"The Best of The Horror Zine: The Early Years" Now Available!!!

Collecting all the best work from those of us who appeared in the earlier issues of the highly respected e-zine, this one is chockfull of not-so-yummy badness!

Click here to order.

TV SHOWS PEOPLE OBSESS OVER & WHAT I THINK OF THEM:

Thanks to social media, I get to watch people on a list named “Friends,” most of whom I’ve never met and likely never will, talk about the stuff they’re into on a sometimes second-by-second basis. As a result, I have noticed that even those people that pride themselves on being “different” and “weird” usually tend to be just as sheep-like in their tastes as the supposed mainstream they look down upon.  It’s been a rude awakening for me, especially considering how I’ve been forced to draw the sad conclusion that I have only a little more in common with them than I do with those who consider my interests bizarre or lacking in merit of one type of another.

So, most of the television shows these people are into get discussed and drooled over on a constant. Below is a list of some of those shows and how I feel about them:

Game of Thrones- It started out mildly interesting in its first season until one of the two only interesting characters got killed off. By season two, I realized I not only didn’t care what was happening, but what was happening was little more than exploitative melodrama.

The Walking Dead- As far as I’m concerned, there are two versions of this show: The brilliant and riveting six-episode first season led by Frank Darabont, and the slow descent into pointlessness, abject stupidity, and formulaic claptrap of the later seasons. Guess which one I liked?

Orange is the New Black- I actually heard a radio interview with the woman whose actual life story inspired this show, and her apparent cluelessness intrigued me. Sadly, after three or four episodes, I found myself bored, annoyed and not at all invested.

The Big Bang Theory- I’ve written so much about this geek culture minstrel show that at this point it almost feels self-indulgent. Bad writing, terrible actors with nearly zero comic timing and shoe-horned geek pop culture references make this show pure torture to try and sit through.

Castle- I used to like Nathan Fillion. And I don’t blame him for jumping at his own major ntwork series, but this one just happened to be a combination of every show I’ve ever hated. All the clichés are there, from the would-be witty dialogue, the clunky sexual innuendo, the candy-ass mysteries, the implausible inclusion of a character who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near police work (“The Mentalist,” anyone?) and a chemistry-free casting. So glad to see this one go.

Scandal- Shonda Rhimes excels at juvenile, tittering shows about the idea of sex from the perspective of middle school age children, so it’s no surprise that this ludicrous foray into silliness is equal parts unbelievable plots and screwing.

 

I know there are more but those are the main ones I’m constantly reading about. Next up, a list of show I like that everybody seems to hate~

 

Thoughts on the Orlando Massacre.

I could offer my observations and opinions on what happened in Orlando when  a murderer slaughtered fifty human beings at a nightclub and wounded at least fifty-three more in the name of  his twisted take on religion combined with homophobia taken to its worst extreme. But that would all be theoretical, despite the well-intentioned approach. Instead, I thought I'd repost something one of my bosses wrote because it's eloquent, well-written and, most importantly, it's based on the viewpoint of someone who can relate:

"About a month ago I was at Town Hall, as I am quite a bit because of the library, and I struck up a conversation with one of my favorites. I don't really remember how it came up but we started discussing some issues and she told me about her friend and her partner and their children who had basically been bullied out of a local Catholic school. I voiced my concern about being singled out and she asked me if I was really worried about such a thing. Yes! I am! I'm sure I will never hold John's hand in public, I get mad at him when we are in the car and he will put his arm around me when I'm driving. You just never know who's going to be looking. Who will pull up next to you? Is it going to be some nut job with a gun that's disgusted by the fag next to him? What happens if we are out some place and Madgirl is with us? What if she's subjected to harassment? What if something worse?
I saw something so repulsive today on someone's page that was an article about praying away the gay and choosing to live life as a straight person. I'm so utterly disgusted by the notion that anyone has the power to change such a thing. Equally disturbing was the Lieutenant Governor of Texas who tweeted after the news broke that "man reaps what they sow." As if some people partying and not bothering anyone else deserved to be gunned down.

There are days when I hear my good friend's voice in my head, I won't mention him, but he knows who he is.....he said to me "it must have been difficult all those years to be you...I'm sorry." He's a true man of God and I'm so thankful I have him as a friend.

