C.T. Liotta's Blog, page 24

GenX and Funny. Or Not Funny. Who knows? Whatever.

My generation, X, has always dealt with serious issues by brushing them off like lint, then mocking the issue and making jokes full-bore.

As I age, I find myself at loggerheads with Millennials and at odds with the current political zeitgeist where harmful, hurtful things are NEVER funny or “subjects that other people — not me — can joke about.”

I’m not alone. Reactions to Dave Chappelle’s new special on Netflix reflect this same cultural divide — the toxic, funny shit that GenX says bumping up...

Thanks, Mahlon. Hope you like it! If it isn’t your cup of tea, I’m happy to send you $0.99.

Thanks, Mahlon. Hope you like it! If it isn’t your cup of tea, I’m happy to send you $0.99.

The Fassbinder Bender, Part 2

A casual observer watches “The American Soldier”

Film noir is one of my favorite genres, so it’s fun to watch Rainer Werner Fassbinder tackle it in The American Soldier (1970) — a film that’s part homage, part satire, and maybe tries to say something. I don’t know.

In Fassbinder’s mind, pulp involves shadows cast by Venetian blinds, crooked cops, and a titular antihero with a terrific American Eagle-beak nose and a trilby hat that he wears indoors and out.

Ricky von Rezzori (Karl Scheydt) return...

The Fassbinder Bender: One month, five movies.

A casual observer watches “Love Is Colder Than Death.”

Rainer Werner Fassbinder died alone in a locked bedroom in 1982, age 37. His television was on, a cigarette had gone cold between his lips, and blood leaked from a solitary nostril. A mix of barbiturates and cocaine had killed him at about 3 AM as he worked on a film.

Fassbinder and Ulli Lommel in “Love is Colder than Death”

From 1969 to 1982 Fassbinder completed over forty films, two television series, 24 plays, and seven short films and vi...

What Pulp Has Taught Me About Writing

Churning out young adult pulp leaves little time to worry about pleasing critics. The ghost of Stratemeyer smiles.

I’m in the middle of a five-story contract for neo-pulp publisher Rot Gut Pulp. The experience has been everything I’ve wanted it to be. My editor, Curt Sembello, is a drunkard who lives overseas, forgets about the time change, and calls me in fits of pique. He’s fired me thrice, fights with his staff on Twitter, and broke his arm trying to have sex with a ladyfriend in a hammock....

Two Persons Coffee at Bok

Musings on the Ideal Place to Write

A few weeks ago, the neighborhood paper sent me on assignment to Two Persons Coffee - a shop located in a re-purposed auto-body bay inside the defunct Bok Technical High School. It fast became my go-to coffee house for writing.

The vast front room at Two Persons Coffee.

I feel that every writer must have a coffee house at which to sit and write, if not a bar. Here, I dream of being a writer while spending lots of time on Facebook and Twitter and checking my Go...

Six Bells in the Forenoon Watch: A Ship's Bell in the Age of Sail

Six Bells in the Forenoon Watch: A Ship’s Bell in the Age of Sail

I’ve forever been curious about the age of sail and the workings of tall ships. To prepare our forthcoming book, Treason on the Barbary Coast!, Riv Aurora and I did a good amount of research. One curiosity, to me, has always been the ship’s bell.

USS Constitution Ship’s Bell

The bell has been a favorite of Foley artists in movies, but its use in the age of sail was methodical and important. It indicated time and thus duty watches....

My first Goodreads giveaway, ever

Try to snag one of 100 copies of “Relic of the Damned!,” my debut pulp

If you can’t afford the $0.99 list price of Relic of the Damned!, or if your parents won’t let you buy it, or if you’re a person of conscience and don’t want to perpetuate my sort of nonsense but still want to peek at my book, there’s an alternative — win a copy from Goodreads!

Click here for a chance to win a copy of Relic of the Damned! — the first in a new series of irreverent YA short stories from bestselling author CT L...

I Walked with a Zombie

Re-examining Val Lewton’s 1943 low-budget classic

Two months before Cat People opened in 1942, the cameras started to roll on producer Val Lewton’s second film. RKO Pictures had tested and approved the title I Walked with a Zombie, and now wanted a movie based on the title.

Zombie is a movie loved by most critics in spite of its failures and gaping plot holes. It works because it is about mood and atmosphere rather than horror itself. It’s about voodoo, mental illness and alcoholism. It may eve...

Meteor, Meteorite, Meteoroid

In CT Liottta’s Relic of the Damned!, the Macguffin is a Meteorite. Why isn’t it a meteor or a meteoroid?

According to NASA, the following definitions apply:

Meteoroid: A small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun. Meteor: The light phenomena which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star. Meteorite: A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and lands upon the Earth’s surface.

While “ovvihxinite” is pure dra...