Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods

Part 1 and Part 2, each about 3 hours long. Grab ‘em while they’re up, and have a happy new year!

http://www.thelogbook.com/earl/podcast/2008podcast-part1.mp3
http://www.thelogbook.com/earl/podcast/2008podcast-part2.mp3

Every year I compile a list of my favorite and least favorite things about that year, just for giggles, and for future perspective, just to get it on the record. This year, much to the chagrin of everyone reading this, shall be no different.

The Good

1. Fatherhood. This is kind of a no-brainer, but I’ve gotten so much joy out of it this year that it’s worth mentioning again. I’m a stay-at-home dad, so I’ve been here for the first steps, the emergence of “daddy” as the most frequently-spoken word (with “doggy” coming in a close second), and the emergence of real live smiles and laughter. I’ve also been here for the tantrums and crying fits, holding the little guy down at the doctor’s office and watching him get his shots, the inevitable cuts and scrapes, having to be a big meanie dishing out discipline, and the semi-frequent suggestions from certain family members that I’m a lazy bum who isn’t doing a damn thing. There are upsides and downsides to it, but as my son has grown from a helpless little thing who requires my assistance for the bare necessities of survival into a person of his own, it’s the good things that’ll stick with me for the rest of my life. And as for the folks who think I should be getting off my butt and “getting a real job” – this is a more exhausting, demanding job than anything you’ve ever punched a clock for. It’s 24/7. There’s no vacation time. There’s no one to fill in when I’m sick. There’s no way to say “Oh, man. I just don’t feel like changing dirty crappy diapers. Can someone else do this?” Go stand at the back of the line, take a new number, and call me when you have a real, valid criticism. Especially in light of…
2. PDF DVD: A-OK. When one shoots one’s nearly-20-year broadcasting career between the eyes and stays home with the baby, one doesn’t expect to be the breadwinner – except, of course, that the way that broadcast pays in this market, I was never the breadwinner anyway. At any rate, I didn’t even really expect to contribute financially. In late March of this year, I was invited to a video and computer game-related event in OKC at the end of April, and for some reason I got the wild notion that I was going to buckle down and finally finish the eternally-in-the-works Phosphor Dot Fossils DVD that I’d been working on in fits and starts since 2004. I was going to see if, oh, maybe a couple of dozen people would buy it, either at the show or on the internet. Imagine my surprise when a lot of people bought it. As rough as the edges are on that DVD, and as much as I could pick it apart or criticize it to bits, it actually brought in a healthy amount of money this year. At first it was fun money, and then my wife ran into major vehicle problems and suddenly it was bringing in decent money at a time when we would’ve bled to death on a single income. It fed Evan, bought diapers, and fed us too, numerous times. So much for that job I need to get off my butt and go get – with the way things have gone this year, this was probably a more surefire gig than anything else I could’ve been doing. Did it bring in as much as my old TV job used to? No. I’m not going to pretend it did. But it kept us afloat and it allowed me to stay home with my son, and provided a creative outlet at a time when I easily could’ve gone crazy from being stuck at home. I’m not gonna knock that. I’ll be lucky if the second one does nearly as well, but you know what? The equipment I use to make it is paid for. The only expense incurred is blank DVDs and the electric bill. There really isn’t much risk in trying, and in continuing to find new things to do along the same lines (I’m hoping to get not only a second Phosphor Dot Fossils DVD but also a book – though on a different topic – done in 2009). I’m as surprised as anyone that I was able to make a buck (and at a critical time too) with this combination of all my silly hobbies, but I’m pleased it came about. It’s very easy, when you’re staying at home with a chaotic creature like a toddler, who can make a mockery of any attempt to impose a schedule on your day, to begin to let structure and urgency slide. I used to have a job that was wall-to-wall deadlines…and now I don’t. Having a timetable of publishing projects, either DVD or print projects, with the intention of trying to meet that timetable, introducing a new project to take up the slack when the previous one has run its course, has brought a little bit of much-needed structure back to my world.
3. Obama-rama. Maybe this doesn’t really deserve to be in third place, because it is a big deal, but speaking as someone who watched Obama speak at the 2004 DNC and instantly wished that this charismatic, obviously intelligent fellow was running instead of Kerry, I really feel like the good guys won this round. I don’t think he’s a flawless panacaea to all of the nation’s problems, or the world’s problems. But Barack Obama has a participatory view of democracy that might lead to all of us being part of that remedy. That’s the kind of thinking that I think has been lost in recent years/decades as the American political dialogue has descended into polarized, party-based cults of personality (on both sides) and discussions that now resemble an unholy marriage of pre-programmed talking points and pro wrestling trash talk. I’m under no illusion that these things will all be fixed in four years’ time…but I do have a strong feeling that we’re about to be under the leadership of a man who understands that it’s not just his job and his alone to turn things around. It takes everyone. I know that not everyone is going to agree with me on this – the smear machine was out in full force and full ridiculous ugliness this time around, to the degree that I was honestly surprised that the election wasn’t much, much closer – but in fairness, let’s give the guy a chance. And let’s stop walking around on eggshells too: just because you’re not in agreement with the future President doesn’t make you a racist. If nothing else, the next four years will force that topic into the open for deeper analysis too…and that’s probably not a bad thing.

