Aaron Saylor's Blog, page 6

A little bit…

I already shared this on Facebook (although I’ve edited a little since then), but not everybody follows me on Facebook (please change that) or Twitter (please change that, too). So, I decided to share a little bit from my new work here on this very blog.

I am sure we will discuss at greater length, but the quick version is that I just decided to write something about all the things I loved when I was in elementary school, and follow that through to all the things I love now, and hopefully will still love when I am Old, which is much less further away now than it used to be. This book has taken over my whole writing life, but quick.

Also – I’ll be giving away 10 e-book copies of Sewerville and publishing a new short story called “Me and Jasper Down at the Meth Shack” (which actually turned out to be a part of the same new book that is excerpted below) as soon as the Facebook page hits 1,000 “like”s. Just a handful away right now – help make a child’s dream come true!

So, here’s the new stuff:

——-

“Where’d you get those?” I gasped, pointin at the Fangorias like they was a sack full of hundred dollar bills.

“One place or another. Places where I get stuff. You know.” Jasper shrugged. As I’d soon find out, he shrugged at most matters in life. He could shrug to put a teenage girl to shame. He was a world renowned shrugger.

I stared at Jasper’s magazines for what felt like three days. Ain’t ashamed to say, I’d have given everything I had and half of what I didn’t to find out where he got them. It looked to my eyes like he might have every issue of Fangoria ever printed. Far as I was concerned, this was something like lookin at a unicorn.

Then… BOOM.

Buried in his collection, with just one dog-eared corner stickin out, was the Fangoria that ruled all other Fangorias. The one I desired like man desired to reach the stars, like Romeo desired Juliet, like Johnny Cash desired June Carter, like Roscoe P. Coletrain and Boss Hogg desired to one day run down them Dukes, them Dukes. At that point, I’d been tryin to get my hands on this particular issue for a good three or four years, or I should say, get my hands on it again.

Issue Number Nine.

Folks, we are talkin about the Ark of the Covenant here. Ask anybody that knows anything about Fangoria and scary flicks and bad ass stuff in general and they’ll back me up on this.

*

Actually you don’t need to ask, because I’m tellin you right now: issue number nine – Issue Number Nine, it needs all capital letters – featured the infamous Motel Hell cover. You probably heard about it: that farmer dude in denim overalls and red flannel shirt, wearin a severed pig head for a helmet, wieldin a bloody chainsaw like it was the mighty Excalibur or somethin. Far as I was concerned, human hands wasn’t capable of creatin a more bad ass cover. Probably they still aren’t. 

The sad part is, though, that cover was so bad ass, it didn’t take too long before a few so-called “adult” peckerwoods jumped up on their high horses and got it banned from every drugstore and supermarket in the country. Let me say that again: that cover was so bad ass, the peckerwoods got it declared unfit for human consumption. Pulled from stores. Burnt up on the sacrificial fires of common decency, as some folks say.

So yeah. Apparently a few grannies stumbled across that particular Fangoria down at the Piggly Wiggly or the beauty shop or wherever old grannies stumbled across things, and this indeed caused their plastic panties to get all wadded up in such a manner that I had never experienced (up to that point, anyway). And if you know anything, you know how the story goes whenever grannies get their panties in a wad. Things get escalated. The  righteous grannies pitched a fit to their preacher, a man of great wisdom and humility who immediately got on the line to the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy Swaggart had a few friends in high places – this was back in the days when some people actually gave a rip what Jimmy Swaggart had to say about anything – and the good Reverend called his coonskin-hat buddy Pat Buchanan (look it up), who was workin in the White House up in Washington at the time. Of course back then, the White House was occupied – some would say graced by the presence of – one Ronald Wilson Reagan, otherwise known as the Gipper, otherwise known as He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Soon enough Pat bent the blessed ear of the almighty President Reagan, and then Reagan bent down and kissed the ground and farted and declared that Issue Number Nine of Fangoria was inflictin evil on the minds of innocent little Ronnies all throughout the golden land, and therefore must be yanked off every shelf in the country, if not the world, if not the whole trickle down damn universe.

Well, that’s the story I always heard, at least. I can’t swear to it, but that’s what I heard.

Anyway, despite the Reaganistas’ efforts, a few hundred copies escaped. Somehow one of them ended up at Comic Book Land in Lexington, Kentucky, and miraculous as it may seem, happened to be sittin on the shelf one of the rare Saturdays that I visited the store. I was headed for the back issue bins when I glanced over at the New Arrivals rack and saw it gleamin.

