Bob Pastorella's Blog, page 4

Keeping Up With The Skankashians.

I think I've been doing it all wrong. Somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that I need to get up early in the morning, go to a job, and work. I don't think I'm alone in this, because I know all the other people I see in their cars early in the morning aren't just riding around for the fun of it. They must have a purpose in mind, because they are all driving too fast for just a little morning drive around the block. There's determination in their eyes, at least when they are not talking on the phone or texting behind the wheel. In this world of Have vs. HaveNots, I'm definitely in the Havenot category, so to Have the few possessions I call my own, I must go to a job and make money. This is a tried and true tradition that's been going on for a long time, at least the last couple of decades anyway. 

There are a few, privileged, people in this world that HaveNOT a clue what work is. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say: Wish that was me. Seriously. You hear those people on TV that just won the $30 million lottery say they're going to keep on working? They're stupid. Work is overrated. If I won $30 million in the lottery, you can know that I plan on never doing anything close to work again, ever. If I was born privileged, I wouldn't work either.

But I wasn't born privileged, so it's off to work I go.

Reality TV is one field you can get in and never have to work again. Apparently, the creative juices in TV world dried up about fifteen-twenty years ago, because other than the occasional gem like Seinfeld, or The Office, or even AMC's Breaking Bad, there's really nothing else to watch on TV but reality TV shows. This is a direct reflection of exactly how low we've sunk collectively to be entertained, and…and, what's even more sickening, is how fast the studio execs in TV world have grasped this little faucet of information and pumped it all directly into our brains.

We've been dumbed-down, selectively, and on purpose. Case in point: Kim Kardashian. I thought about writing a nice big fat juicy paragraph about her rise to fame, with all it's trials and tribulations, but I figured I might just list all her big fat juicy talents for you, that way you can see for yourselves.

Kim's talents:

And that's about it, in a nutshell. What? There's nothing there? Why of course there's nothing there in the list, silly. Were you expecting a big fat juicy list of all the talents she has, accompanied by a big fat juicy explanation of why I think they're important, perhaps a big fat juicy slew of footnotes down at the bottom of the page where I credit all my references? Please don't get me wrong, the girl is gorgeous, but so is the girl who lives in the apartment three doors down from me, and the girl who rang up my purchases at the store last night, and the girl who took my money when I went out to the club last weekend. There are three thing's that makes Kim a star. 1) She grew up privileged. She grew up a Have, and did her best to stay away from the HaveNots. 2) A sex tape put her on the radar. Take away the money and put that on your resume, see how fast you wish you wouldn't have said those famous words: Turn the camera on. 3) Her butt.

A sex tape and her big fat juicy butt and money from the family. Skanky-Money-Butt. Sounds like the title of a reality TV show. Kim's Skanky-Money-Butt, only on E!

Talent? Kim has no talent, but many will keep watching her on TV, in her pseudo-real world which is called Reality TV, wondering why they can't be like her, a superstar. TV world has taken someone with absolutely nothing to offer and turned her into a star, and people are eating it up, and have been eating it up, and will continue to eat it up. Have we sunk so low that we are all envious of nothing but air and a big fat juicy butt? 

So you want to get out of working for a living? Want to be a superstar, but you've got no talent? No problem, here's how you do it. Grow up privileged. A Have, not a HaveNot, make a sex tape, and get yourself a big fat juicy butt. Those three things will get you a Reality TV show and all the attention you could ever want for the rest of your life, or at least until people grow tired of watching you be a no-talent ass-clown. As for me, I'm going to continue working just like everyone else, and writing, practicing my talent, honing my skills. Maybe one day, I'll be able to write for money and that will be my new job. Until then, just know that you won't be seeing me on any reality TV show anytime soon. 

