Confessions of a Pop Fan - Jamie S. Rich: June 2005

Thursday, June 30, 2005

SHINES THE LIES OF FINE ENLIGHTENED MINDS

July is here, and it's time for my new video picks for Trilogy Video. I've decided on a theme of Italian romance, which I've split into two distinct halves.

First is Michelangelo Antonioni's loose trilogy of disaffected lovers in a modern world of alienation. Yum!

* L'Avventura, starring Monica Vitti

* La Notte, starring Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni

* L'Eclisse, starring Monica Vitti and Alain Delon

I love Antonioni's detached style and his poetry of images. I look at him as a direct predecessor to Wong Kar-Wai.

The second half is more of a traditional, sappy romance duo. One is a classic, the other a tribute to that classic.

* Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck

* Only You, starring Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr.

Have you ever noticed that the main peril of modern travelling is making sure that you have all the chargers for the various devices we carry with us?

Current Soundtrack: Saint Etienne, Tales from Turnpike House

Current Mood: whatever

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

MY DEFECTIVE STAR, MY INELEGANT LOVE

I am currently smitten with Gene Tierney and her goofy overbite.

She's not the greatest actress in the world, but there is something luminous and charming about her. In political polls, she'd pass the someone-you'd-want-to-have-coffee-with test. Movies to check out: Night & the City, Leave Her to Heaven, Heaven Can Wait, and Laura, which has an excellent edition of A&E's "Biography" that explores her stellar career and her troubled later life (I have a bit of a phobia about losing my mind, and so I sympathize with her mental plight). On deck for viewing: The Ghost & Mrs. Muir and Advise & Consent.

Work Update: Two agent queries and five short story submissions prepared this week; did the rough draft of a comic book short story I am writing; tightened up reference markers in 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Received one short story rejection this week and one returned manuscript because the journal changed their reading period.

Current Soundtrack: A Perfect Circle, Mer de Noms

Current Mood: working

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Monday, June 27, 2005

LIKE APOLLO, LIKE APOLLO WE'LL FLY TO THE MOON

The all-new June edition of "Can You Picture That?" can be found at the Oni site. It's all about a cool comic book-related movie with a pretty blonde: The Stratosphere Girl.

Current Soundtrack: The Killers, "Somebody Told Me (King Unique Vocal Remix);" The Tears, "Apollo 13 (Glastonbury 2005)"

Current Mood: productive

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Friday, June 24, 2005

SHIPBUILDING

It's back to work. Well, to a degree. I have been working, just not posting about it as much. Some of it is just boring work. Like, how interesting is it to talk about the fact that I proofread and cleaned up the short stories "Send Me My Best Regrets" and "You Once Said That You Liked Happy Endings"? Or that I now spend most Mondays writing cover letters and printing out pages to send to magazines, agents, and publishers?

In other cases, it's just stuff I can't talk about. Like, I finished the first draft of the second 64-page volume of the graphic novel series that hasn't been announced, or that I outlined a short story for a comic book anthology that hasn't been announced. Or that the one graphic novel that has been announced took a major hit and we have to rethink what's going on, so the word is mum for now. There are plans for revelations at San Diego Comic Con, so after that, I'll at least be able to talk about the series thing, at least. Expect to see that announcement at comic book news sites between July 13 and 17.

But I guess I can say that today I went ahead and started the actual writing of novel #3, They Are All In Love (Have You Seen The Horizon Lately?) (I think I am leaning towards the second half of the title, but I am keeping it open). I thought I wasn't going to get very far when I started to get bogged down in research for Percy's home, but once I got that in mind, I managed to write about 1,800 words. I had written a prologue before, but I think I am going to fold that into the narrative and start in this different spot rather than begin with a flashback. (The Everlasting begins with a flash-forward.)