I couldn’t get my hands on it fast enough, let me just tell you. And soon as I did, I took it back to Mom and said, “Mom, this is what I’m gettin. No X-Men. No Captain America. No Spider-man.” This was a couple of years before ROM and G.I. Joe came out, but I would have walked away from them that day, too.

All I wanted was that one issue of Fangoria, Issue Number Nine, with the chainsaw dude in overalls and a dead pig mask.

So I said, “Mom, this is what I’m gettin.”

She studied the cover for a few seconds, looked over bloody pig head guy real good, and said, “No sir, you most certainly are not.”

“But mom, he’s got overalls and a dead pig head and his chainsaw’s got blood on it –”

“I said you’re not gettin it.”

“No, Mom, you’re the one not gettin it –”

“Put it back.”

“Come on, Mom –”

“Put it back. Now.”

Good thing I had a backup plan. One rule I always follow  is, never give up hope. If you ain’t got hope you might as well lay down in the street and wait for the ice cream truck to run over your sorry ass. I took that Fangoria and stuck it in the middle of some Wonder Woman back issues, figurin it would be safe there since Wonder Woman sucks and nobody was gonna be lookin in that box any time soon. That would give me a few weeks to convince Mom that I really should get that Fangoria, and when I did convince her I could just pluck it out of the Wonder Womans on the next trip.

But it wasn’t meant to be. The next time I visited Comic Book Land, the Wonder Womans were still there but my Fangoria was long gone. I still ain’t figured out how that happened, but it did. And in the meantime, Jimmy Swaggart and Ronald Reagan ruined the fun for everybody.

A quick thought on The Wolf of Wall Street

On the eve of this year’s Academy Award nominations, I wanted to take a sec to discuss something that’s been bugging me for a while now.

I’ve read so many articles that cry foul at The Wolf of Wall Street, saying the film glorifies the drugged-out hedonism of its multimillionaire (and decidedly amoral) protagonist, Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). Right here is one such article, and here is an even stupider one. To them I say, bullshit. Sure, he screws the system and his clients out of billions, makes liberal use of midgets as party favors, and at one point snorts drugs out of a naked lady’s butt. Saying Jordan Belfort behaved badly is like saying Sarah Palin slept through Geography class: you ain’t kidding.

But saying The Wolf of Wall Street glorifies that behavior? No way. If you think that’s the case, you either a) haven’t seen the movie or b) are already inclined to glorify that behavior yourself and really need to look in the mirror. (Quick question: do you think Gordon “Greed… is good” Gecko was a hero in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street?) 

***SPOILER***     

The Wolf of Wall Street ends with Jordan Belfort talking about going to jail, but not really worrying about it because after all, he’s rich, and rich people don’t go to jail, they go to country club jail and chop garlic with razor blades and put too much onion in the tomato sauce. That’s a statement about a fucked up society, not a statement about how cool jail can be for people with extra cash.  Then, after he gets out of jail, the very last shot of the movie takes place at a seminar in a hotel, where Jordan — a convicted felon well known by that time for defrauding investors out of tens of millions of dollars – is giving sales advice to an enraptured audience, a roomful of people willing to listen to this man – willing to do exactly what a convicted felon/drug addict  tells them – because by hell, he made a few million dollars so he sure must know something, right? As the sales pitch flies, the camera drifts away from Leo, and the very last shot of the movie is on his audience — the people lapping it up. The people willing to listen to anything if it means they could get rich. So, guess what that shot’s all about?

*** END SPOILERS ***

It sure ain’t glorifying Jordan Belfort’s wicked ways. It’s making a point about our society. More exactly, it’s asking a question: in what kind of society do people pay money to take the advice of an idiot like that?

Anyway, like I said, it’s been bugging me.

And I don’t know if it’s even going to get nominated, but The Wolf of Wall Street is your Best Picture of 2013. By ten miles.

Back to your regular programming.

Piss-Poor Storytelling: WALKING DEAD edition

Fair warning: there are huge massive gigantic powerful ***SPOILERS*** below. If you haven’t yet watched Sunday night’s episode of THE WALKING DEAD, read no further, unless you want me to give away the sequence where one of my all-time favorite shows finally bit the big one. (Nice pun, huh?) Then again, maybe you should just read on and let me ruin it for you rather than sit through it yourself.

