So our town has a local accident attorney whose radio ad jingle is him singing his name to the tune of "Shake that Laffy Taffy", and if I published a novel with that detail in it readers would find it unbelievable and cringe, but no, in the year of our Lorde 2024 I see this guy's face on billboards and buses everywhere, and every single day on our workplace radio I hear "Call Rafi Rafi, Call Rafi Rafi"

I feel like there's a bunch of people who believe current A.I. to be a fully sentient robot butler when in reality it's more like a leaderboard of randomly generated typewriter monkeys.

#it was the best of times it was the BLURST of times?

#you stupid monkey

Husk performing "Loser, Baby" gives off major Yakko Warner vibes, and no I won't elaborate

Return of Son of Bride of Dangerous Visions

If, like me, you're a fan of the 1960s "New Wave" of science fiction writing, you should know that (1) the famous boundary-pushing 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions has been re-released by Blackstone Publishing, (2) its 1972 follow-up Again, Dangerous Visions will be released this summer, and most impressively (3) the legendary unpublished third book The Last Dangerous Visions will finally be published in the autumn thanks to the efforts of J. Michael Stracyznski, the executor of the estate of Harlan Ellison. I haven't been this astonished and excited since Brian Wilson released SMiLE back when I was in high school in 2004.

Three Movie Pitch Ideas for If I Ever, for Some Reason, Guested on the Podcast Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe?

1. ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU is the easiest pitch in terms of fitting it into D&D's established Dark Universe: Moreau is from a public domain novel by H.G. Wells, the same author who created The Invisible Man; Gwen the righteous werewolf would be his ideal opponent as she leads the other beast-people to revolt against the white man in the plantation suit; and it gives me a chance to talk about one of my favorite movies of all time Island of Lost Souls (which isn't a Universal Studios movie but it does feature Bela Lugosi).

2. THE COMEDY HOMAGE. When I go to Letterboxd and filter all the Universal Studios movies I've ever rated, the only ones that truly speak to me are classic comedies from the thirties and forties. So instead of trying to make myself care about dinosaurs or time machines or John Hughes, I'd see about playing to my strengths and pitching a movie where a monster attacks a traveling circus, featuring a W.C. Fields-alike as the crafty and boozy ringleader, Olsen and Johnson analogues leading the clowns, a pesky woodpecker named Woody, and an obligatory appearance by D&D's Abbott and Costello updates (as played by Larry David and Pete Davidson).

3. THE JAWS SPOOF. This is the one least likely to make the cut: I'm not actually all that into shark attack movies, even upon acknowledging that the original Jaws is one of the best of its ilk. But I am endlessly fascinated by one particular piece of Hollywood trivia: that the original pitch for Jaws 3 was to make a National Lampoon spoof titled Jaws 3, People 0. The podcast episode would probably devolve into matching SNL alumni with shark-attack gags, but it could be worth it just to discuss the fact that National Lampoon's Jaws was a real idea once upon a time.

Tweety Bird is canonically male, but if anyone ever wrote Tweety as they/them I wouldn't bat a fucking eye.

"Caesar would have had no trouble surrounding himself with fat friends these days. You ate too, Brutus?

—Philip José Farmer, from Riders of the Purple Wage

"They taught me in school that puns are cheap and vulgar."

"What's good enough for Homer, Aristophanes, Rabelais, and Shakespeare is good enough for me."

—Philip José Farmer, from Riders of the Purple Wage

#rebloggingoldfacebookposts

Spoilers for the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series

Got in a shit mood today, so I ended up re-reading some Douglas Adams.

"To make yourself laugh and cheer yourself up?"

Quite the opposite actually; this is pure wallowing.

Book One: the entire planet Earth gets exploded in the first few chapters, and one of the last surviving Earthlings discovers the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything -- and finds it is completely contextless. Book Two: Arthur eats at a tourist attraction set up at the literal end of all matter, then time-warps back to ancient Earth only to discover that true Earthling hominids were destroyed by the most useless invasive aliens. Book Three: Arthur discovers that reincarnation is real, and that a being named Agrajag has created an entire Cathedral of Hate because Arthur keeps accidentally killing every one of his incarnations. Book Four: Arthur finds love on an alternate version of Earth, and then watches a fan-favorite character die while reading God's Final Message to His Creation: "We Apologise for the Inconvenience".

But Book Five is particularly on my mind today (which is perhaps not surprising; it's a particularly bleak entry in the series, and Adams has admitted that he wrote it during a particularly miserable year of his life). With barely any ceremony, Arthur's true love is completely blipped away in a hyperspace jump. Left completely tetherless, Arthur travels to a planet of philosophers and oracles only to end up with completely useless homilies such as "Buy a beach house" or "Do the opposite of what I do so you don't end up in a stinking hut answering strangers' questions." He then tries to find a humanoid population to blend in with, but the first planet he discovers is filled with people who experience absolutely no desires, no wants, no passions. Realizing this is not his idea of peace, his travelling becomes more erratic as he desperately tries to recreate the accident that took Fenchurch away from him. Instead, he ends up in a different kind of accident and crashlands on Lamuella.

On Lamuella, the fraud prophet the Great Thrashbarg declares that Arthur had been sent by the Almighty Bob (trying to cover the fact that the spaceship has caused great destruction to the area). With an entire planet deciding to revere him as literally sent from the heavens, what does Arthur do?

He makes sandwiches.

