Alexander Hellene's Blog, page 17

Would You Sell Your Rights to Hollywood?

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I recently posed a question to my fellow creatives with an answer that somewhat astonished me: Would you option your work to Hollywood?

Creatives: a question @lazzarolupo posed to me recently: Would you ever give Hollywood the rights to adapt your work?

— Alexander Hellene

The Gift of Spirit

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Yesterday was Pentecost, the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit descending upon the Earth. No, we didn’t make it to church; having the little one wear a mask the whole time, a requirement, is just not happening.

Anyway, the day made me wonder what, exactly, I am doing with this gift.

This Spirit if Wisdom, the Messenger of the Lord . . . freely given to the word and for what?

For what?

To argue. To get angry. To get sad. To despair. To fight vicarious battles you cannot affect the outcome of. To receive second-hand emotion, echoes of importance, by observing and commenting on things other people are doing. To feel like you’re making a difference without actually making a difference.

To howl into the void in a desperate bid to let the world know that you matter.

The world is smaller than ever, and all of it’s ugliness is available 24/7. But it’s only there for the taking if you seek it. No one forces you to wallow in it and react. And when you do, the pleasure is bitter and fleeting, the dopamine rush of an addict who doesn’t even enjoy his poison of choice.

There’s a saying I love, widely attributed to Nelson Mandela. Paraphrased, it is “Envy is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill the other person.”

These are the feelings and thoughts I’ve been having as of late. This past Sunday really put me into the right mood to think about them. You could say, in a subtle way, the Spirit descended on me too.

There are so many lies. Rely upon the Spirit to guide you to the truth. It’s the only way to stay sane.

The Spirit helps guide my writing. Buy The Last Ancestor here as I work on book two.

Tall Bass Man BAD!

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Rock and roll, punk rock, and all of those other rebellious types of music used to be edgy. The guitars were loud, the drums pounded, and the impassioned singing (screaming?) ranted and railed against conformity to stifling societal norms. Rock pretty much started this way–sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, albeit more innocently couched in terms of dates with girls, fast cars, and dancing–and maintained this trajectory for a good fifty years.

And then came the election of George W. Bush and guitar-based music as any vector of rebellion against “The Man” died.

Oh, the music world rebelled against W. They rebelled hard–and he deserved a whole lot of it. But the music world–most embarrassingly the punk world–rebelled the hardest. We know who they were rebelling against, but what were they for?

The Establishment–the true Establishment–that controls everything. You know, the media/entertainment/government complex. Yeah, throw the military in there too. The irony lost on most of these boneheads and their followers was that W. was a part of this selfsame establishment too. He was just playing on the controlled opposition side, the Washington Generals to the Democrats’ Harlem Globetrotters. The Globetrotters let the Generals score a bucket every once in a while, after all. 

There is only one party in the Untied States of America. And rock and punk are a part of it.

Perhaps the rot set in during the waning years of the Clinton administration. We had not yet reached the end of the belief that we were at the end of history, but times were good for most people. Not little Cuban refugees, or Orthodox Christians in the Balkans, or interns and other women being sexually assaulted, or black men being thrown in prison in droves, or people in places like Texas and Idaho who were actual rebels against The Man and were killed for it. But for a lot of people, sure. The 90s were great.

Pop culture, and American culture generally, did die in 1997, however. It became a corpse forever preserved in amber, and forever eating itself.

But there was a time before even that where there were still some edgy, independent thinkers who slung a guitar and gave the world their three or so chords and the truth. Where being a “rock star” was still a thing, where rock music mattered in the mass consciousness before being supplanted by derivative gangster rap, derivative hip-hop, and derivative pop. When rock wasn’t scrawny asthmatic trust-fund kids and was still made by people who had some semblance of authenticity. 

One of those bands was Nirvana.

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In retrospect, as one who was there, albeit young, Nirvana was one of those “you had to be there” bands. They cut through the aerosol fog of hair metal (a much maligned genre that was fun) by basically taking punk aggression, melding it to classic-rock structure, and adding some grit. Nirvana were not grunge–their idols The Melvins were grunge–but Nirvana was different and edgy enough to make a huge impact.

They only released three studio albums before frontman Kurt Cobain killed himself (or did he?). Nirvana might be most famous now as The Band Everyone’s Favorite Rock Guy Dave Grohl Drummed In Before The Foo Fighters, but there was another guy in Nirvana too, improbably tall bassist Krist Novoselic.

