June 12, 2012: Before anything else, I just spotted this new review of my novel "Space Case" at Amazon ... And while I'm blushing -- and only in part because I'm sitting here in my underwear -- I felt YOU -- my loyal fans (such as you are) -- would enjoy hearing what an unprompted "Space Case" purchaser -- someone who actually shelled out money to read my drivel! -- what they had to say about this devilishly unique novel ...
""Space Case" by Jarret Liotta is funny, imaginative and refreshingly creative. I thoroughly enjoyed reading as this delightfully amusing adventure unfolded. Mr. Liotta draws a humorous picture of life here on earth and gives us a matter-of-fact, non-judgemental look at the natural dysfunction that is inherent in human nature. "Space Case" was a quick read that left a smile on my face."
Wow! Is that awesome?! ... And let's be honest, am I not awesome?! ... And while you're considering that, I'll again remind you to buy the f***ing book already, because you know deep in your heart that you ought to buy it, even if it means going without frogurt for a weekend ...
And everyone, even those with the shortest attention span, should really take a minute (and 20 seconds) to not only enjoy my clever, excruciatingly witty youtube promo video for Space Case, but you should -- and yes, here I am shoulding on you! -- forward it around to friends. For the love of god, people, get this ball rolling! You see, I don't have friends that I can forward to. I don't have that luxury! But you do ... So it becomes somehow criminal of you not to use all your powers to get this veritable zeppelin up and off the German runway, so to speak.
Now, next note of business -- I'm embarrassed, in my last Blah-ugh!, to have neglected two of the most important facets of Kolchak and The Night Stalker. 1) How could I forget to mention that the great Richard Matheson wrote the screenplays for the first two movies. This is important because Matheson, whom many of you will solely identify as the author of the startling "The Legend of Hell House," was the original Twilight Zone writer who crafted, among many other brilliant scripts, my very all-time favorite episode "Third From the Sun" (with the great Fritz Weaver and Edward Andrews) ... 2) I don't know how I could be so negligent as to write about The Night Stalker without fervently recognizing the incredible and rather groundbreaking music composed for the first picture, along with the theme, and especially that great whistling part that Kolchak whistles in the series ...
Okay, and since the past is on my mind, driving home today I noted a whole new selection of trees that had been brought down by CL&P and their Westport, CT, assigned assassins, which was depressing. I guess I naively thought my brilliant Blah-ugh! entry of several weeks ago, couple with the great Dan Woog's follow-up, would curb the pointless overkilling of trees that have the audacity to be growing within yards of power lines ... But alas, once again the population proves itself too stupid to listen to me, even though I (like Kolchak) am right again ...
Lastly, major kudos out to the Westport Public Library (and Marta Campbell & Bill Derry especially) -- not only because they were kind enough to host me Wednesday night in what may have been the surprise event of the season -- that is, it certainly surprised me, because I managed to get through an entire hour-long speaking engagement without having to use the bathroom -- but for so much more that they do (the library, I mean, in case you too had forgotten due to my ridiculously incoherent run-on sentence) ... (Has anyone figured out yet that, as a Blah-ugh! writer, I'm much too lazy to bother rereading my sentences as I write them?!) ...
Anyway, the point is that the library purchased "Death Wish 2" on my behalf, and I'm simply giddy about this. The people who work in the video section of the library are just an awesome collection, so to speak, and kind to a fault, as evidenced by how nice they are to me, which clearly demonstrates some mistake on their part. But beyond all that, I'm so magnificently pleased that my request was granted, and promptly, and they replaced a missing gem from their collection and brought a grand wave of joy upon this old and soulless soul. Hurrah! as they say in England. Westport Library is the shits! (as they say in L.A.)
So that's all for tonight, because, believe it or not, I want to put on another "Night Stalker" episode and let my harsh late-night dinner start digesting. It's going to be a sunny day tomorrow and this really makes me sad, because I like rain and the idea of rain ... My neighbor is pressuring me to cut my lawn, and this makes me hate them, but I have to realize that not everyone thinks the way I do, and that makes me hate everyone else ...