I hear some of you say, "But what about The Everlasting?" Don't worry, it's still a going concern. I'm still shopping it. I had one agent interested, and on his request, I did a major rewrite and trimmed about a quarter of it off--but then he never followed through so I am looking elsewhere. (I find in life that most people have no follow-through.) I had been needing to do the trim, so it wasn't all bad, and so I am sending around the shorter version. I don't see the point in halting all production in the meantime, though. Keep moving or die.

Current Soundtrack: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "The Line;" The Ordinary Boys, "Boys Will Be Boys" single (both CDs)

Current Mood: artistic

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Thursday, June 23, 2005

IF I HADN'T SEEN SUCH RICHES, I COULD LIVE WITH BEING POOR

It's with a strange irony that I move from my breathless rant of the last post to a mention of the film I watched this evening, Elia Kazan's 1963 epic America, America. Its place on my to-watch pile was a fortuitous coincidence, due back to the video store tomorrow. It seems to be a forgotten film, less heralded than much of Kazan's filmography, despite its personal meaning for the filmmaker. He wrote and directed it, as well as narrating, telling his audience in the opening that he is about to relate a story that happened in his own family.

It's sad that in this time of feverish, blind patriotism, our feeling of fervor for our country is expressed by Jessica Simpson in a stars-and-stripes bikini.

As appealing as Simpson's body might be, it only reminds us of why the United States was established in the most comical of reasons: "Here, boys, this is what you're fighting for." Or the sort of image we've presented to the world as some kind of rinky-dink reward for the American Dream. Perhaps this is what Kazan's hero, Stavros (Stathis Giallelis), would be searching for, along with apple pie and baseball.

Except Kazan's uncle wasn't that shallow, not as Kazan saw it. Yes, there was an attraction to the awesome skyline of New York City and the fancy clothes the men wore in the magazines that made it over the ocean, but they weren't really the thing Stavros was after. As a Greek citizen living under the thumb of Turkish rulers in the late 1800s, Stavros saw America as freedom, as a place to escape the persecution and poverty that dogged his family. If he could only get to Long Island, he could work and bring the rest of his clan over--and that's exactly what he did.

It's fitting that, except for a couple of final scenes in New York, the action takes place entirely in Greece and Turkey. It's all about the journey. By 1963, we all knew that the American Dream was not exactly as we dreamt it. In reality, Stavros was taken advantage of from the start, and he most likely encountered more poverty and prejudice--but this comedown didn't negate the struggles he went through to realize the image of America he saw in his head. It took him a lot to get here--at one point, he ticks off the ordeals he has endured, including being beaten, robbed, shot, and left for dead--and in that was the essence of the American Dream so many "native" Americans had (and have) lost sight of: it's the road you travel that matters, it's how you get up that hill. It doesn't matter where you come from, because everyone has a shot to get there.

There are many people living here today that would be good to be reminded of that so they might look back down the road and see where it was they've come from. All of our families immigrated at some point. (One can't help but chuckle and remember the irony of the Native Americans in Scorsese's Gangs of New York cursing all the foreigners mucking up the land they were born to.)

As an aside, there is an interesting speech that Stavros' father (Harry Davis) gives his son before he leaves home. In it, he notes the humiliations Stavros has seen him suffer in order to survive. He says he can endure them because he holds his honor inside, and no one can take that away. This image is later recalled when Stavros swallows his last six coins on the road to Constantinople rather than let an opportunistic travelling companion steal them like everything else. Then the words themselves return when an American millionaire tries to prevent Stavros from ever stepping off the boat onto U.S. soil. He questions the things Stavros has done to get there, and Stavros insists that the man who began the journey is still inside of him. It seems to me this could be a defensive note on Kazan's part. Having been marked with the stigma of ratting out some of his fellow filmmakers to Joe McCarthy and his goons on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, Kazan could be writing Stavros' defense of himself to be his own, the artist insisting that despite what he did, he still knew who he was.

Current Soundtrack: Audio discussion between critic Richard Corliss and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson on Heaven Can Wait DVD

Current Mood: contemplative

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

AMBITIOUS OUTSIDERS

"We're on your street, but
you don't see us
or, if you do
you smile and say Hello
BUT DON'T UNDERESTIMATE US"

A couple of essential links.

First, Russell Shorto has written an article for The New York Times on the movement against gay marriage that everyone has to read. "What's Their Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)" should turn anyone's stomach. I'm sorry, America, but most of our neighbors are disgusting, selfish people, and if you're on the fence about this issue, if this article doesn't get you off of the fence, then you should prepare yourself to be made OBSOLETE. Because we need your blind eyes even less than we need this hatred and stupidity. It's you that allows these people to think they have some kind of power.

Consider this choice paragraph: "I asked Laura Clark if her feelings about homosexuality had evolved over time. 'No,' she said, 'because basically I've been a Christian my whole adult life, and I've known that the Bible makes clear that it's wrong.' Her pastor [Brian Racer of the Open Door Bible Church], however, opened up in answer to the same question and told me that his early encounters with homosexuality had actually influenced his approach to the ministry. When he was 14, he said, his father worked as a route salesman for The Baltimore Sun, and he sometimes went with him on predawn deliveries. 'In West Baltimore, I saw transvestites for the first time,' he said. 'It creeped me out. I had been taught in Bible school that there is an extended level of depravity, and this was it.' Later, Racer was working for a greenhouse and got to know a lot of florists. 'You'd be amazed how many people in the floral industry are homosexuals,' he said. 'And that's where I became curious. How do you put it together, that they've chosen to do something that I have such an aversion to, yet I'm finding I can see them as real people? As a Christian, that was a welcome development. Around the same time, a close friend told me he was struggling because he was attracted to men. Over the next two years, I had two other people confide the same thing to me. For some reason, God was putting it in my path. I took a psychology course, and ever since I've seen it as part of my ministry to counsel these people. I tell them that is part of God's challenge to them, and those temptations have to be fought off with spiritual weapons.'"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this man has uncovered the queer cabal within the floral industry. When I die and go to Heaven, I'm going to ask St. Peter if Brian Racer is there, and if he says yes, then I will promptly turn around and walk to Hell.

And, no, I am not anti-Christian. Despite what Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.) thinks, most people with Democratic leanings are not out to destroy Christianity, we just want to live by the Constitution and have a nation where we're all free to choose for our own lives. Read more about it here, including a number to call if you're pissed, too. I called his office. I informed the aide who answered the phone of my background, and I asked them to pass along my disdain. Where do thse people get off? Like Karl Rove, as reported by AP: "'Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,' Rove said. 'Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.... Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.... No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.'"

Thanks, Karl. My suspicion that the main reason you're annoyed that some of us are asking that our country conduct itself with honor is that it might hurt your overstuffed bank account. Do any of the crumpled bills you deposit in the dead of night have the blood of soldiers on it? I imagine so. As it is, I wrote your boss today.

That's right, I went to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/, and I e-mailed President Bush and said:
"Given that Rove was one of the architects of your campaign, where you insisted that you wanted to unite this country and not divide it, and that he is currently still in your employ, I don’t understand how such an off-base distinction ends up serving your goals. He has no right to suggest that liberal voters care about our country and our soldiers any less than conservative voters; in fact, I would say that my desire to see the war in Iraq conducted properly and with as little bloodshed as possible suggests I care more. And to insist that the military treat its prisoners with dignity is to not only ensure that we maintain respect around the world, but it gives us the moral high ground to demand our troops be treated the same way.

Please ask Karl Rove to apologize to the millions of Americans he insulted today. He serves no one--not you, and not us--by so flagrantly touting such misguided ideas.

Thank you for your time, sir. I appreciate being able to share my thoughts with you."

Sidenote: It freaks my shit out that whenever I search I Was Someone Dead on Amazon, most of the results returned are anti-gay propaganda about the movement to ungay the gays. It's a bit scary to consider how the four words of my title cross over with that topic. Seriously. Try it.

"but Sorrow will come
to you in the end
and as sure as my words are pure
I praise the day that brings you pain
so don't close your eyes
don't close your eyes
a man who slits throats
has time on his hands
and I'm gonna get you"

GIRL MOST LIKELY TO

Finally, a nice link. I shouldn't muddy up Jennifer de Guzman's wonderful story at the Fortean Bureau website by including it with these scumbags, but when you want to cleanse your eyes from the abomination that is their opinions, give "Minx Mouse Monster" your attention. It'll inspire you to use the word "fabulous" (and "wonderful"), which will scare your heterosexual friends, but they have no fortitude anyway.

Current Soundtrack: Morrissey, Maladjusted; Suede, Coming Up live @ ICA (9/25/2003)

Current Mood: enraged

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

OH, HOW MY DARK STAR WILL RISE

Ron Thibodeau at Cellar Door Publishing has posted a right-on review of I Was Someone Dead: "Rich’s novel is brief, but engrossing. The way he introduces themes of perception and identity into his work was very well done, even causing the reader to think a little about not only the story, but also how it is told, and who is telling it." [NOTE: The review does give away some story details, though not much more than is already used in other promotion text.]

Amazon now has the book in stock, though oddly they only show one copy ordered through this blog as having shipped. If it's not you, I suggest you complain.

Current Soundtrack: The Ordinary Boys, "Boys Will Be Boys/The KKK Took My Baby Away" white vinyl 45; The Tears, "Because You're Worthless"

Current Mood: accomplished

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Saturday, June 18, 2005

THE GIRL THAT I KNEW SOMEWHERE

Has anyone else noticed that Noel Coward's Design for Living (made into a film by Ernst Lubitsch in 1933, starring Gary Cooper, screenplay by Ben Hecht: some pedigree!), is a light comedy precursor to Francois Truffaut's adaptation of Henri-Pierre Roche's Jules et Jim? Two artistic men (in Coward a playrite and painter, in Roche both writers) who are long-time friends have a beguiling woman come between them, inspiring them both to love and success. Of course, in the earlier version, things end well, everybody's happy. Which is to be expected for 1933.

Current Soundtrack: Gorillaz, Demon Days

Current Mood: relaxed

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Friday, June 17, 2005

WHAT ONCE BURNED SO BRIGHTLY IS ALL BUT SMOKE IN THE AIR

This has been one of the most up-and-down weeks of recent memory. Rejection, rejection, rejection, definitely, definitely maybe, maybe.

A friend who is doing my astrological chart says that early signs point to me being the uber-Gemini. In the Chinese zodiac, I was born in the Year of the Rat. I say if you combine those two in Breakfast At Tiffany's terms, I am both rat and super rat.

And what I'm really loving right now is:

The title makes it self-explanatory. Nine videos featuing the Tindersticks. The best are the big band version of "Rented Rooms," moving from black-and-white to Vegas techinicolor; the dual image melancholy of "Can Our Love..."; and the sweet romance of "Sometimes It Hurts." The director clearly understands the band and their understated image. All of the clips have great atmosphere and mesh well with the music. Great singles from a truly great band.

Current Soundtrack: The Clint Boon Experience w/Fran Healy, "Do What You Do (Earworm Song);" Tindersticks, "Sometimes It Hurts/My Autumn's Done Come;" The Concretes, "You Can't Hurry Love"

Current Mood: faye

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Thursday, June 16, 2005

SOME MAY SAY, "USUALLY IT'S NOTHING, SURELY YOU'RE HAPPY, IT SHOULD BE THIS WAY." I SAID "NO," AND THEN I...

I am told this is my Jesus year. You think He'd have stuck with his plan to get out before people got sick of Him if He knew they'd still be trotting Him out for flogging today? At least they set the speed of a long-playing record in his honor. 33 1/3.