Mr. Novoselic wasn’t in the spotlight much after Cobain’s untimely death. Oh, he still made music–still does, in fact–but it’s relatively low-key, under-the-radar kind of stuff. And “under the radar” is a pretty apt expression too, seeing as how Novoselic is a certified pilot.

The idea of Novoselic stuffing his 6’7″ frame into a prop-plane kind of cracks me up. I’m only 6’2″ and I have trouble fitting into my damn car. My brother is 6’5″ and he might as well have to stick his head out of the sunroof.

Anyway, Novoselic seems like he’s also an intelligent, thoughtful, fair-minded guy, which as we all know spells trouble in the world of music. He popped up in the news recently for daring to apply said intelligence, thoughtfulness, and fairness to President Trump’s June 1 “law and order” speech in response to the rioting and looting and violence that has been going on all across America in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. As reported in the Guardian: 

Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic has praised Donald Trump for the “law and order” speech he gave on 1 June in response to protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Speaking in the White House rose garden, Trump said he was dispatching “thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property”.

In a post on Facebook, Novoselic wrote: “Wow!!! I know many of you can’t stand him, however, Trump knocked it out of the park with this speech.”

He continued: “I agree, the president should not be sending troops into states – and he legally might not be able to anyway – nevertheless, the tone in this speech is strong and direct.”

The National Guard has deployed thousands of troops across America. However, Trump would have to invoke the 19th-century Insurrection Act to deploy armed troops. State governor approval is not required if the president determines that it has become impossible to enforce US laws or when citizens’ rights are threatened in any US state.

Novoselic alleged that the violence “appears as a leftist insurrection”, despite a lack of clarity about the left-wing antifascist group antifa’s involvement with the protests. “Imagine if so called ‘patriot militias’ were raising this kind of hell?” Novoselic wrote.

“If this were the case, left-wing people would welcome federal intervention. Most Americans want peace in their communities and President Trump spoke to this desire. Never mind the legal details that few understand – Trump said he would stop the violence and this speaks to many.”

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But tell me where anything Novoselic said was objectionable, or wrong, or bad? You can’t, because it isn’t. Yet of course, the outrage mob of retards came after him anyway.

Novoselic dismissed a fan’s query about whether this was a parody account, and said it was “certainly not a partisan echo chamber. I prefer to think for myself, thank you.”

Following backlash over his remarks, Novoselic made his Facebook page private and deactivated his Twitter account.

He offered clarification of his views in a public follow-up post on Facebook: “As an avowed independent, I don’t endorse a major party or candidate. And it feels insane to have to say this , but I don’t support fascism, and I don’t support an authoritarian state. I believe in a civilised society and that we all have to work toward that.”

Novoselic describes himself as an “anarcho-capitalist socialist moderate I-don’t know”. He has campaigned for political reform. In the 2016 election, he supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

Apologizing to violent, racist, progressive retards does nothing. They do not want your apology. They want your devotion to their religion, especially if you are of the same chromatic disposition as Novoselic. Once you deviate from the approved cult dogma, you are forever marked as an apostate worthy of mockery, scorn, ridicule, abuse, and ultimately death. I sincerely hope Novoselic’s career isn’t over because he seems like a cool guy who thinks before he speaks–and I’m not just saying that because I happen to agree with him–but because him being canceled by emotional assholes who are out for revenge is really sad and infuriating.

Never, ever think that reason and logic will work when you are speaking to moronic low-IQ violent freaks of all chromatic dispositions who want nothing more than your blood and brains to decorate the street. For justice, remember. That’s what they say, but it’s really about their vengeance and your submission.

What Novoselic said was actually brave, and could actually threaten his career, unlike that coward John Boyega who, as a member of the favored race and class is taking the absolute easiest, safest political stand that literally all of his colleagues in the movie business share. So yeah, John, you’re about as brave as your character in Star Wars, which is to say a joke.

Novoselic at least didn’t grovel and apologize like Drew Brees did recently. It is insane that he has to say he doesn’t support fascism or an authoritarian state. There was nothing in his initial statement that anyone with three brain cells could read as advocating for those positions. But we have to remember we are dealing with people who are both stupid and evil. A stupid and evil person reads Novoselic’s post and their NPC programming immediately kicks in: TALL BASS MAN BAD!

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It’s a joke and a travesty, just like our nation right now.

