Richard Lee Byers's Blog, page 60

"HE WALKS AGAIN BY NIGHT"

"He" being Nick Danger, Third Eye, the radio gumshoe whose two-fisted, fourth-wall-smashing, surreal adventures are a mainstay of the Firesign Theater.

I recently listened to The Big Book of Danger, the four-disc compendium of Nick's cases. Afterward, I read the liner notes, and something struck me. "Like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist," as Nick himself is wont to say.

The notes contain references to an impressive number of career setbacks, starting with Columbia dropping Firesign Theater from the label and proceeding through options that weren't picked up, movies and TV shows that were never made, albums allowed to go out of print, and what have you.

This impresses me because, whether you know them or not (and if you don't, it illustrates the point I'm trying to make), the Firesign guys are comedy geniuses. Their best stuff is as brilliant and hilarious as Monty Python's. Admittedly, not every sketch is their best, but you can say that about the Pythons, too.

Yet despite their brilliance, they've obviously had to struggle, and, decades after they started, they're less well known than comedians who never did anything half as funny.

It reminds me of the way I've often reacted when hearing about some writer I greatly admire whose publisher dropped him or whose novels aren't selling: If Kilgore Trout (or whoever) can't make it in this rotten business, what chance have I got?

But there is a glass-half-full way of looking at it. Despite their setbacks, Firesign Theater persevered. As a result, they created an extraordinary body of work, and the work found an audience. It's cause for hope that the rest of us laboring in one creative field or another can survive and achieve a level of success despite all the randomness and stupidity that characterize our businesses. We just have to hang in there.

In conclusion, let me just emphasize that if you don't know Firesign Theater, you're the poorer for it, and you owe it to yourself to check them out. Here's an address that will let you do that:

http://www.firesigntheatre.com/

"HE WALKS AGAIN BY NIGHT"

"He" being Nick Danger, Third Eye, the radio gumshoe whose two-fisted, fourth-wall-smashing, surreal adventures are a mainstay of the Firesign Theater.

I recently listened to The Big Book of Danger, the four-disc compendium of Nick's cases. Afterward, I read the liner notes, and something struck me. "Like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist," as Nick himself is wont to say.

<>The notes contain references to an impressive number of career setbacks, starting with Columbia dropping Firesign Theater</>

IT'S ALL OVER

Have you seen this?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/04/14/space.hand/

If so, you may have simply regarded it as beautiful, interesting, or amusing. But if you're a DC Comics fan, you understand the hideous implications.

DC teaches us that the true original sin, the one that brought evil into the universe, was when the Oan scientist Krona looked back to the dawn of time and saw a big hand holding stars. Nobody's allowed to see that. Now humanity too has looked too far back (since the speed of light is finite, telescopes always look back in time) and, plainly, seen what Krona saw.

I don't know exactly what's going to happen next. It could be walls of white antimatter sweeping along under crimson skies. It could be invaders from Apokolips. It could be retcons that alter our pasts and turn us into different people. But plainly, we're doomed. The cosmos will punish us for our temerity, just as it punished Krona and those who repeated his sin. So quit your job, max out your credit cards, and party!

IT'S ALL OVER

Have you seen this?

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/04/14/space.hand/

If so, you may have simply regarded it as beautiful, interesting, or amusing. But if you're a DC Comics fan, you understand the hideous implications.

<>DC teaches us that the true original sin, the one that brought evil into the universe, was when the Oan scientist Krona looked back to the dawn of time and saw a big hand holding stars. Nobody's allowed to see that. Now humanity too has looked too far back (since the speed</>

CATARACT SURGERY, PART NINE

That's right. I'm never, ever going to stop talking about it.

Actually, maybe I will. This could be the last post on this particular topic.

My eyes are doing well, although I still need drugstore reading glasses to read. Sometimes I still see the tiny phantom bubbles, but others who have had cataract surgery tell me those can take up to six months to disappear. If they don't do it on their own, there's still the option to have my doctor laser away the film on the implant in my right eye.

On the financial end, my insurance company appears to be finally, grudgingly coughing up the money it's supposed to pay. I say "appears" because their communications are hard enough to puzzle out that I want to see the next round of bills from my care providers before I feel one hundred percent confident that I really know what's happening.

Speaking of my caregivers, heartfelt thanks to the billing people in all the various offices. Every one of them turned out to be highly competent and highly motivated to help me force my insurance to pay, firing off phone calls and photocopied records via Certified mail as necessary. I doubt this would have worked out as well as it has if they'd been any less diligent.

Although despite their efforts, it still hasn't worked out completely great. Amid all the stress and confusion of trying to get my insurance to pay anything at all, I lost sight of something. My cheap-ass off-brand self-employed person's policy has a pretty low cap on what it will pay a facility for outpatient surgery. My hospital bill for the vitrectomy and membrane peel far exceeds that limit. So I'm still on the hook for a lot of money.

Still, it's less than half of what I would have owed if the insurance company had stonewalled me successfully right to the end, so I'm grateful for that. And to today's mail, for providing the perfect epilogue to this story. My insurer is raising its rates across the board. I assume, because the service is so good.

CATARACT SURGERY, PART NINE

That's right. I'm never, ever going to stop talking about it.

Actually, maybe I will. This could be the last post on this particular topic.

My eyes are doing well, although I still need drugstore reading glasses to read. Sometimes I still see the tiny phantom bubbles, but others who have had cataract surgery tell me those can take up to six months to disappear. If they don't do it on their own, there's still the option to have my doctor laser away the film on the implant in my right eye.

<>On the </>

YIN AND YANG

If you access this blog through richardleebyers.com, you may not have noticed, but when you come here, you're also visiting the website of League Entertainment. And while you're here, you also have the opportunity to read the blog of the gorgeous, glamorous, gifted, and gregarious M. B. Weston.

<>I read Michelle's blog, and I've noticed something. When she posts about being an author, she's joyful and positive. I, on the other hand, have posted about rejection, editors and agents who don't bother </>

THE GREAT SILENCE

Yesterday I received a response to a query I'd sent an editor. It had been so many months that I'd forgotten I tried to contact her in the first place. My hunch is that my email landed in her Spam folder, and she'd just gotten around to going through those messages.

Maybe I'm just in a bad mood (actually, I know I am), but from my current perspective, what's noteworthy isn't that she took a long time to respond. What's noteworthy is that she responded at all.

<>I read a lot about the business of w</>

IDEAS

I got an email from a reader today. He's an aspiring writer and wanted to know how to come up with story ideas. I've been asked this question before, and I know I'm not the only one. I've heard other writers joke about it like it's a stupid question, or the mark of a person who doesn't have a prayer of ever writing a decent story.

<>I think that's unduly harsh. Sure, if you have no imagination at all, no advice will help you. But assuming you do, there's a way of thinking that will help you come u</>

REJECTION

<>Whoops. I see it's been more than two weeks since my last entry. Another of the promises I made myself when I started this beast was that if I was going to blog at all, I'd do it regularly. Because it's disappointing to find out that someone who interests you has a blog, go there, and find that the most recent post is months or years old. But it's easy to let things slide, especially when you're busy with other stuff (like paying work) or don't feel you currently have anything interesting to say</>