WriterDrome: Attack of The Side Project(s)/Booked Podcast Review of The Last Werewolf

WriterDrome is a monthly ongoing discussion concerning the mechanics and logistics of writing Horror, Speculative, Dark Fantastic, and Noir Fiction. The aim here is to discuss the many dynamics necessary to write, edit and publish these genres in a continuously changing landscape. Remember, opinions mentioned here are just that, opinions. I'm no expert, but I've been writing for a long time, and I feel there is a lot I can pass on to my fellow writers. Lively discussion is highly encouraged.

Attack of The Side Project(s)

Sometimes a writing project gets the best of you. Every writer has folders and folders full of unfinished stories and ideas that somehow slipped into the ether. This is normal, very much akin to creating a playlist of music. I have about twenty different playlists in itunes, all for whatever mood I'm in whenever I'm listening. Is one playlist better than another? No, but sometimes one playlist can sound more appealing than another. Sometimes, you want to listen to nothing but Pink Floyd, or The Eagles, and sometimes you just want to blare Black Label Society or Judas Priest. What you're feeling has a direct correlation on what writing project you want to work on.

And then there's the writing project that hangs around like a lover you've grown bored with. (God forbid we get bored with our lovers. But then again…) I've been working on Blood Junkies for two years now, which is not a big deal. I write slow. Read slow, write slow, always have. Not that I don't have tremendous bursts of creativity every once in a while and crank out 5000 words in a sitting, or 20000 words in five days like I did the last time I took a week off from work. Two years is a long time, and the story has morphed into something that fits better as a series than a stand alone novel. I'm okay with that. There's this closeness you get to a project, however, that I feel can be both nurturing and dangerous all at once. Nurturing in that you want to cultivate the characters and tweak the inner-workings to make the story tick like a hand-crafted Swiss watch, and dangerous in that you've let your characters take over and they are leading the words you type down a path of self destruction from which you cannot return. There's no way to gauge which way you're leaning, every writer is different.

A good way to tell if the story has turned stale is you suddenly have ideas completely not related to what you're working on. Of course, if you're a writer, you're going to have ideas hit you all the time, that's normal and expected. Most you can file away on the backburner and let them cook for a little while. They're just ideas, springboards for stories you may or may not write later. Ocassionally one or more ideas will start to burn a little, and before you know it, it's all you're thinking about. Forget the project you have dedicated two years of your life for, this new idea is burning, growing in size and shape and suddenly…

ATTACK OF THE SIDE PROJECT!

This is scary. You've grown bored with your lover and met someone new. Your mouth turns dry, your heart pounds, and no matter how wrong you know it is,  you can't stop thinking about this new idea. As the idea burns, other ideas begin to grow next to it, then it forms a story. This story is so hot and sexy, and so refreshing that now you've forgotten about your old lover. It's time for someone new.

I used to force these thoughts away. I'm a single man, but have always found it difficult to juggle a couple of women at once. One of the girls always turn out to be the favorite, and the others become heartbroken and upset once they find out. Stories are almost like this, yet thankfully they are not. You can't break your story's heart. Sometimes it's just as easy to realize that maybe your old story has grown tired of you as well.

Prolific writer Stephen Graham Jones recently completed a novel in thirteen (13) days. A Novel. Thirteen days. Talk about striking while the iron was hot. I'm not sure if he felt the Attack of The Side Project here, or if he was between writing projects, but nonetheless, he was inspired to write, and continued writing until he finished the project. Whether he was "Attacked" or not doesn't matter. What matters is that sometimes inspiration strikes, and you must act. I guess seeing what he did inspired me as well. Though I'm smack dab in the middle of a writing project as well as a couple of short stories, I've been inspired by inspiration, if that makes sense. I've been Attacked, and I'm acting on it. Should I worry about Blood Junkies getting a little nervous about this romantic tryst? Should I fear her jealousy? Frankly, it doesn't matter. Perhaps she's grown tired of her author, and means to spend a little time with her friends, just hanging out and chilling, knowing that one day soon, I'll come running back, and we can take off right where we left off.

So don't become discouraged because another story is knocking on your door. If struck by inspiration, and the urge is strong enough, act on it and write. Sometimes it's much better to date around before settling on your true love. 