The Bad

1. Absent friends. I hate losing old friends, especially of the four-legged variety, and 2008 was an especially painful year for that. I’d been with Othello for a long time, so while losing him was a hammer blow to my gut, it wasn’t something that was absolutely impossible. Hannah, on the other hand…that just wasn’t meant to happen. She was too young in human or horse terms. Every time I go to the farm and she isn’t there, the back of my brain just screams this isn’t right. I can’t put it any more succinctly than that.
2. Obama-rama II. Wait, what? This is also in the bad category? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for the man. But I’ve lost buckets of respect for the tactics used by a great number of people to try to discredit him in ways that had nothing to do with his political platform, and we’re talking about quite a spectrum of folks – from friends of mine who I thought would damn well know better than to stoop to barely-veiled racism (and who damn well should know better than to try to justify it), to attention-whoring conservative radio talkers who are now acting like they’re running the underground resistance against some kind of takeover of the country. I will acknowledge this: the choosing of our next leader is important, but we need to drag this country’s level of political dialogue, kicking and screaming though it may be, back toward issues and away from bullet points and the kind of ad hominem attacks that would’ve gotten folks kicked off the debate squad when I was in high school. And even though it favored the candidate I wound up choosing, I was deeply disturbed that nearly every segment of the mass media seemed to choose sides this time around. Dear media: that’s not what you’re there for. Be a barometer of public opinion, by all means, but don’t attempt to be a political tastemaker. 2008 proved that political dialogue in this country is broken – badly broken. Now the question is – as it is with so many other current issues – are we going to collectively do something to fix it, or just sit back, watch the train wreck again in a couple of years, and fling poo at each other once more?

I consciously steered away from pop culture on my best/worst of list here; it just seems like 2008 was dealing with weightier stuff than that…and besides, there’s still the end-of-the-year podcast-o-rama thingie for that sort of stuff…though with the way my throat’s been lately, everyone’ll probably thing I’m trying to sound like House.

I also have to give a runner-up “good” mention to the discovery of Facebook. I’m reluctant to give this a berth on the list because I’m still a new convert to the book o’ the face, but I’m really enjoying it thus far; I’ve all but stopped going to Myspace. I explained it to someone else a few weeks ago this way: remember, in the late 90s heyday of pre-sued-out-of-existence Napster, how awesome it was to have this one central resource to go to where you were nearly sure to find anything you were looking for? To stretch an internet analogy to its snapping point, Facebook is to social networks what old-school Napster was to file-sharing: I’ve run into many more of my friends here, and many more people who either aren’t on Myspace or are unfindable on Myspace. Facebook doesn’t seem like it’s aimed at ADHD-addled tweens, whereas Myspace does come across that way sometimes. The goofy extra features like the virtual Star Wars figure trading app, Scrabble and D&D Tiny Adventures are kind of neat, especially when they work (I’ve gotten a few invites to things that just never seem to work for me), but even at their worst they’re not as annoying as, say, Myspace layouts drenched with virtual “bling” and busy backgrounds that completely obliterate any legible text that may or may not be on the screen. I’m hooked on the ‘book, and I’m not even remotely sheepish about it – in my situation, it’s a sanity-saving link to the outside world. And it’s just plain fun to see what old friends from school or several workplaces ago are up to, and to litter everyone’s status updates with godawful puns. Good times.

Here’s hoping everyone has a good 2009 despite all the dire predictions. Remember, by the time you’ve finished reading this sentence, the future has begun.