For a present to myself, I am going to get a tattoo on the palm of my right hand. Just the word "CONTEMPT." And then when I shake people's hands, I will be conveying the exact emotion I have for them.

Blah.

Current Soundtrack: The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come

Current Mood: naughty

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

THAT'S THE WAY THE THUNDER RUMBLES...?

Monday nights at the video store, I work alone until closing. It's usually pretty okay, allowing for some quiet moments by myself; but it also means when someone is annoying or weird, you don't have anyone to bounce off of, or to even turn to and just give the, "Can you believe this shit?" look to. I have so far avoided really writing about my retail experience here, but for some reason, I can't stop laughing at this incident.

This past Monday was actually pretty busy, a bit of the summer traffic finally starting. With fifteen minutes to go until close, there were about ten people in the store, including one old guy who was a new customer. He was probably in his mid-'50s, gray hair and beard, and he seemed a little lost. His two interests were the Chinese section and the Gay/Lesbian section, both of which I directed him to with my best stewardess hand motions.

After I'd shuffled everyone else out, he remained. I could see him in the anti-theft mirrors, still over in China. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there is a loud crash. He has somehow knocked an entire shelf of video and DVD cases to the floor. I go over and try to help him pick them up, and he is being very nervous and weird, concerned about getting them back in the right order (which is why I am there). Part of his nervousness may be because he apparently had been over there farting up a storm. The whole aisle reeked of his man gas. I was choking on it.

As I fixed the shelf, he pointed out Lan Yu and noted that it was a gay-themed movie and he thought it should be in the gay section. I explained to him that in some cases, we classified gay-themed films in the larger sections, often because studios tend to indicate what genre they want the stuff racked in. He then pointed out The Iron Ladies in East Asian and said it, too, was gay-themed. Then he looked at me with a raised eyebrow and said, "But you probably know that."

Oh, my God! He was cruising me! At my place of work! I'm standing in his stink fixing the mess he made, and the guy is hitting on me. Was the disassembling of the shelf a ruse to lure me to Asia? Is he some kind of scat pervert, and his farts were bait to lure me into his musky bear-hug? What f the whole "Chinese and Gay section" request was a set-up? Is the word out that one of the boys at the store is into Asian movies and is infamous for disrupting gadar?

Even if he had a shot to begin with, he'd have been lost when he revealed himself to be some kind of control freak. Normally, we fill out your new customer information, but that agitated him and he kept pulling the card away from me to fill it out himself, despite not being able to understand what the different slots were for even when I explained it to him. But then, maybe I made him nervous, and it totally threw the old pooter off his rap.

I swear, I need to rethink how I present myself at the store if this is the sort of action I'm going to stir up. Seriously. I intimated to one flirty customer (another old guy) that I liked girls, and he said, "Come on. With that much product in your hair?" No more recommending Audrey Hepburn movies. No more telling guilty-looking women that, no, there is nothing to be ashamed of, I also like Sex & the City, I even own the DVDs. It's all Robert Mitchum and Sam Peckinpah from now on. Though, speaking of the latter, did you see Steve McQueen's tight jeans on the cover of Junior Bonner? (Heh-heh. Bonner.)

Current Soundtrack: Echo & the Bunnymen, Crystal Days: 1979-1999 disc 4

Current Mood: frustrated (about this and so much more)

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

Friday, June 10, 2005

DIG, IF YOU WILL, SOME PICTURES

...0f you and I engaged in a kiss?

This week has been all about the comic books. In addition to finishing up the first draft of volume II of a series I am developing, I also wrote an original five-page "romance" story for an Oni Press submissions stunt. Essentially, four different writers (or, in one case, a team: my pals Chynna Clugston & Ian Shaughnessy) will write short scripts focusing on specific genres that Oni specializes in: action adventure, romance, horror, and comedy. Artists interested in working for Oni can download any of the four and create a tryout sample. Then at the San Diego Comic Con International, they can have their tryout reviewed. There are also provisions for mailing the samples in. Full details are here, as well as the scripts themselves. Mine is called "Me & the Cat Own the Lease on the Flat." IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS CONTEST DO NOT E-MAIL ME OR POST ON MY BLOG; RATHER, FOLLOW THE LINK, READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE, AND THEN GO TO THE ONI PRESS MESSAGE BOARD.

This contest stemmed out of talks I was having with James Lucas Jones. The germ was that maybe we should send out the word I am looking for a collaborator, but I balked at my own suggestion because I didn't want to add to my commitments at the convention. It's been a decade since I was able to attend the show and not be tied to a table full-time, and I am looking forward to the freedom. The small suggestion was all James needed to get going, though, and he ran with it.

As a writer moonlighting as an editor, I always tried to be sympathetic to the plight of the writer in comics. It's always been tough for new writers to break in because it takes time to evaluate their work, whereas you can pretty much tell an artist's skill in about five seconds just by taking a glance at their pages. Writing requires reading. I am not a fan of the verbal pitch. It's pointless to me if you can talk a good game but can't put that material on paper. So, face-to-face meetings between writers and editors can only do so much.

But beyond that, a writer is always at the mercy of his collaborators. In prose, you are the be-all and end-all; in comics (or any visual medium), you need other people to come in and carry it through. This can be maddening for someone like me who has spent most of his life trying not to rely on anybody. In comics, you always have to rely on somebody, and since my cynical approach to life is often "People will fail you. Always," the wait game that comic book writers must play is enough to send me back screaming into the arms of prose. Naturally, there are many fruitful partnerships that work very well, and one hopes my future output will be a testament to that, but I remember even as a young reader, when Steve Rude's schedule was forcing him to stray from Nexus for the first time, I couldn't help thinking, "Man, Mike Baron is screwed! What if Rude leaves and insists the book stop?"

Obviously, I am not going to take a cowardly duck out of comic books, but if you're going to work in the field, these are things you must think about.

The whole concept of short stories in comics is one that has interested me for some time, as well, starting way back when I was editing Dark Horse Presents. I will quite harshly state that most comics professionals don't understand short stories, while also consoling them by telling them most modern prose writers don't either. The comics problem is that they tend to fall back on some kind of twist ending, which does not a story make. If the lead-in to the twist isn't any good, it's like a roof with no building. I blame my beloved Twilight Zone, because they did the twist so well, and the airwaves that broadcast this fantastic show have seemed to infect all genre fiction. People often miss, though, that Twilight Zone episodes gave a larger importance to the humanity of their situations, no matter how bizarre, and the stories were about human behavior, not about being weird. Producers of later bullshit versions of this show seemed to miss that memo, too.

In the literary world, the twist ending is replaced with the much more high-minded epiphany (note: I say that with a little bit of la-di-dah, self-reflexive sarcasm). The epiphany is where our main character discovers everything that is wrong with him, the crucial piece of information he is missing--and yes, that can be a twist, too. A lackluster short story usually comes about because the writer hasn't had that epiphany himself, he's just as clueless as his character.

Having worked on several comic book shorts in the recent past, what I've come to realize is that the main problem a writer has to overcome in this format is one of space and the technique of expression. Given that epiphanies are largely interior, even when motivated by some outside action, they are better suited to prose, where the writer can take a paragraph to explain exactly what his character is thinking. In my tryout story, I could say, "It was then that Brett realized that he was being selfish and unreasonable;" however, on a comic book page where there is no interior monologue, unless we want to rectify that with some heavy-handed captions, we have to choose what is said and what is shown on the character's face carefully, fingers crossed that it will convey the desired effect. And while it might be there on the script page, we must tangle our digits even tighter that the artist will recognize it. Verdict is still out on how this might be handled on "Me & the Cat...."

Current Soundtrack: The Tears, Here Come The Tears (great double meaning to that title, yes? referring to the band and to the act of crying!)

Current Mood: sore