Seriously, Hershel’s death. You have got to be kidding me. The way it played out was awful, and spit in the eye of decent storytelling in a way that I didn’t think The Walking Dead could ever do.

Now, let’s be clear. I’m not talking about the basic fact that the man died. He was going to die sooner or later because ALL characters on this show are going to die sooner or later, except for Daryl (who will flat kill Death) and maybe Rick’s son Carl, who I’m afraid might never go away because he now owns Andrea’s position as “the one character that can’t die fast enough to suit me.” (Although we did get rid of her eventually, so hope springs, I guess.) Yes, we get it, death is the theme of the show. The world is hard. Only the strong survive. Even nice folks die. Hope is lost, people are bad, in a land of the dead it’s the living you have to worry about, the walking dead are really the people who are left alive, etc. etc..

So, yeah. I long ago accepted that, eventually, Hershel Greene would be a goner. “Eventually” turned out to be the Season 4 mid-year finale, which was sooner than I would have liked (and judging by the fan reaction I’ve seen, it was sooner than most people would have liked). But the WAY they killed Hershel last night… I think it might have ruined the whole show for me.

The gist is this: there is a right way to kill off major characters, and there is a wrong way. My favorite show of the moment, Boardwalk Empire, does it the right way.

***HERE COME MORE SPOILERS, ESPECIALLY FOR MY DARLING WIFE LESLIE, WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT’S COMING ON BOARDWALK EMPIRE LIKE I DO.***

At the end of Season 2, Boardwalk killed off what was to that point the show’s single greatest character: Jimmy Darmody, the wounded soul that came home from World War I wondering why he hadn’t died there, then spent two years searching for himself before finally being gunned down by his one-time father figure Nucky Thompson in an ending that would have gotten a standing ovation from Shakespeare himself. (Jimmy went willingly to his death, just like Lefty in Donnie Brasco and Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II, which, now that I think of it, are two more perfect endings. These gangster stories get it right.) After that, Jimmy’s disfigured fellow WWI veteran Richard Harrow — the only guy in the show with a more heartwrenching story than Jimmy — continued as the soul of Boardwalk, the character we loved despite all of the ugly acts he committed, as he sought his way out right up until the moment he died, shot through and bleeding under the boardwalk in the last episode of Season 4.

(Actually, Richard Harrow didn’t become my favorite character after Jimmy died. He was the reason I started watching Boardwalk Empire in the first place, my favorite character from the moment I caught him in a brief scene while flipping through HBO one night. His line, “It occurred to me the basis of fiction is that people have some sort of connection with each other. But they don’t,” is one of the simpler, sadder things ever said by anybody.)

So that’s Jimmy Carmody and Richard Harrow, both from Boardwalk Empire, not coincidentally the best show on TV right now. They were two characters that seemed doomed from the start – just like Hershel – and yet when their end finally came, it felt earned. It felt like the right way.

***BOARDWALK EMPIRE SPOILERS ENDED***

The Walking Dead used to do it the right way, too. Clearly, at least, they know how to do it. See, among others: Shane, Dale, and my personal favorite, Sophia. Merle, and Milton. The crawling woman zombie in the first episode. The crazy scientist at the CDC. This show has proven that when it wants to, it can provide a satisfying send-off for a beloved character. And even in the case of Andrea, they provided one for a character I hated. (Don’t you look at me like I’m the only one!)

So, after building a great one in Hershel – the one man who has been unquestionably the most noble person on the show for two years running now — did the folks behind The Walking Dead give the man a great send-off, befitting such a profoundly decent soul?

Uh, no.

Of course they didn’t.

Here’s what they gave him: Hershel dies on his knees, at the hands of the Governor, who cuts his head off with a sword. THE GOVERNOR DECAPITATES HERSHEL. But wait, it’s not that simple. The Governor cleaves Hershel in the neck, then, as Hershel is trying to crawl away, pounces on him and finishes the job with a few more hacks. So, our last vision of one of the two or three best characters on the show is his headless body lying on the ground. And that’s it.

No last words. No drama. Absolutely nothing. Hack, hack, dead. Maudlin reaction shots from the prison crowd, then BOOM! Bullets are flying and everybody is trying to get the hell out of there.

Piss-poor storytelling.