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Livius Nedin and Robb Olson at Booked review Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf, and I must say this is a book I am very keen on reading. Taking a well-worn concept like werewolves and infusing new life into the subject matter by making it rather serious and smart surely was a daunting task, though I understand Mr. Duncan was probably one of the best writers for the job. Take some time to give the review a listen by clicking right here.

August Warms And Binds…At Thunderdome.

There's some really good things going on right now at Thunderdome. The good folks there have gotten some of the authors from the neo-noir collection Warmed And Bound together with some new fiction all month. Here's some highlights.

Craig Wallwork's Mr. Wadsworth and the Flea Circus.

Chris Deal's Truckstop Magic.

Amanda Gowin's Tin Man.

Edward J. Rathke's Now Here Is Nowhere.

J David Osborne's Sepp.

There will be two more stories next week, and two more the week after that, rounding out the entire month of August. Want something new to read? Then just click here to see what Thunderdome has to offer.

Warmed And Bound Podcast Wrap Up Round Up

They're back! Livius Nedin and Robb Olson, the two uber cool cats at Booked wrap up the Neo-Noir anthology Warmed And Bound sessions with a final podcast, featuring their correspondent from the Netherlands, Mlaz Corbier. The guys run down their favorite stories in the collection while Mlaz makes the usually very serious Levius crack up. Mlaz is hillarious, as usual, and absolutely nothing is safe from his scorching commentary. Livius and Robb finally break Mlaz down and get him to divulge a little information about Jimmy Viper. So grab a chair and a beverage and click right here to listen to the podcast.

Guest Blog by Caleb J. Ross: Stranger Will Tour For Strange

Podcast Orgy!

This is a guest post by Caleb J Ross as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn't Mean to Be Kevin and novella, As a Machine and Parts, in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contact him . To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed . Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com . Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb

In April of 2010 the admin of this here Obscuradrome, along with myself, and a couple hyper-smart members of The Velvet reading and writing forums got together to record an episode of The Velvet Podcast. Podcasts have long intrigued me, not only from an entertainment perspective but from an accessibility perspective as well. Though podcasts can be professional recorded and edited to a level comparable to traditional radio broadcasts, the production quality is more often YouTube than boob tube. This lowered expectation in terms of aesthetic polish allows the content itself to be the star. And if I do say so myself, the content of our April 2010 episode deserves the red carpet treatment.

Literature related podcasts have helped me both as a reader and a writer. As a reader, I appreciate the variety of perspectives on books offered by podcasts like New York Review of Books, The New York Times Review of Books, and Booked Podcast and interviews with authors on Eye on Books and This Podcast Will Change Your Life. As a writer, I like the insights on craft discussed on I Should Be Writing and NPR: Books. As a service to you wonderful Obscuradome readers, let me elaborate on the teaser series in the previous sentence…

Booked Podcast

Robb Olson and Livius Nedin have quickly become my go-to podcast when itching for non-specific book-related content. Though many of the books they review—and some of the authors they interview—I am not personally familiar with, I trust in their roles as tastemakers. If for some reason you don't already know (having likely seen Bob's amazing promotion of the podcast on this very site over the last few weeks) Booked Podcast is interviewing quite a number of the contributors to the recently released Warmed and Bound collection from The Velvet. Lots of good stuff there.

Subscribe here.

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I Should Be Writing

Mur Laferty is podcasting royalty, and this podcast (one of her many) is a fine example of why she deserves her throne. Though Mur writes and discusses genres of fiction that I personally don't care about, her reassuring approach to common hindrances like writer's block and time suck make enduring the sci-fi and fantasy talk only a minor inconvenience. Simply put: she puts things simply. Despite ISBW's tag line—"A podcast for wannabe fiction writers by a wannabe fiction writer"—veterans and wannabes alike can benefit from this podcast.

Subscribe here.

