Matt Maxwell's Blog: Highway 62 on Goodreads, page 10

FULL BLEED: COUGHED UP BY THE SEA (2)

Okay, let's take come care with the personal brand this time. I love horror. I love all things horror. Let me reinforce your love of horror.There. All good? