Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: April 2010
Fooling the muse
I’ve been researching an idea — yeah, research, that’s a good name for it. Sounds so much better than procrastination. I’m just tickled that my muse has found something to wake her from her long slumber, since I had begun to think that portion of my psyche had suffocated in mothballs. Still, researching ain’t the same as writing, and I don’t know how some writers spend a year or more at this, especially since they do it full time, while I dabble. Full time research? Blech.
One interesting wrinkle has presented itself. In the beginning, this idea had presented itself as an alternate history. The more I study the era, however, the more I see that reality is of more than sufficient interest, with an ample share of villains and heroes, and no shortage of background color. The only reason to pursue an alternate history is that the romantic in me wishes there had been a different outcome. But I could easily stay within the bounds of fact and still write a ripping good yarn.
Main trouble is, this history is new territory for me. Hence the research. And it’s not like I haven’t tried something new before — I finished that romance, after all.
And I shouldn’t let the fact that I’m neither black nor Native American slow me down. No sirree. Write the thing first, then worry about the screams of “How dare you!” I’ve already decided to make my protagonist a Jew (don’t ask me how a Jew will find his way onto a Florida sugar cane plantation — that’s a big part of the fun & surprise right there), so I won’t be completely lacking in credibility.
Just mostly.
D.
The cough
I can honestly say I am sick of dark chocolate.
What I wouldn’t do for a decent night’s sleep . . .
D.
Where you get your ideas . . .
Apropos of Dean’s discussion here, I thought this was interesting:
Harlan Ellison isn’t my favorite person, but he did have cause to be pissed, IMHO. I remember both Outer Limits episodes well, and the Bob Culp story (Demon With A Glass Hand) had more than a passing resemblance to the Terminator storyline. Plus they have a witnessed record of Cameron’s admission of plagiarism. Cameron got off easy and Ellison deserved a lot more than $65 – 70,000.
D.
What’s next with my movie-making career?
I must admit, it was fun relearning the Pinnacle Studio video editing software. Close to two years old, my magnum opus, while still up on YouTube, sadly lacks a soundtrack. I was unwise enough to give credits for the various sound clips I used, and that led to YouTube trashing my whole audio file. The video is still up but WTF? Like any of the jokes work without audio?
Which reminds me . . . if any of my Crescent City friends have the CD I made them and can send me a copy, let me know. I’d be grateful. I can’t seem to reconstruct the video from Pinnacle.
But what should I do next? I haven’t tried grabbing scenes of movie DVDs; if I can do that, then I can create my very own mash-ups. Having just suffered through Drag Me To Hell (we fast-forwarded through most of it, but our suffering was quite real nevertheless), I’m of a mind to create a movie trailer that makes Sam Raimi’s flick look like an unlikely gay rom-com featuring the relationship between the protagonist and the old gypsy lady. Yes, I know, it’s kinda been done before, but 32,447 Brokeback send-offs demonstrate that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing over and over again.
I’ve thought about filming “The Sights of Bakersfield”: Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace, the Fox building, the big “BAKERSFIELD” banner, and then cut after cut of drive-through burger joints, for which the town rivals Modesto. But as a fresh immigrant to Bako, I have to wonder . . . is it too soon to ridicule my new home?
D.
Cruel and unusual homework
I’m still busy hacking up what’s left of my remaining lung, but that doesn’t excuse duties to one’s offspring. So if Jake has to make a music video, we make a —
A what?
Yes indeed. For his Health class, he and his team were obliged to write, direct, perform, etc., a song about the dangers of cocaine.
Now my first idea was this: rip Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” from YouTube, and add on the following title screen:
“Cocaine”
Sung to the tune of Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine”
With special guest performer ERIC CLAPTON!
but Jake would have none of it. So his mother and I thought we would do something a la Romanek, i.e. just a series of disturbing images: a rotating pig’s head, for example, or since pig’s heads are hard to come by perhaps a pig snout. With powdered sugar in the nostrils, yeah, that’s it! Ken and Barbie drowning in a pile of powdered sugar, which subsequently catches fire and the two melt together all puddly and plasticky. Time lapse photography of an opossum being consumed by maggots, or something similar, like a McDonald’s Big Mac gnawed upon by a small child. *shiver*
Instead, Jake and three young women spent the better part of twelve hours acting and singing and editing while Karen and I served as technical support and food source (Popeye’s Chicken, since cannibalism was not an option). The end product is hands down OMG a camp masterpiece, complete with yogurt-and-barbecue sauce-fake-vomit, the cheesiest of seizures, the ripest of rhymes.
It is hopelessly square.
And it sure as hell better get an A+.
D.
Brilliance
I’m still feeling pretty sick, so this is all I got for ya.
But it’s a good one, don’t you think?
D.
Patricia
I’ve shown you the frog tank. It’s sufficiently “grown in” that we are ready to repopulate it with frogs. Sorry, no miniature hippos. Miniaturehippos.com was fresh out.
But I’m close to purchasing four Dendrobates tinctorius “Patricia”:
and I’ve already bought some Dendrobates leucomelas:
which ought to arrive some time next week.
Soon our household will yet again play host to the pitter patter of little feet. Really little feet.
D.