Ever since I moved into this house – heck, the very day that I started moving stuff into this house – my game room has been, for better or worse, probably the most thought-out-in-advance part of the place. Building on the game room I’d put together in our previous rental house, I wanted the game room to instantly say to anyone who walked in, “This is a place where classic video games are played.” But it’s time for a rather major rethink: now this is a place where classic video games are played, and where my little boy lives and plays. More »

Enjoy! (If you’re looking at it on Facebook – there’s a music player thingie you have to click through to see. Don’t worry, no spam.)

Miranda tagged me on Facebook to provide 25 random facts about myself, and if I’m to be totally honest, I’m struggling to come up with 25 even remotely interesting random facts at the moment that (A) couldn’t be gleaned from my bio page, and (2) don’t make me sound like a total loser (or more like one than I actually am). So you’ll have to forgive me if this meme dies on the vine. I was already working on a countdown-type thing for the end of the year, though, so I thought I’d try.

1. Chocolate + peanut butter = possibly the best taste in the known universe. In ice cream form, I call it sex on a spoon. Yum-o-rama.

2. I love a dimly lit room. My eyes aren’t any more super-sensitive to light than anyone else’s, but I do my best work (and I’m happiest) in a room that’s dimly lit, preferably with colored lights. Gobs of white light pouring down from overhead makes me…well…very tired.

3. I don’t “do” Halloween 99% of the time. That’ll probably change now that I have a kid, but generally I just don’t do Halloween – which is pretty surprising considering that I most definitely do April Fools’ Day. Some of my April Fools’ Day pranks are legend, and a few probably would’ve been legally actionable. If they’d ever made it on the air.

4. It’s probably best that I’m not working right now because I have a weird habit of duplicating my work gear at home…so I can mess around and do actual cool stuff on my own time! After working in radio in the late 80s/early 90s, I got myself a big mixing board and a second CD player at home. After working in TV for 14+ years, I got video editing gear at home. Actually, I suppose this is pretty sad if you think about it.

5. People mistakenly regard me as some kind of computer wiz. I’m really not. I was back in the pre-mouse days of typing everything in on an Apple II, but I’m not in the world of Windows. I can’t fix your computer or make it do things that computers just can’t do. These days, at best, I’m a “power user.”

6. I love godawful puns and cheesy jokes, and love delivering them badly (think of the Joel years of Mystery Science Theater 3000 – in person, I totally try to steal Joel’s delivery). To me, there’s more humor there than there is in trying really hard to do the comedian thing – and it takes more guts, because you’re kinda making yourself look like an idiot momentarily, and not everyone finds that funny (my wife, for instance).

7. I compose music, write lyrics, play keyboards (somewhat well), guitar (not so well) and drums (thank God you can’t really play those out of tune), and sing too (banned by the Geneva Convention for use as a torture device). One thing I cannot do, however, is read or write sheet music to save my life. I can play by ear, but sit me at a piano with music manuscript in front of me and I’m useless.

8. Somewhat related to #7 – when singing along to CDs/MP3s/minidiscs/whatever, I’m known for replaying a given song an annoying number of times just to try on different parts of the vocal harmony to see if I can find one that fits my (nails-on-a-chalkboard) range better. It’s a hoot on long car rides, trust me.

9. Famous/semi-famous/quasi-famous/not-that-famous-but-very-cool people I’ve met: the first man to walk in space (Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov), the founder of Atari (Nolan Bushnell) and an alarming number of ex-Atari programmers, most of the members of the classic ’70s lineup of ELO who happened not to be Jeff Lynne or Richard Tandy (because they were touring as ELO Part 2 at the time).

10. I do a lot of my internet/e-mail business on a small handheld computer with wi-fi, because it’s easier to keep up with the kiddo that way than sitting at a desktop machine all the time. Huge chunks of my web site were written while I was on the can. And no, you probably can’t tell which ones.

11. This one’s probably pretty pathetic, but what the heck: I still have virtually all of the Star Wars figures I had when I was a kid. Though I’m a bit less in love with Star Wars than I used to be, I still like collecting figures as time and funds permit (in the 90s, I was snapping up Star Trek characters; these days it’s Doctor Who). (Not sure how this will someday play out with regards to maintaining strict boundaries between my son’s toy collection and my own…)

12. I remember my second birthday vividly…mainly because I got the snot slapped out of me for not hushing up while grace was being said before dinner! There’s more to the story than that, but I won’t bore you with the details, – suffice to say, not everyone remembers their second birthday. Hopefully anyone who does has better reasons than I do!

