Mission accomplished, I guess.

That got my warped brain thinking about an ancient 1953 science fiction movie with the creative title, It Came from Outer Space. You’d probably laugh if you watched it today, but back then this was high-tech stuff—in 3D, no less—especially when the “It”—a giant eyeball attached to a mass of goo or something—came out of the Arizona cave in which it hid and wound up out in the audience as creepy 1950s music played in the background. That eyeball made us little kids brown our shorts. Yeah I guess eyes can be weird.

The story on which the screenplay was based happened to be written by no less a luminary than Ray Bradbury, and it shows. In an era of paranoia, where all other alien invaders were coming here to take over the Earth and/or eat your brains, the eyeballs in this film only wanted to repair their spaceship and get outta Dodge as fast as possible. Sure, they needed to “borrow” a few townsfolk to bring them stuff, but their intentions did not include hurting anyone. A radical concept for the time—but that was Bradbury.

Thinking about this movie led me to recall something else. In last year’s post, Psycho Memories, I wrote about meeting Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, at a book-signing event. At the time the first book in my satirical science fiction trilogy, Bicycling Through Space and Time, was about to be published, and I had just finished writing the second book, The Ultimate Bike Path, due out the following year. In the latter my character, Jack Miller, rides his mountain bike into a world of old horror and science fiction movies. In one prolonged scene he meets Norman Bates, checks into the Bates Motel and even becomes the Janet Leigh character briefly. I told Bloch that I did this as an homage to what had long been my favorite movie, and he seemed quite pleased.

Soon after I received a note from him indicating legal repercussions if I used the scene, since he still retained the rights to Norman. My publisher, Berkley, told me not to worry about it but changed their tune after talking to his agent. The scene came out, and my editor told me to write another one—fast. Though pissed I said, “I can do that,” and I actually came up with two new scenes. In the first Jack meets The Mummy, Im-Ho-Tep—the old Boris Karloff version. The second? You guessed right: It Came from Outer Space.

I thought you might get a hoot out of the scene as written, so here it is. To set the stage: Jack is on his way to Castle Frankenstein to find his stolen bike and to rid himself of a curse. A storm is brewing, so he looks for shelter and spots a cave. Okay, with a PUN ALERT in place, here’s the scene:

I started running as the first raindrops fell. But at thirty yards I had to stop, because that was when this giant disembodied eyeball floated out of the cave.

“What are you doing here?” the giant disembodied eyeball asked in a feminine voice.

Hey, I knew what this was! Back in 1953 there was this great movie, It Came from Outer Space, scripted by, would you believe, Ray Bradbury. It was shown in 3D, so that when eyeballs and other creepy stuff came out of the screen, you wet your pants. Anyway, it was about these aliens who land in the Arizona desert because their spaceship needs a lube job or something, and once they get it fixed, they’re outta here. They have to make duplicates of local yokels from a nearby town to bring them stuff, which is about all the “bad” they do. This was in contrast to most of the 1950s sci-fi flicks, where the aliens always wanted to invade Earth and suck out our brains.

“Did you not understand me?” the giant disembodied eyeball said.

“Oh, sorry. I just wanted in out of the rain. Looks like a bad storm.”

“Yes, I know. We created it.”

“You did?”

“Uh-huh, to keep the local yokels away. We must repair our ship.” (See? I was right.) “But we can stop the storm until you reach your destination.”

“Oh, no, don’t do that!” I exclaimed.

She/it asked me why, and I told her/it. “That’s understandable. Very well, it will continue to storm all night, and in the morning you’ll be able to see Castle Frankenstein from here. Now, come inside.”

“Hey, thanks.”

I followed the giant disembodied eyeball out of what was now a downpour and into the cave. Two small disembodied eyeballs were puttering (or something) around a flying saucer.

“Attention, pupils,” the giant disembodied eyeball said, “we have a guest. Uh, what is your name?”

“Jack.”

“Yes, of course. I am Iris, and my pupils are Fovea and Retina.”

There were greetings all around, and then Fovea (I think) said, “We can see the problem with the ship, Boss.”

“Yes,” Retina agreed, “we’ve been eyeballing it for some time now.”

“It’s just that we weren’t able to see eye to eye on what was wrong,” Fovea added.

“”Don’t jest with me, pupils,” Iris said pissedly. “I’m in a vitreous humor tonight.”