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Eye on Books

Bill Thompson, host of Eye on Books, has the perfect voice. Soothing, baritone, and oddly sleep-inducing. But jealously aside, Thompson continually interviews some of my favorite authors, and does so with a casual wit and contagious enthusiasm for the subject matter. This is a guy who is obviously passionate about books and authors. Even when he interviews authors I've never heard of, I listen knowing that the interview will be a good one.

Subscribe here.

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The New York Review of Books

Elitist, maybe, but as intelligent and well-informed as the term "elitist" implies. This podcast tends to focus on bestsellers and hi-profile books, but even as an uncomfortable hipster, I think that knowing the world of popular literature is important.

Subscribe here.

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NPR: Books

This weekly(ish) podcast complies the book-related stories from NPR into a single episode, which is genius. NPR does this same thing for other news categories too, allowing listeners to take in the material they want without wading through the insufferable transition music. I like hearing New Guinea tribal chants as much as the next public radio fan, but I like more not hearing them.

Subscribe here.

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The Velvet Podcast

Full disclosure: I am an oft panelist and moderator at The Velvet Podcast. Fuller disclosure: This podcast will destroy your brain.

Subscribe here.

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This Podcast Will Change Your Life

Host Ben Tanzer, who is a fantastic writer himself, interviews what some would call outsider or underground writers, usually at a bar, with such ease and conversational spontaneity that the listener truly feels included in the barstool camaraderie.

Subscribe here.

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NYTimes.com Book Review

See The New York Review of Books description above. These two podcasts are pretty much the same, in name and content.

Subscribe here.

Thanks For You Infromative Articel. Who Woud Have Thought It Was This Easey.

One of exciting aspects about writing a blog is seeing how many people have visited it. We all seek gratification from the public eye, and bloggers can measure that by looking at their Site Stats and seeing first hand what your content is doing to your traffic. Lately, my content has been affecting the traffic here quite a bit. And this is good. Not just good, but anticipated. After a while, this anticipation turns into expectation, which is fine also, as long as you don't get the Big Head and get upset because no one visited your blog on a given day.

There are side-effects to providing content that gets you more traffic. Yesterday, around noon CST, I noticed my blog received three hits. Pretty good, considering the only thing I posted in the last twenty-four hours was my article pimping Stephen Graham Jones's interview. (And if I'm not supposed to put an apostrophe with Jones's last name to make it possessive, oh well, this is a BLOG, not a composition paper or a piece of fiction I'm submitting for publication.) Three hits, yet 56 comments in my spam folder.

Surely a few of those comments were from legitimate people, right? Out of 56, I figured ten were from legitimate, REAL people wanting to make a comment about something in my article. This blog is powered by WordPress, which suits my purposes excellently, even letting me know I have comments to moderate by sending me an email. All Blogs have this notification system.

Out of the 56 Spam comments, guess how many email notifications WordPress sent me. That's right. Wait for it. None. All 56 comments were legitimately Spam. I read through all of them. They weren't just comments on post either. The Spam bots (yep, bots, because we know no human being is going to sit around and type in comments on blogs unless they want a response, right?) made comments on all sorts of threads here. Usually the comments fall into the very common 'I nevre knew, thses coud b so easy, many thanks' variety, with a few falling into the 'Very informative articel, I will share this with all my family. Great knowledge' category as well. And yes, I'm spelling the words exactly like I see them in the Spam folder.

Did anyone human actually read the article? Seriously, the post I made about The Dark Knight Rising movie poster, which was nothing more than a fucking picture of the movie poster, actually made a difference in your life and you felt compelled to type a comment about it?

Not. Human.

Where am I going with all this? It's simple really. With great popularity comes great spamsibility. I know, I know. It sounds like something you've heard before, it's like right there on the tip of your tongue. It sounds familiar to me too, and my spidey sense tells me that maybe it came from a movie or something, I don't know. With great popularity comes great spamsibility. Remember this. I like seeing 56 comments in my comment folder, as long as they are from REAL, living breathing people. Spam is not people. It is a canned meat product that tastes good when fried with cheese and that's it, period, end of discussion.