What exactly was the point of doing that, other than cheap shock and special effects? Doesn’t The Walking Dead pride itself on being so much more? Couldn’t they have come up with something that served the overall story better? How about this: instead of that annoying woman with the daughter and sister, what if it was Carol that they Governor found? What if he took her back to the prison, to intimidate Rick, then killed her to set off the shitstorm. That would have been a nice circle – Carol loses herself when she gives in to violence by murdering the two sick people earlier in the season, then ultimately gets murdered herself by a truly sadistic killer. That death could also give Rick some great guilt since he was the one who sent her out to the world in the first place, and yeah, BTW that death right in front of Rick and Daryl would also have set off the same firefight that we saw between the prison folks and the Governor’s tank team. We could wrap up the Carol storyline, the Governor storyline, and the prison plotlines all at once, losing a couple of weaker characters in one neat finale while strengthening the story on the whole.

That, my friends, is economic storytelling.

Then again, if that annoying woman and her daughter hadn’t come around we never would have gotten to see the mean ol’ Governor shoot the poor little girl in the head after she got munched by a mud zombie. And I guess that moment was important to the show’s writers, just in case, you know, we forgot that the Governor was a bad person, had lost whatever was left of his soul, saw the world in stark kill-or-be-killed terms, wore an eyepatch, etc. Just like it was important that other little girl shoot the bad lady in the forehead because kids grow up quicker than we ant them to in this harsh world, there is no such thing as innocence, sometimes you have to fight violence with violence, Lord of the Flies, etc. etc.

Anyway, Carol’s still wandering out there, alive and well and bound to come back in the latter half of Season 4. Whatever.

After all the stirring death scenes they’ve given us – like Dale, Shane, and Sophia (my favorite of all) – we were robbed with Hershel. Hell, like I said, even Andrea had a good death – not to mention one that was true to her character. Hershel’s fate wasn’t true to anything. They took arguably the most beloved character on the show – actually, that is downright inarguable — and gave him a death that could have been died a hundred times by a hundred other generic faces. What was the point of that? To show how OOOH CRAZY! the Governor is? LOOK AT THE GOVERNOR. HE’S MEAN! HE’S CRAZY! HE KILLS PEOPLE! It’s safe to say, that was already established. And just in case you needed that little extra bit of proof, may I remind you: he shot a little girl in the head. A little girl! In the head! He’s so damn crazy!

(He’s also a stupid, poorly drawn cartoon character that doesn’t fit in the rest of the show. It’s like the writers can’t resist moments of, “Look at the Governor! What a bad man!” “Look at his face in the flames, he’s so evil!” “Look at what he did to Milton, his right hand man!” “Look at what he did to Andrea!” “Look at that, he shot all those people!” “He’s wild! He’s crazy!” Yes. The Governor is wild. The Governor is crazy. We get that, by God. You know what else he is? Boring. He single-handedly made Season 3 the absolute worst of all and he’s nearly brought down Season 4, too. That’s an article for another time, though. This one is for Hershel.)

When you build a successful character like Hershel, you get people to invest in that character. It’s your greatest goal as a storyteller. You want your audience to care about what happens to their favorite characters so that they go along for the full ride with you. In hindsight, it would have made more sense and been a much more fitting ending if he’d just succumbed in the prison a few episodes back, heroically trying to save all those sick people. There’s actually a part of me that thinks the whole reason they sealed off the infected wing of the prison was so Hershel could die at that door, with the walkers closing in and his daughters safe on the other side of the glass. But alas, the show didn’t have the balls to go full-on Wrath of Khan and I guess it’s been done a few times anyway. Still would have been better than what we got, though.

And so, here we are. A spectacular show having suffered a serious, self-inflicted wound. A once-great series possibly ruined by the ill- conceived and poorly executed death of one of its best characters. The creators of The Walking Dead have put a lot of effort into building their characters and making it actually mean something when they died. Hershel was one of their best, which is why it’s so disappointing to see how it went down. With Hershel, we cared. We did from the moment we met him in that big farmhouse in Season 2. There was a great end waiting for him somewhere, but instead, he got his head hacked off with a sword.

‘preciate ya,

Aaron

BTW

The Governor sucked. He was a half-assed character and I’m glad he’s finally dead. There’s another spoiler for you.

Little updates.