Summer is coming, and I hate summer, but it's good because it means fall will eventually come, even if it's after winter, which I like, but sometimes get suspicious of when it's trying to sneak its way past the other seasons ...
NEXT WEEK I'll hopefully be able to offer the quintessential review of "Death Wish 2."
Showing posts with label Westport Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Westport Library. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Sociopathic Corporate Madness is Making My Groin Hurt
June 3, 2012: Finally, I want to get to this issue of the Killer Bees, because tonight they're feeling like the perfect metaphor for the new Fear that's gripping me around the ankles, throat and genitals, and all simultaneously ... And wasn't it Anne Sexton who spoke of that "awful rowing toward god?" ... or perhaps that was Dan Woog, referencing those idiots on the Saugatuck River in Westport.
The point is, I'm drowning in the awful visions of corporate domination and one-percent control and private GOP armies and the like, and the Fear has me, like it did in the early '80s when Reagan first came to power and I was sure a nuclear strike was imminent, and that it would be hitting ME in particular ... It's like the Killer Bees, which were poised to attack when I was just a little lad, if you can imagine such a thing, me being all grown up and devilishly handsome and all, but at that time existing on pure Fear, adrenalin, and iced tea ...
But you see the question comes to mind for me: What the hell happened to the Killer Bees anyway?! I mean, I was told they were attacking. We all were! They were allegedly flying north from Mexico, as all dangerous things are wont to do. There were kitcsh TV movies about them, where dopey victims were stung repeatedly beyond recognition and the heroes outran them to the last, but not before stomping a few of the worse ones into pulp ... So where are they now?!
It's interesting, for I remember someone telling me -- some idiot in the never-ending series of idiots I've known -- that "the scientists" -- and that's what he said -- would merely meet the Bees at the border -- the Rio Grande River, I guess -- and they would spray them and solve the whole problem. Such a comforting image it still evokes -- a small group of Gary Larsen-type white-coated nerds shooting a few puffs of gas out over the water with one of those little metal pumping cannisters, and halting dead the rampaging cloud of gangland Bees in an instant ...
I guess that's what happened, because after the 70's I stopped hearing anything about Killer Bees ... Except, just three weeks ago I found a book at the library that's right now, at this very moment, sitting in the other room (probably overdue, actually), and there are probably additional answers there waiting to be realized ...
But you know what? I don't want to know them! I don't want to know anything, except that SPACE CASE is selling and you're going to buy a THIRD copy and will bring a harum of gorgeous women to my speaking engagement this Wednesday night at the Westport Library ... That's all I want to hear about! F*** the Killer Bees and Reagan and the crooked governors ...
But no, my stomach is being wrenched by the new knowledge of widespread corruption and union crushing and proletariat neutering and supreme court stacking and graft, and ongoing corporate malfeasance and chicanery and scum selling lies and scum telling lies and liars lying with straight-faced sociopathic integrity and old fools believing them and young fools as well ... Ouch! It makes my stomach hurt! Ouch! I AM Charlie Brown, you see, and my stomach always hurts ...
But wait! For now I'll quote Robert Plant, who bubbled so specifically in that lovely "The Song Remains the Same" movie rendition of "Stairway to Heaven," "But there's good news! Listen!" Yes! Why not?! Why not good news, for the Killer Bees are away from my radar after all, and all dead and buried at the bottom of the Rio Grande, for all I know ... and that's where one day soon we may find all these malfeasants and supplicating nitwits and schmucks and greedheads after all ... Aren't they just Killer Bees, really, on a demented rampage to keep alive and sting out at anything they THINK threatens them -- a fear-fueled frenzy of sociopathic stupidity ...
Even as we speak, there are probably focused, intelligent scientists in nerdy white lab coats who are developing vaccines for bullshit and marketed media manipulation and stupidity, and they'll be innoculating mankind before I know it ... And these lovely simply honest smart men (and women -- a few hot ones, with horn-rimmed glasses!) will be using their antiquated DDT puffer devises to soundly gas the bloodsucking parasites and heinous stinging bastards ...
They'll wait for them by the side of the River Styx, or some such river, and make it clear to them that they'll never be allowed in to heaven, which is probably here on earth after all ...