I don't know what the answer is.....if there even is one. I know that posting on FB to pray for a group of people or a city isn't going to do it. I know that making new laws or stricter laws won't do it. There has to be a conscious change, a want to change and a desire to do the hard work to change before anything will happen. Every time something like this happens people say we need to have a conversation and it doesn't happen and then the next tragedy comes and goes and so on. There's always something new to distract us from the truth.....a new Kardashian is born, someone used a certain bathroom or a gorilla divides the nation.

I truly wish for peace and for people to respect one another, I just don't think we have it in us. We ARE choosing not to care about one another and the cycle will continue."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN OVERLOOKED POSITIVE REVIEW OF "FLOORBOARDS"

Every so often, my Blogger stats show me that an older post has been viewed, prompting me to click on it and see what I wrote. In this case, it was a post from August of 2014 when the Parsek Inc. anthology "Parch" was released. At the time, there was only one reader review, which was positive, but I wasn't mentioned in it. Now that I've taken a second look, I see another review that did mention me and it was also positive.

Click here for the  review.

Shane Black on Bowing to Fandom Pressure.

I've always admired Shane Black as a screenwriter ever since "Lethal Weapon" and "The Monster Squad," and recently I've come to admire him as a director as well. I was not one of those who felt some bizarre and entitled sense of betrayal because he dared alter a popular Marvel villain in the name of actual surprises and creativity.

So, in his honor as a  show of solidarity from a guy he's never heard of and certainly doesn't need as a supporter, I present the following Shane Black quote as something all creatives and supposed fans should abide by:

 “The minute you start to govern your creative impulses based on anticipation of someone else's response or their expectations then you're going to fail. "

 

 



Sometimes I envy cartoonists.

Cartoonists can make an important point in such a succinct and effective fashion. For example:

Always say What?

I don't know why The Horror Zine's Jeani Rector loves my short story "Always Say Treat" so much but with the impending arrival of their latest anthology, she will have published it three times.

"The Horror Zine: The Early Years" collects the "finest selections" from the four anthologies they have published so far and one of those included the short story mentioned above. It's a Halloween-themed, dystopian tale of a time when trick or treating youngsters have become so feared and so unstoppable that everyone spends Halloween locked inside, hoping they haven't been chosen to be this year's trick.

While my personal favorite story of the three I've had published with the Horror Zine is "Flame101" I consider "Always Say Treat" the first time I truly honed my ability to balance creepiness with social commentary. Or maybe it's just a really effective poop-inducing scare-a-thon. Regardless, I am honored to appear in an anthology that includes such luminaries as  Ramsey Campbell (who once compared this particular short story to something Bradbury might have written!) Bentley Little and Joe R. Lansdale.

I'll provide further info as details are provided to me~

Finding Myself in Too Many Places...

I'd never heard of the site "Booklikes," but I happened to find it and there I was in all my mock glory along with several books I have stories in as well as my second novel "Kaiju." My first novel, "Dreamers at Infinity's Core," isn't on the site for some odd reason, but I still feel well-represented on this professionally designed website.

Click here to see it what I'm talking about.

I just wish they hadn't included that damn Russian bride book by that OTHER Christopher Nadeau~

THE UPTIGHT BRITISH PRINCIPAL'S COMMENTS REGARDING POPULAR YOUNG ADULT NOVELS AREN'T ENTIRELY WRONG

Many of my Facebook friends and presumably many more in the so-called "genre community" have their knickers in a twist over the severely judgmental words of a severely uptight principal in the UK.

Graham Whiting, Principal at the Acorn School, posted a blog condemning such works as "Harry Potter," "The Hunger Games" and even Tolkien's seminal "Lord of the Rings" as mind-ruining garbage. It's all in defense of the wonderful children, of course, as he writes what I can only hope is a sentence laced with intentional irony, "Children are innocent and pure at the same time, and don’t need to be mistreated by cramming their imagination that lies deep within them, with inappropriate things."

Whiting defines "inappropriate things" as " mystical and frightening texts" that apparently are embodied by these popular series. One wonders what age group he means. According to their website, "The Acorn School is an independent, co-educational school which provides an invigorating, quality education for pupils from 7 to 18 years of age." Does Whiting believe teens are also too delicate and underprepared for these stories or is he specifically referring to single digit age children?