“What a shame,” Retina mused, “since only a while ago you were in an aqueous humor.”

(Is all of this too cornea, or what?)

“Just keep working,” Iris ordered. “Jack, I must help my pupils now.”

“That’s fine, I’ll curl up in a corner and catch some Zs. Uh, unless you have something to eat.”

“Yes, we are well provisioned.”

Iris floated over a big box with a hinged top. I flipped it open. There were eight compartments, each containing live things with many legs or no legs that crawled or slithered or writhed or hopped or hissed or spewed slime or . . . eeeeyoooo!

I closed the box. “Guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

Iris went to work. I lay down, my stomach growling like Papa Bear after Mama Bear told him, “Not tonight, I just started my period,” and slept the sleep of the dead.

In the morning the giant disembodied eyeball, both small disembodied eyeballs, the box of creepy-crawlies, the flying saucer—and the cave—were all gone.

Yeah, I must agree with myself: that was pretty cornea. But I had a hell of a lot of fun writing the trilogy, and that’s what it’s all about.

Aging: A Few Musings

Tags

aging, Baby Boomers, Frequency, retirement, retirement communities

Let’s clarify one thing right up front: we are ALL aging, every day, every minute. Doesn’t matter whether you’re seventy-two, or forty-two, or twelve. It’s just that the older we get, the more aware of it we become—and, assuming we’ve gathered some wisdom during all of the preceding decades, we value every single day given to us.

When I was a kid the mantra of the era was, “Never trust anyone over thirty.” Indeed, back then people in their thirties already looked old, and acted old too. These days, men and women in their thirties are just figuring out what they want to do when they grow up, settling down, getting married, having kids of their own—two of my daughters fall into the latter category. And among the new mantras are: “Seventy is the new fifty,” “Sixty is the new forty,” and so on. I love those!

Six years ago Jacqueline and I downsized from our big San Diego house and moved into a fifty-five-plus retirement community north of the city called Ocean Hills Country Club. First off, it is almost an oxymoron to talk about a fifty-five-plus retirement community, since these days few people in their fifties, and even many in their sixties, can afford to retire—or want to. Second, I am always reluctant to say that I live in a “country club.” It just sounds so pretentious. Visions of Doral and Augusta, of gazillion-dollar homes along gleaming fairways come to mind. Sure, we have a golf course in the middle of a 1,600-home community, but these are average to small houses, and quite affordable to many. (I don’t even play golf; batting a little white ball around in the blazing sun is not my idea of a good time.) With 70 million Baby Boomers in the wings, places like this should thrive.

I had no trouble turning sixty some years ago, since I became the first male member on the Sirota family tree to make it out of his fifties. I’d always figured, no problem, since my genes all came from my mom’s side of the family, and they mostly lived into their late eighties and nineties. When my wonderful uncle, Ben Vann, passed away not long ago, he was

Uncle Ben (r) was nearly ninety when Jacqueline and I visited him and Aunt Pearl.

ninety-eight! But no, the heart issues that took my dad and brother in their fifties caught up with me a few years later and nearly sent me to the Writers’ Afterward. Bottom line: family history notwithstanding, there are no guarantees.

A MATTER OF SEMANTICS

Maybe this is vanity, or fear, or whatever. Being a writer I found it necessary to describe my age rather than just say what I was, especially after turning sixty. For example, at sixty and sixty-one I was “sixty-ish,” at sixty-two and sixty-three “in my early sixties.” The next three years after that found me in my “mid-sixties.” Then, last week, when I turned sixty-seven, I realized that I was “nearly seventy.” OH CRAP!!! So I’ve decided that, for one more year at least, I’m still in my “mid-sixties.” After that? Well, for a couple more years my “late sixties” will do just fine. I’ll deal with seventy when it happens, likely repeating the mantra over and over: “Seventy is the new fifty.”

Jacqueline and I, having been through our share of health challenges over the years, enjoy every single day we’re given. We also have our own mantra, paraphrased just slightly from Frequency, one of our favorite movies, and used often in our home: “WE’RE STILL HERE, CHIEF.”

SWORDS & SPECTERS: I revamped the website a bit, so check it out. My latest revision of an old title, The Quest of Tyron (sequel to The Sword of Tyron), is now available in trade paperback. Enjoy!