And heaven should be a place without sociopaths, Killer Bees or plastic surgery, and we'll all sit together by a quiet springtime stream and read aloud from the Bagvhad Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Space Case ...
The point is, I'm drowning in the awful visions of corporate domination and one-percent control and private GOP armies and the like, and the Fear has me, like it did in the early '80s when Reagan first came to power and I was sure a nuclear strike was imminent, and that it would be hitting ME in particular ... It's like the Killer Bees, which were poised to attack when I was just a little lad, if you can imagine such a thing, me being all grown up and devilishly handsome and all, but at that time existing on pure Fear, adrenalin, and iced tea ...
But you see the question comes to mind for me: What the hell happened to the Killer Bees anyway?! I mean, I was told they were attacking. We all were! They were allegedly flying north from Mexico, as all dangerous things are wont to do. There were kitcsh TV movies about them, where dopey victims were stung repeatedly beyond recognition and the heroes outran them to the last, but not before stomping a few of the worse ones into pulp ... So where are they now?!
It's interesting, for I remember someone telling me -- some idiot in the never-ending series of idiots I've known -- that "the scientists" -- and that's what he said -- would merely meet the Bees at the border -- the Rio Grande River, I guess -- and they would spray them and solve the whole problem. Such a comforting image it still evokes -- a small group of Gary Larsen-type white-coated nerds shooting a few puffs of gas out over the water with one of those little metal pumping cannisters, and halting dead the rampaging cloud of gangland Bees in an instant ...
I guess that's what happened, because after the 70's I stopped hearing anything about Killer Bees ... Except, just three weeks ago I found a book at the library that's right now, at this very moment, sitting in the other room (probably overdue, actually), and there are probably additional answers there waiting to be realized ...
But you know what? I don't want to know them! I don't want to know anything, except that SPACE CASE is selling and you're going to buy a THIRD copy and will bring a harum of gorgeous women to my speaking engagement this Wednesday night at the Westport Library ... That's all I want to hear about! F*** the Killer Bees and Reagan and the crooked governors ...
But no, my stomach is being wrenched by the new knowledge of widespread corruption and union crushing and proletariat neutering and supreme court stacking and graft, and ongoing corporate malfeasance and chicanery and scum selling lies and scum telling lies and liars lying with straight-faced sociopathic integrity and old fools believing them and young fools as well ... Ouch! It makes my stomach hurt! Ouch! I AM Charlie Brown, you see, and my stomach always hurts ...
But wait! For now I'll quote Robert Plant, who bubbled so specifically in that lovely "The Song Remains the Same" movie rendition of "Stairway to Heaven," "But there's good news! Listen!" Yes! Why not?! Why not good news, for the Killer Bees are away from my radar after all, and all dead and buried at the bottom of the Rio Grande, for all I know ... and that's where one day soon we may find all these malfeasants and supplicating nitwits and schmucks and greedheads after all ... Aren't they just Killer Bees, really, on a demented rampage to keep alive and sting out at anything they THINK threatens them -- a fear-fueled frenzy of sociopathic stupidity ...
Even as we speak, there are probably focused, intelligent scientists in nerdy white lab coats who are developing vaccines for bullshit and marketed media manipulation and stupidity, and they'll be innoculating mankind before I know it ... And these lovely simply honest smart men (and women -- a few hot ones, with horn-rimmed glasses!) will be using their antiquated DDT puffer devises to soundly gas the bloodsucking parasites and heinous stinging bastards ...
They'll wait for them by the side of the River Styx, or some such river, and make it clear to them that they'll never be allowed in to heaven, which is probably here on earth after all ...
And heaven should be a place without sociopaths, Killer Bees or plastic surgery, and we'll all sit together by a quiet springtime stream and read aloud from the Bagvhad Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Space Case ...