He becomes the Sandwich Maker, and for multiple paragraphs Douglas Adams describes the skill and expertise with which Arthur Dent creates the perfect sandwiches (using the meat from the local fauna known as Perfectly Normal Beasts), and just how HAPPY Arthur is. After five books of travelling to every place and every time in the entire galaxy, after five books of being constantly shat upon and shat out by Life, The Universe, and the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash, Arthur Dent finds happiness simply as a Sandwich Maker. Uptight Earthman Arthur Dent actually sings as he makes his sandwiches. He is truly happy.

For one

fucking

chapter.

And then the rest of Mostly Harmless unfolds as it must, with Arthur meeting two alternate versions of Trillian and discovering the pocket dimension where Elvis is living and finally having his final showdown with Agrajag at Stavromula Beta, and then a gigantic conspiracy leads to the destruction of all Earths in all timelines (along with all Guides everywhere all at once) being destroyed not with a bang but a whimper, and then Douglas Adams dies before he can write Book Six.

At least the cast of the original radio show reunited to give the saga a more satisfying ending.

What does all this amount to?

I'm not sure if it does.

I'm making myself a sandwich.

#rebloggingoldfacebookposts

The more I read screenwriting and fiction-writing books, the more I think that I just... don't like stories? And I don't like characters? And I might be more interested in jokes and music and style and aesthetic?

I think about my favorite novels that I would want to model my writing upon, and I don't think they're going to help me write in the enshrined beginning/middle/end format. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has a story that primarily amounts to "meet the next weirdo", and Alice as a character has few beliefs stronger than "grown-ups are kind of dicks". No part of Tristram Shandy adheres to a three-act structure. Flann O'Brien? Forget it. I suppose some of these stories can be said to build to an emotional climax rather than a logical one, but "spiraling into even louder absurdities" isn't exactly encouraged by Save the Cat or Robert McKee's Story. And it's surprising how many of my favorite movies end with either very rushed endings obviously tacked-on, or else are wrapped with nobody learning anything and a sharp cut to black.

Samuel Beckett. Need I say more.

It feels like everyone else is enjoying rollercoasters of emotion and empathy, and meanwhile I just want someone to wear a hat and stand in the most compositional corner while a distant piano track plays.

I'm at a point where I could throw out every mind-bending twist, every shocking betrayal, every swooning romance, all the character arcs and rising and falling actions and all else, and trade them all for some obscure poetry and a harlequin juggling in slow motion.

Which is not helping me write this novel about the gunslinger who can shapeshift into a dragon.

I'm three chapters into the original Dracula, and I'm distracted by how our vampire keeps mentioning completely normal and mundane UK cities, like one of the most iconic horror villains of all time and his reign of terror could start in fucking Durham.

Also he has stacks upon stacks of guidebooks, and it somehow led to me imagining Dracula as an accidental trainspotting anorak.

Doesn't help that I keep reading him with the voice of Nandor from What We Do in the Shadows. He even does the Nandor thing or referring to acquaintances by their full first and last name.

If you're a primary character in a classic Gothic story then you're either a ghost, a lunatic, or incestuous, look I don't make the rules

Idea for comedy sketch/short film/music video/YouTube:

Open on typical horror movie scene with masked slasher chasing final girl. But the killer is out of shape and can't keep up. The girl is even a little embarrassed as she awkwardly exits the scene, leaving the killer alone in the middle of nowhere, doubled over and exhausted.

As 80s pump-up music kicks in, the killer goes to the gym. He still wears the mask, but he is now in workout clothes complete with towel around neck and headband that comically goes around the outside of the mask. When he enters the gym, a roomful of beardy solid-stocky pro wrestler-types smile and wave at him, very welcoming. The killer waves cheerily back and then pulls the receptionist's head out of his duffel bag. The beefy men stop smiling.

The bulk of the video is a big showcase where majestic 80s hair metal Rocky Balboa training montage music plays, but instead of working out, the murderer is killing a room full of frantic screaming beardymen.

Meanwhile the girl from the beginning is walking up to the gym when she sees a beardyman running out, covered in blood. The killer exits the gym and looks in the girl's direction; the girl immediately takes off running. It's a direct reflection of the opening chase, but this time the killer is keeping pace, and getting closer, closer, closer--

Final punchline, the killer passes her up and goes straight for beardyman. The girl awkwardly excuses herself again. As the killer is about to deal a final blow, cheesy 80s freeze frame and fade.

Working title: STABKILLER 6, HOW STABKILLER GOT HIS GROOVE BACK

" ... and you´ve made me over... good as new."

Lucky Star (1929)

directed by Frank Borzage.

There's a Hollywood motto, "Three good scenes, no bad scenes", which is often attributed to classic Hollywood director Howard Hawks, but the earliest I can find that exact wording comes from Roger Ebert's review of Pulp Fiction. I did some rudimentary digging to search for proof of Hawks himself saying it, and the closest I found was this appearance at the Chicago Film Festival in 1970 (as printed in Sight & Sound magazine in 1971):

source:

"I've been thinking of getting into ska", David posted on his social media accounts in February 2024, and even at this early stage his friends detected a strange aura of menace and foreboding, the same way Victor Frankenstein's university colleagues felt when their friend first said "So I've been looking into this alchemy thing, yeah?"

If you take the lyrics "No time for losers, cos we are the champions" and replace them with "Nyaah nyaah nyah nyaah nyaah", you'll lose a lot of the grandeur and yet somehow still communicate the same message.