The principal appears to be espousing the by now tiresome assertion that there is no beauty in darkness and only positivity is worthwhile for the development of young minds. Okay, fine, but then he proceeds to advocate classic authors who wrote some of the most disturbing stories in English-speaking history. For every light-hearted Shakespearean romp, there's a horrible, violent tragedy.  Yet somehow Whiting finds the works of these more revered authors to be the opposite of, "un-sensitive books for young children!" (Exclamation point his)

Whiting sums up his point of view rather well with the following paragraph:

"I stand for the old-fashioned values of traditional literature, classical poetry, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Shakespearean plays, and the great writers who will still be read in future years by those children whose parents adopt a protective attitude towards ensuring that dark, demonic literature, carefully sprinkled with ideas of magic, of control and of ghostly and frightening stories that will cause the children who read them to seek for ever more sensational things to add to those they have already been exposed to."

One gets the impression Mr. Whiting is speaking from the perspective of a devout Christian. He is well within his rights to do so, as is he in declaring his disregard for fantastic literature aimed at young adult readers. By "fantastic" of course I mean "fantasy-oriented," not "super cool" the way people often use the word. However, while he does indeed make minor reference to a religious objection with veiled comments about the "devil in the text," he goes so much farther by literally blaming childhood mental illness on these types of stories:

"Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, and Terry Pratchett, to mention only a few of the modern world’s ‘must-haves’, contain deeply insensitive and addictive material which I am certain encourages difficult behaviour in children; yet they can be bought without a special licence, and can damage the sensitive subconscious brains of young children, many of whom may be added to the current statistics of mentally ill young children."

Wow! It's "Seduction of the Innocent" all over again.

To be blunt, Whiting comes off like an elitist, clueless individual with far too much time spent in an academic enclave where he has formed ideas about reality rather than experiencing it. He also unapologetically advocates for the stories he grew up reading and admits that by the age of thirty he felt as if he'd read all the books he needed to read in order to become a well-rounded individual. So, add pompous and self-important to any assessment of this gentleman. But as some readers of Ayn Rand have practically said in response to comments regarding their heroine as a person, sure she was an awful human being but was she wrong?

Well, she was but Whiting is a less definite matter. Yes he is ludicrously overblown in his conclusions but I cannot deny the kernels of truth contained within them. I have watched what Harry Potter fandom has done to a generation of impressionable young people and I must concede his point on an albeit lower level.

Since the Nineties, it does seem as if the generations most heavily influenced by whatever Young Adult Novel of the Moment is on their list of expected pop culture obsessions have become infantilized. Many of them refuse to read anything that is even remotely challenging and gods forbid they're asked to read mainstream fiction! Keep in mind this is coming from an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction. I'm not some sequestered, arrogant establishment tool. I'm a sympathetic fellow fan who still sees the validity in an otherwise melodramatic screed.

I work for two libraries in two very different communities, yet the majority of teen and JFic books I see going out and coming in are fantasy based. And while I vehemently disagree with Whiting that kids shouldn't be reading these things, there is definitely an over-abundance of them. Perhaps it's a backhanded way of getting kids to read in an increasingly digital world, and that's certainly a noble undertaking, but there is something to be said for experiencing a more tangible reality in print form. These are, after all, growing, questioning minds seeking meaning and answers in a confusing world. We're already seeing what safe places are doing to them, so is it necessarily a positive to provide them with fantasy world into which they can escape, complete with costume and insider jargon?

Where Whiting goes wrong in his reasoning is his enthusiastic willingness to condemn all forms of fantasy and tales of magic as detrimental to the minds of children. That's patently absurd. His obvious disdain for anything he didn't read by the time he was thirty, apparently a milestone age in his life, is laughable. And the outdated mentality that reading material he doesn't approve of contributes to mental illness is so far beyond reason as to be something that might have originated in one of those novels he looks down upon from his lofty perch.