Sunday, May 20, 2012
The Brady Bunch & Me (and You ... and SPACE CASE)
May 20, 2012: Where do I begin? I'm acutely aware that my film and entertainment-related posts are clearly the most popular, so going forward I've decided to make every effort to please you. (Yes, I know -- it's so unlike me!) Toward that end, I was finally going to offer the second part of the popular "Very Brady" analysis, which you were promised three years ago. (The fact that I'm finally following through demonstrates something, but I'm not entirely sure what ... especially since, by the time this Blah-ugh! entry is over, I may not have even followed through after all ...) For you see, as Marcia Brady was so famously taught to say by Greg in that brilliant episode where she finally gets the date with quarterback Doug Simpson (Big Man on Campus), and therefore has to break her lame date with nebish Charlie, son of the wallpaper guy, who stupidly ties his smelly shoe to the bench and falls over ... "Something suddenly came up!" (or as Marcia says it, "seddinly")
And what came up was my dinner, although not literally. Actually, I am sitting here in my utter fatness at 10:45, so totally enamored with the meal I just ate, that I can't bring myself to focus on the subtleties of Brady trivia and life lessons, for I just can't stop thinking about what a miraculous meal it was ...
Now, if I were to detail what I ate, you'd probably find it a disappointing reason for my elation. And yet, as I sit here reviewing each bite in my gluttonous mind's eye, the perfection was only partially in the ingredients, and moreso in the very timing and overall coming-together of the meal.
Which brings me to share a little-known fact about myself -- little known and probably even less cared about, but these are the pedantic study thoughts writers have and we write them down because we HAVE to ... In short, I employ a kind of symmetrical system in eating my meals. That is, I somehow manage to eat my meals in such a way -- and my god, I do this EVERY TIME, and without conscious effort -- so that by the time they're just about finished, I always have one last little bite of each item on my plate.
In fact, it's actually a kind of remarkable skill, really, and highlights my spatial intelligence, because I always work it out in the waning minutes of my meal without fail. And even halfway before I'm through, my higher space brain has me taking just the right-size bites to keep everything in some kind of weird balance on my plate, so that the last few rounds of fork-fulls will be even ...
I don't think I've ever recounted any of my grosser obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but they're there, and have certainly been flagrant in the past. But how I ended up with this specific habit of eating, I'll never know. I remember having a related discussion with a friend many years ago, which I think was brought up because he ate (and completed eating) each item on his plate before starting the next (and of course I pointed out that this was wrong) ...
Anyway, it was a great meal, and probably made better by the classic Brady episode I watched while consuming -- "Confessions, Confessions," where Peter breaks mom's favorite vase and the others try to cover it up for him so he can still go on his camping trip. "Mom's favorite vase," Greg moans softly. And Bobby, "She always says, 'Don't play ball in the house.'" (One of the things that made that show great was that they pronounced vase with a long A, and "aunt" as "ant," the way it's supposed to be pronounced by normal Americans.
Yes, there are so many Brady-related items I need to go further into. I don't think I ever even touched on the urban legend of Eve Plumb becoming a porn star, the removal of Maureen McCormick's moles, or the fact that you can see the wire when the wall nearly falls on that little girl in Driscoll's toy store ...
But I've also got SPACE CASE news to report, and lots of it. For starters, my June 6 Westport Library appearance is deucedly imminent, and thanks to kind, talented, brave writers like the great Joe Meyers -- always my favorite critic because he often shares my sensible good taste, AND he liked my first movie, or at least pretended to like it in a very sincere way -- publicity will be forthcoming in the CT Post, or maybe the Stamford Advocate ... News-Times? -- I'm hoping the whole gang, as they now appear to all be under the same yoke. (I don't even know when that happened, but, really, I don't even want to know!) Joe is a legendary good man, and it was an honor being interviewed by him (and now let's see if I keep this nauseating praise up here AFTER he publishes the article!) ...
The point is, SPACE CASE is growing, like a fungus, and if you haven't read it yet, you're a shitheel and no friend of mine! But I'm only saying that to encourage you to buy a copy, because not everyone has a Kindle or a Nook ... and so the really, REALLY great news is that Amazon is now offering -- Yes, I can HARDLY believe it myself -- a HARD COPY of SPACE CASE -- available for everyone, be they black or white or colored, to paraphrase Woody Allen ...
Here is the link: SPACE CASE in hard cover, with new cover ... but I would encourage you to wait 48 hours before ordering, because I'm resubmitting a new file with fewer typos ...