Screw this, I’m going to go listen to some Nirvana. They had some killer tunes. 

I don’t care about your race or politics. I just want to entertain you.

Conscious Partying

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The good times never last forever. Neither do the bad times, but when you’re in the thick of the darkness you always have the light to look forward to. When times are great, the natural instinct is to imagine that they will never end. This inevitably causes more despair than it should when the wave crashes down.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Life is not suffering, but life contains suffering. And suffering, like everything else, is transient. When times are bad, the hope of things getting better is what keeps us going. When times are good, it is good to remember that pleasures are just as fleeting as pain, and that the prospect of dark times lies somewhere in the future. 

If anything, this will make you cling tighter to the good times, embrace them, and live more in the moment. When you appreciate what you’ve got, you feel it more. Each sensation makes a longer-lasting impression because you know, deep in your soul, that you may never experience it again.

The hope, of course, is that the wave will once again crest and you will be riding atop it for a time. But if that bright day never comes, and all you have left are your memories of past sensations, those memories may be stronger if you really grasped the importance of the good times as they happened. Am I saying that a little paranoia goes a long way? “Paranoia” is a strong word, but I struggle to find a better one. 

All the best parties have an air of melancholy about them. The best times I have had with friends, and I don’t mean drunken debauchery and sinful hedonism, but just good times, were usually the last or close to the last times I was ever gathered with those particular people. They represented snapshots that will never come again. Try as we might to replicate those feelings, they are gone for good, and the bitter lingers in my heart almost as much as the sweet. We will get older. We will change. People will drift apart, geographically and spiritually and emotionally. Understand this, and make your embrace of the present fiercer. 

This is not fatalistic. This is not a foolish expression of hedonism, to eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die. Far from it! When you eat and drink and are merry, it’s good to understand that the eating and drinking and merrymaking are not the be-all, end-all aims of life, and that pleasure should not be your pursuit. But we were not made for misery, and we should enjoy and embrace the pleasures we can, as long as these pleasures don’t destroy our spirit and take our eyes off the prize.

Being conscious of the difficult parts of life helps keep us from being blindsided when they come.

Keep the party going with a good book.

Book Review: In Search of Sacha by Manuel Guzman

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“On this day, the trees are rooted in silent anguish.” A melancholy beginning for In Search of Sacha, a fully illustrated adventure story similarly rooted in action, danger, and ultimately hope.

In Search of Sacha is the passion project of New York-based artist Manuel Guzman. In the interests of full disclosure, I must state at the outset of this review that Manuel is not only the cover artist for my own series, The Swordbringer, but I was his editor for In Search of Sacha. That said, this is such a great piece of work I think it best to put aside my previous stance of not reviewing books and highlight this wonderful story. It’s message is especially uplifting in these dark and dangerous times we find ourselves in.

Amar and Elysia are guardians of the sacred woods. Husband and wife, they are angelic figures able to control the elements–Amar the earth and Elysia the wind. In Search of Sacha begins with the two on a quest to find their son Sacha, who has gone missing. They retrace his steps through the forest, helping its denizens, fighting strange and fearsome creatures, and battling against the forces of despair. In Search of Sacha has a dreamlike, fairytale atmosphere heightened by Guzman’s art, which is vibrant, ethereal, technically dazzling, and generally gorgeous.

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Maybe “sumptuous” is a better word. The colors pop, his use of light and shadow is brilliant, and I am really tempted to share the entire book with you in this review.

But In Search of Sacha is not all color and light. Guzman does what all the best fairytales do, which is deal with the dark and the things who slink around in it waiting to pounce. He has created a worthy foil in Lady Ravine, who is not so much a danger in the traditional physical sense as she is in the spiritual and emotional. For Lady Ravine does as the devil himself: she delights in corruption and making her victims destroy themselves.

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It is against this backdrop that we pick up with Sacha, alternating the story of his struggles with those of Elysia and Amar, who must contend with their own despair at ever finding their son. These heavier themes are balanced with moments of action, which help propel the story forward, accompanied by Guzman’s beautiful illustrations. 

In Search of Sacha is a great adventure story with a positive message. Given the dark themes, I would not recommend it for children under seven or eight; this is not to say it is unduly frightening, just that younger children might not fully understand the depth of Guzman’s message. Specifically, I mean the symbolism which is not only generally hopeful but also deeply Christian. Guzman weaves his narrative in such a way that its religious overtones are never overbearing, but they are there for those with eyes to see while in no way an impediment to those who are not religious. These themes of hope, of love, and of family are universal and not unique to any one group. This is why they are so powerful.