A Fed-Ex box came in the mail today from Caleb J. Ross. I was expecting a big eighteen wheeler backing up to the front door to prepare for his guest blog tomorrow, and instead I get a box. And what's the big deal with duct-taping a battery operated alarm clock to four sticks of dynamite? Naw, just kidding. About the alarm clock. Caleb will be here tomorrow, all day long, and I'm sure everything is going to be just fine.

What does C-4 mean? Guess I'll have to Google it. 

Warmed and Bound Podcast Interview # 17: Craig Clevenger

Have you checked your mail lately? Did a nice, book sized package from Amazon or Powells hit your mailbox?

No. Then you need to order Warmed And Bound. That way you can keep up with the Joneses and read 38 great stories by 38 great authors.

When I found out about Warmed And Bound, one thought kept roaming through my head: Which one of the Velvet Trio will grace us with a story? I knew that one was M.I.A. for reasons unknown, and another was probably a given, so that left one more writer that I really wanted to be in this anthology. I was hoping for one, and got two. What a deal. Craig Clevenger, author of The Contortionist's Handbook, and Dermaphoria, is one of my writing idols.  Born in Texas, he made his way to California and wrote himself onto the map of dark, disturbing literature. Livius and Robb at Booked scored an interview with Craig, and if you grab a chair and a beverage of choice, you can listen to it by clicking right here.

Warmed and Bound Podcast Interview # 16: Stephen Graham Jones

Two more podcast interviews left for the Warmed And Bound Sessions over at Booked. Oh, and if you haven't heard, Warmed And Bound is out and available at Amazon and Powells. Pick up your copy today, please. 

Stephen Graham Jones really needs no introduction. If you are a Velveteer, then you know who he is. Author of All The Beautiful Sinners, Demon Theory, and the recent novel It Came From Del Rio and the collection The Ones That Got Away, among others, Stephen is one the more prolific writers working today. He consistently raises the bar with every piece of fiction he puts out, so much so that he is both inspiring and intimidating. Personally, reading his stories make me try harder as a writer. The really cool thing about Stephen Graham Jones, like most of the writers at The Velvet, is that he is both a writer and a contributing member, so he's usually actively engaged in whatever is happening at the website, and STILL manages to write a couple of books a year.

Livius and Robb at Booked managed to get Stephen to sit still long enough to get an interview, and if you click right here you can listen to it. Enjoy.

Warmed and Bound Podcast Interview # 14: Gordon Highland

I feel like such an idiot for failing to post this earlier. Skipping all the usual Warmed and Bound plugs, let me jump right on over to Gordon Highland. A member of The Velvet, as well as a moderator for the website, Gordon is one of the many people who actually keep the website flowing smooth as velvet. He is also the creator of the kick ass Warmed And Bound Trailer found at the website. A writer, musician, video director, Gordon is a true "Jack of all trades, master of none" (His words, not mine). Livius and Robb over at Booked sat down with Gordon and you listen to his interview by clicking right here.

Warmed and Bound Podcast Interview # 15: Brian Evenson

Thanks for checking out the new Obscuradrome. The layout is the same, and I'll be adding more content on the sidebar, adding links to The Unusual Suspects and the Webadromes, and I'm always on the hunt for cool background pictures. This is a work in progress, constantly evolving.

Warmed And Bound is available through Amazon and Powells. We are directing folks that need to re-order the book to these link. Customers who ordered through these sources have started receiving the books, so everything is good.

I discovered  Brian Evenson through many people at The Velvet, and his work is highly recommended. He is the author of the collection The Wavering Knife, and the novels The Open Curtain, and   Last Days.  Brian is the modern master of thrilling and macabre fiction, and is one of my favorite writers working today. Livius and Robb with Booked talked with Brian about his work, and you can listen to the interview by clicking right here.