That said, let's remember to talk MORE about the Bradys in the next outing of the Blah-ugh! And I've got to go off about this weird John Wayne movie I stumbled on that's downright creepy -- "Big Jim McClain" ...
And could someone please remind about the Killer Bees? ...
And what came up was my dinner, although not literally. Actually, I am sitting here in my utter fatness at 10:45, so totally enamored with the meal I just ate, that I can't bring myself to focus on the subtleties of Brady trivia and life lessons, for I just can't stop thinking about what a miraculous meal it was ...
Now, if I were to detail what I ate, you'd probably find it a disappointing reason for my elation. And yet, as I sit here reviewing each bite in my gluttonous mind's eye, the perfection was only partially in the ingredients, and moreso in the very timing and overall coming-together of the meal.
Which brings me to share a little-known fact about myself -- little known and probably even less cared about, but these are the pedantic study thoughts writers have and we write them down because we HAVE to ... In short, I employ a kind of symmetrical system in eating my meals. That is, I somehow manage to eat my meals in such a way -- and my god, I do this EVERY TIME, and without conscious effort -- so that by the time they're just about finished, I always have one last little bite of each item on my plate.
In fact, it's actually a kind of remarkable skill, really, and highlights my spatial intelligence, because I always work it out in the waning minutes of my meal without fail. And even halfway before I'm through, my higher space brain has me taking just the right-size bites to keep everything in some kind of weird balance on my plate, so that the last few rounds of fork-fulls will be even ...
I don't think I've ever recounted any of my grosser obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but they're there, and have certainly been flagrant in the past. But how I ended up with this specific habit of eating, I'll never know. I remember having a related discussion with a friend many years ago, which I think was brought up because he ate (and completed eating) each item on his plate before starting the next (and of course I pointed out that this was wrong) ...
Anyway, it was a great meal, and probably made better by the classic Brady episode I watched while consuming -- "Confessions, Confessions," where Peter breaks mom's favorite vase and the others try to cover it up for him so he can still go on his camping trip. "Mom's favorite vase," Greg moans softly. And Bobby, "She always says, 'Don't play ball in the house.'" (One of the things that made that show great was that they pronounced vase with a long A, and "aunt" as "ant," the way it's supposed to be pronounced by normal Americans.
Yes, there are so many Brady-related items I need to go further into. I don't think I ever even touched on the urban legend of Eve Plumb becoming a porn star, the removal of Maureen McCormick's moles, or the fact that you can see the wire when the wall nearly falls on that little girl in Driscoll's toy store ...
But I've also got SPACE CASE news to report, and lots of it. For starters, my June 6 Westport Library appearance is deucedly imminent, and thanks to kind, talented, brave writers like the great Joe Meyers -- always my favorite critic because he often shares my sensible good taste, AND he liked my first movie, or at least pretended to like it in a very sincere way -- publicity will be forthcoming in the CT Post, or maybe the Stamford Advocate ... News-Times? -- I'm hoping the whole gang, as they now appear to all be under the same yoke. (I don't even know when that happened, but, really, I don't even want to know!) Joe is a legendary good man, and it was an honor being interviewed by him (and now let's see if I keep this nauseating praise up here AFTER he publishes the article!) ...
The point is, SPACE CASE is growing, like a fungus, and if you haven't read it yet, you're a shitheel and no friend of mine! But I'm only saying that to encourage you to buy a copy, because not everyone has a Kindle or a Nook ... and so the really, REALLY great news is that Amazon is now offering -- Yes, I can HARDLY believe it myself -- a HARD COPY of SPACE CASE -- available for everyone, be they black or white or colored, to paraphrase Woody Allen ...
Here is the link: SPACE CASE in hard cover, with new cover ... but I would encourage you to wait 48 hours before ordering, because I'm resubmitting a new file with fewer typos ...
That said, let's remember to talk MORE about the Bradys in the next outing of the Blah-ugh! And I've got to go off about this weird John Wayne movie I stumbled on that's downright creepy -- "Big Jim McClain" ...
And could someone please remind about the Killer Bees? ...
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