The blog is alive. THE BLOG LIVES! Here are a couple of little notes to help avert confusion down the way… 

ONE: In the next few weeks, Point Nine Publishing will be re-releasing Sewerville – splitting it into two shorter novels with new cover artwork and some new content, both additional and revised. This is to create a little more symmetry with Sewerville: Book II, which will also be approximately the same length as each of these two “new” editions (and which also, I suppose, will now be Book III). With shifts in technology and human attention span, it seems a little easier to build and keep reading/writing momentum spread over several shorter volumes as opposed to a few lengthier books. I can get more of the story out there faster, and you don’t have to commit as much time to each one. Everybody wins.

These are really intended for potential audiences – those who have yet to discover the story. For those who’ve already bought Sewerville, I can’t honestly suggest you spend more money on a story you’ve already read unless you just dig the new covers. (The new covers, however, will be consistent with future volumes so they all appear of a mind.) The updated content is not really essential to the story, or the future books – just a little fleshing out and cleaning up. However, I would always appreciate any reviews and ratings for the new books on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, etc..

TWO: If you’re so hip you only use e-readers these days, this next tidbit won’t matter to you. I am not that hip, though. 

Current paperback editions of both Sewerville and Lost Change and Loose Cousins are getting new matte covers, using the same artwork. Personally, I think it makes a vast, positive difference that will only enhance the existing artwork (particularly the superb David Rogers cover for Sewerville.) Future releases will also be matte finish.

Feel free to share your thoughts. And keep readin’!

JAS

P.S.,

Man of Steel is on disc now in case you missed it in theaters (I do hope you saw it in a theater first). What a movie. Better than all other Superman movies combined and multiplied by a hundred. Also better than most other movies of any kind. Yeah, I get that it’s serious and dramatic and gigantic in scope and action, but tell me again why that is a bad thing? It’s not a bad thing. And here’s some blasphemy for you: Henry Cavill is a better Superman than Christopher Reeve. Actually, way better.

 

Sewerville, Book II – chapter one!

As promised, here is the first chapter from Sewerville, Book II. (If it looks a little weird to you, that’s because I left it in raw manuscript form.) If you haven’t read Sewerville yet, then beware because there are huge spoilers here.

I probably won’t post any more excerpts for a while, but this should give you an idea of where we’re headed. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

Here… we… go…

New interview

Heads up: here is a new interview with yours truly, published on the blog of author Jackson Baer. I had fun doing the discussion, so check it out and learn about peaches, mountains, my favorite passage from Sewerville, and sundry other topics.

Sewerville, Part II: Now in progress!

I started writing SEWERVILLE: PART II last night. I can tell you now that the story casts a wider net and is really going to some interesting places, furthering the action from the first book but certainly taking the game up a notch – several notches. As you would expect, a man like Walt Slone doesn’t become WALT SLONE without friends in the highest places… and the lowest ones, too. 

I am excited to continue the SEWERVILLE tale, and even more excited to share it with you folks, who have been so great in your response. In a few days, I’ll give you a sneak peek at the beginning of PART II, and trust me, you will get an immediate sense of the journey ahead! I’m sure more bits and pieces will leak out in the months ahead, so keep a lookout.

And keep sharing this page with your friends…

‘ppreciate you!

Aaron

Facebook contest

Hey fans, friends, and followers,

There’s a little contest going on over at my Facebook page: when I hit 500 “likes” on that page, I’ll give TWO people a paperback copy of both Sewerville and Lost Change and Loose Cousins! When the page hits 500, I’ll put everybody in the drawing, pull out the two random winners, and then notify them via Facebook message.

As I type this, there are 431 likes on the page already, so get over there. Click the big “thumbs up” and let’s do this thing!

(You can also like the page from the FB link at right.)

LOST CHANGE AND LOOSE COUSINS – get it!

The new book is now available! Lost Change and Loose Cousins is out in E-book now, paperback shortly, and when the paperback is released it will have an additional story – “Philosopher Dog,” by yours truly.

Strother Kevin Hall and I are happy to share this one with you. Go now, friends, and get the book here. And as always, please consider posting an Amazon and Goodreads your review of  Sewerville, Lost Change and Loose Cousins, and anything else you read.

The new book is now available! Lost Change and Loose Cous...

The new book is now available! Lost Change and Loose Cousins is out in E-book now, paperback shortly, and when the paperback is released it will have an additional story – “Philosopher Dog,” by yours truly.

Strother Kevin Hall and I are happy to share this one with you. Go now, friends, and get the book here. And as always, please consider posting an Amazon and Goodreads your review of  Sewerville, Lost Change and Loose Cousins, and anything else you read.