If anything causes the brain damage he believes is caused by Harry Potter and other like stories, it's close-minded literary bigotry. It's already claimed one victim~



Sources:
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-jc-harry-potter-brain-damage-20160509-snap-story.html
http://www.theacornschool.com/news/the-imagination-of-the-child/

Opening Paragraph/Excerpt of a New Story

I don't post these often but since the opening sentence was actually spoken by my wife, thereby sparking off a torrent of ideas and images, I thought I'd share:

Nobody really thinks about what Forever means until it’s handed to them on an ice cold plate.  Until then, it’s merely an abstract concept, a lovely three-syllable word that fills the space between song lyrics and sounds like the ultimate commitment to love and togetherness.  But Forever has a much darker side, one that takes away those we love and keeps them away no matter how much we miss them or what we’re willing to do to bring them back.  And there’s a secret about Forever, one only a few of us know and even fewer of us share: Forever comes to a stop.

 

 

Good bad or indifferent, feel free to share your opinions!

(Name-calling, unless it's really funny, will not be permitted)

Not the Movies You Remember.

With the constant barrage of blockbuster films assaulting our senses these days, I have been thinking back to another blockbuster-filled decade and wondering how many of these current films will stand the test of time as poorly as so many of those. Will people still use words such as “awesome” to describe “Iron Man” or the “Lord of the Rings” films in ten or fifteen years? Here are ten films people considered to be pretty damn incredible at the time that have not aged well at all:

 

The Fugitive- When news of this Harrison Ford starring remake of the classic TV series dropped, I’ll admit to reacting bitterly. After all, I’d already started work on a script with Dennis Quaid in mind (A Harrison Ford type to my way of thinking) and it was a far more grounded treatment than what we got. At the time, the film seemed exciting and riveting, but age has revealed it to be overblown and suffering from a ludicrous third act reveal.

Speed- Okay, I hated this one from the outset, but even I thought it had some production level merits. Not anymore. It was yet another overwrought descent into laughable mediocrity, featuring Dennis Hopper is an embarrassingly awful scenery chewing performance and more clichéd dialogue on that stupid bus than one would find in a screenwriting class.

Demolition Man- What once seemed like a refreshingly humorous take on a tired genre now feels forced, loud and severely compromised. Stallone’s fish out of water is fine but Snipes’ overacting is painful to watch.

Forrest Gump- I’m pretty sure this movie makes everybody’s list of overrated schlock. What a cloying piece of sentimental rubbish. Hanks has never been worse and neither has Zemeckis.

Titanic- Bill Paxton once referred to this movie as a 3-hour “romance novel crap-a-thon” in an SNL skit. Whether he meant it or not, he was right. Frankly, at the risk of offending idiots, they’re the only ones who could possibly still think this historical bastardization that was obviously filmed on a soundstage was anything other than James Cameron’s massive ego run amok.

The Matrix- Oh, look. It’s Keanu Reeves again. Never mind the fact that he seems to have just recently learned to act. Nobody could have changed my opinion of this pretentious, over-the-top pile of drek.

Jurassic Park- I never understand what thrilled people about this lackluster, phoned-in excuse to introduce people to the next generation of CGI. The story was dull, the action was stagey, the acting was better than the material and the dinosaurs failed to impress. Looking at it now, the skeletal plot and dull resolution remind us that it really was an excuse to practice using new technology. Boys and their toys…

The Silence of the Lambs- If ever one needs an example of bad melodramatic Nineties acting and “Face/Off” isn’t available, look no further than this overrated glorification of serial killers. Anthony Hopkins, an actor I’ve always found rather iffy, chews scenery so hard I’m surprised he still has his teeth. Taking a character another actor infused with a quiet, subtle dread and turning it into a farcical mockery must be a talent. The less said about an apparently half-asleep Jodie Foster the better.

Braveheart- Mel Gibson is a very good director, despite his personal problems, but this is not the movie to showcase his talent. While his acting in the film is quite good (everyone’s is) the visuals are so textbook symbolic and silly the movie suffers from an overabundance of self-indulgence. If not for the admittedly kick-ass battle sequences, this woefully inaccurate portrayal with its cartoonishly evil English and virtuous Scots would be a complete waste.

Men in Black- Here’s an idea: Let’s take something people have been reporting seeing for decades in the most negative manner possible, and turn them into a pale reflection of the Ghostbusters.  Let’s make the aliens wacky and almost harmless and throw a bunch of one-liners at everybody. Oh, and let’s make sure the movie is plotless. The only saving grace for this movie is that by the third installment, all involved had apparently learned how to make an actual movie with a plot.