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I came across Manuel while listening to a podcast. I checked out his art and was blown away–his style was perfect for what I was looking for in cover art. I reached out to Manuel and so began our friendship. Shortly after I commissioned him to paint the cover for The Last Ancestor, we spoke over the phone and he asked if I would look at a story he had written. I agreed, of course, and helped him get the narrative to match the artwork. He then set up his successful crowdfunding campaign, and the result was this lovely storybook.

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This is a passion project of Manuel’s, and I am not using the term “passion project” lightly. In Search of Sacha is the first original work Manuel has published, and was laying dormant for some years. We are better for it that he was inspired to finish In Seach of Sacha and share it with us all.

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You can purchase In Search of Sacha here. Well worth the money.

Manuel did such a bang-up job on the cover to The Last Ancestor it’s not even funny. Buy it here.

In Which I Recant

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I still think this David Stewart gentleman of Edmond, Oklahoma was out of line. I don’t think it was necessarily racially motivated–having commenter and author Misha Burnett explain he’s been similarly stopped in gated communities too during his work as a locksmith is similarly infuriating and unacceptable.

But I’m recanting my embrace of the term “Karen” as a slur.

It is racist and sexist and it’s designed to get a certain potion of the American male public to turn against the female half of the equation. And like idiots, too many of us go along with it. Including me.

No more. I’m not going to do it.

That woman in Central Park, NYC, who called the cops on the guy who had his dogs unleashed? Not going to call her “Karen.” Also, she was a small, chromatically pale woman alone in Central Park, a place notorious for people like her getting attacked by large, chromatically darker males. Sorry, but she was playing the odds and I don’t think I it was “racist” for her to call the cops on the gentleman of African descent she was having words with. Sl she was highly strung. Should her life have been ruined for it?

No.

I also think what happened to George Floyd was a travesty, in case anyone was wondering. Why kneel on a guy’s neck when he was already cuffed and suspected of trying to pass off a phony $20? The whole thing stinks and it’s weird that the cop knew Mr. Floyd.

In any event, this post isn’t to get into contemporary racial politics. It’s to say I am no longer going to participate in the ritual abuse and humiliation of white women. Or any women, or men, or whomever, just because hateful bigots on the internet want me to.

Help support independent–and independent-minded–art.

Ascension

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Today marks Ascension, an important church holy day commemorating Christ’s ascension into heaven after spending time among His disciples after the Resurrection.

I had some deep and profound thoughts to share about this. I thought of them as I lay in bed last night after staying up late to drink some whiskey, puff a cigar, and read Dan Simmons’ Hyperion. But I forgot them all upon waking.

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But that’s okay, because the very idea of ascension is a powerful one worth thinking about.

Life these days seems centered on what is material, what is down low, and some might say the gutter. I won’t go that far. The physical world is sacred and important, but it is not it.

Since time immemorial, mankind has cast its eyes and souls upward toward something ineffable and beyond us. It’s the last mystery–the purpose of life and what happens after–that none of us will ever know until we die. And it drives us nuts.

Some have faith in something better. Some despair. Some become hedonists, figuring that if this is it, might as well live it up. But most of us at least think about it.

Or do we? When you wake up, do you pray or ponder creation, or do you immediately check your smartphone?

What does this have to do with Jesus Christ ascending into Heaven?

Everything.

It’s not good to ignore the travails of everyday life or the horror of current events. It’s similarly not good to ignore the fact that things can be better and that they start with us and how we behave and comport ourselves and think.

We can all ascend in some way, upwards and onwards. It’s this attitude that’s gotten humankind to some pretty impressive places.

Have we forgotten it in total? Of course not. But it can feel like that sometimes, and I can’t fault anyone for thinking that all is lost, doom and gloom, and so on.

Christians believe that Christ had already won, and we need to hold on until the return. Other traditions exist of course, including those of a non-religious bent.

That’s great. The important thing is the belief that we can rise above who we were before and come out better for it.

Man is not God, but we can sure listen to His teachings. And they don’t start with trying to better other people or society at large. The start with trying to better yourself.

A little humility and a little forgiveness go a long way.

Positive sci-fi about people–and aliens–striving to be the best.