13. Over 60% of my music collection is movie & TV soundtracks. Not the kind with “various artists” songs on them, but the kind with the background music. I’d love to do music for a movie or TV show someday; that way I could actually get some decent music out there without having to worry about anyone hearing me singing.

14. I’ve sustained quite a few horse-related injuries: a kick to the kneecap, a crushed foot, bruises and bites aplenty. Surprisingly, I only walk with a slight limp these days. I love horses, especially Arabians, and I’d never worked with one close-up until almost ten years ago.

15. Most people think winter is hot-cocoa-sipping time. Not me! Winter is ice cream time for me. My favorite winters ever were when I lived in Green Bay – gobs of snow and, what with it being the dairy state and all, gobs of ice cream. (When chocolate peanut butter ice cream was available, you better believe I put on gobs of weight.)

16. I’m a huge sci-fi fan, but I’ve never been to a convention. I’d like to go to one some day, but they generally don’t waste their time coming to my neck of the woods.

17. Before my son came along: I was terrified of being a father, and my wife wanted to be a mom. When we found out we were expecting: my wife was very worried, and I was so happy I could’ve exploded. I probably came closer to the exploding point when I found out it was a boy. I still don’t know who flipped the role-reversal switch there, but I suppose if I had to squeeze a critter out of my loins, I’d be a little bit apprehensive about it myself.

18. I haven’t done a radio or TV voice-over in at least two years now (I used to do them all the time); I still get brought up short when I hear my voice on a spot that must’ve been running for anywhere from 2 to 10 years.

19. I can’t sleep worth crap when bad weather’s coming in. I’ve been through more than my share of tornadoes (including the 1996 Fort Smith tornado, at ridiculously close range), so I’ve got a bit of a hyperactive sixth sense there. Someday this will probably come in handy when the kiddo goes through that initial scared-of-thunder-and-lightning phase.

20. I have a positively silly amount of music in my library with lyrics in languages that I don’t speak (Japanese, Chinese, German, Swahili), don’t speak fluently but can understand (Spanish, Maori), and some with languages that are just plain made-up.

21. I’ve been chased by an angry ostrich. In the past ten years. I wasn’t trying to invent the Joust LARP, I was just trying to feed it.

22. It’s probably a holdover from high school drama, or radio, or watching lots of TV from other countries, but I can pick up and imitate accents very well; I’m not going to say flawlessly, but well enough to not stick to insulting stereotypes. (I speak in a very accent-neutral voice most of the time, definitely a holdover from the radio days.)

23. I can’t watch commercials or news promos – I get way too critical of how they’re written and produced, because I used to make commercials and news promos myself. I have a hard time listening to radio for the same reason, especially since I started out in the days when saying “ass” on the air wasn’t cool, but was instead a one-way ticket to unemployment.

24. Always turn into a skid, not away from it. (Can you tell I’m struggling here?)

25. Ten years ago, I was Mr. Microwave. Nowadays I make up my own recipes out of thin air (some of them quite good, some of them…biologically inadvisable), and do 90% of the actual cooking in the house. Scary, eh?

So there you go – just what you wanted for Christmas, stuff you never wanted to know and would probably do anything to get out of your head right now. So there you go! As soon as I get a chance to figure out the Facebook tagging thing, I’ll tag some folks who might not be offended by being tagged for this kinda crap. Until then, feel free to spill your somewhat trivial guts too!

OMG. This just knocked any and all of the Star Wars or Star Trek ornaments off of my lust list for this year – thanks Hallmark!

I just wish I’d known about this earlier. :-/ Hopefully Santa was more “on the ball” than I was this year.

It’s two years today since a lot of stuff happened around here, but perhaps the best way to mark the occasion would be to celebrate Obi Day. Two years ago today, we adopted a fluffy little kitty guy who had been hanging out in our yard for about 48 hours or so. Unlike a lot of other stray kitties who had come and gone over the years, Oberon was laid back enough to pass muster with Othello…and of course, it didn’t take much for Olivia to decide he was a new friend. I’m going to hazard a guess that there are probably all of two months’ difference in Oberon and Olivia’s age. The rest litmus test, though, was always getting Othello’s approval. That was a rare and precious thing. Othello had readily accepted Olivia earlier that year, but she was a tiny kitten and it was pretty easy for him to establish dominance there; Oberon was bigger than Olivia and – more importantly – male, but Oberon never made an attempt to be the alpha male of the house. Even when challenged, he was laid back – he’d give ground. I’m sure that appealed to Othello in his old age. Obi had permission to stay. More »

Announced yesterday in the forums on Ellison Webderland:

Tomorrow, at about 8:30 AM, Susan and one of my attorneys, John Carmichael (he of the successful AOL lawsuit, & others), will go before a judge of the California Superior Court for a preliminary conference hearing on my litigation against Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, Sony, Paramount, STAR TREK, and about a dozen editors and apparatchiks thereto owing allegiance, in the first large step to making the gigantor ST franchise pay me what they owe me for using the elements of my CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER story and teleplay. In the offing, if they choose to continue to be arrogant and non-responsive, is a Federal Suit that will make it possible for ALL past Star Trek writers–such as, notably, David Gerrold–to seek substantial reparations for 40 years’ worth of pillage and greed by Paramount, et al.

Watch this space. I’m old, but not yet senile or frightened.

Harlan Ellison is one maddening little cranky-assed bastard. He’s capable of such brilliance, but what does he do to draw attention to himself? Nutball crap like this. I’m not saying this out of – as he frequently accuses anyone who disagrees with his stance – some kind of fealty to a particular studio, show, or what have you. My biggest beef with Harlan, as he whittles away what’s left of his career complaining about how many times and ways he’s been “wronged” by every other producer in Hollywood who hired and paid him to write stuff, is that for all of his complaints about artistic integrity…where’s Harlan’s integrity? Why the hell does he keep cashing the check if he feels this strongly about it? ‘Cause you know he’s getting some kind of residuals for this one episode of Star Trek he wrote in 1967. Maybe it isn’t as big a check as he’d like, and maybe he’s pissed that the story he created has been absorbed into the Trek legend overall and has inspired novels, comics and whatnot…but you know, most writers would probably wear that as a badge of honor.

It’s funny that he invokes David Gerrold’s name here: Gerrold’s not far behind him in the whole “still cashes the check and does the paid convention appearances while moaning about how mistreated he is” schtick. And invoking Gerrold may sink his whole case, because we’re just a few days away from the fan-film adaptation of Gerrold’s rejected TNG script hitting the ‘net – technically, violating Paramount’s copyright and leaving himself without a leg to stand on. I’m not sure I’d be grateful for Harlan dragging my name into the fray if I were Gerrold.

I’m all for the underdog, but this is just undistilled 100-proof stupid. Harlan could have a fantastic legacy as one of the definitive voices of 20th century fiction, except that he’s spent most of the latter half of his life pulling attention-whore stunts like this rather than creating more works of literary genius that he should be remembered for. I can already hear him saying that he’s forced to do this because the well’s run dry for him and he has to make a buck somehow.

If that’s the case, maybe he shouldn’t have spent decades bitching in public about how awful every studio or producer is who’s ever hired and paid him to write scripts – scripts that he’s frequently abandoned in mid-stream and left for others to rewrite because he disagreed with being asked or told to perform rewrites that would dilute his original vision. Never mind that, barring The Starlost or a few installments of anthology shows like The Outer Limits, these were always works-for-hire, based on someone else’s characters and situations, rather than wrongfully mangled installments of The Harlan Ellison Show. If he hadn’t spent a few decades making himself virtually unemployable as a scriptwriter, maybe he wouldn’t be in dire straits now.

Harlan Ellison’s a brilliant writer – I love his prose and even many of the TV projects that he feels turned out wrong, but I can’t stand this attention whoring routine he’s settled into, especially when it’s turned into a career of its own with books written on the subject. It’s because of his TV credits – TV credits which almost always read “written by Harlan Ellison,” despite his frequent habit of jumping ship (and, I feel compelled to say again, cashing the check) before the cameras even roll – that I’m even aware of his prose to begin with.

The man has had an extraordinary career and has had an extraordinary voice (I feel compelled to put that in the past tense for some reason). I’m awfully sorry he hasn’t gotten his way all along. That just puts him in the same boat as the rest of us.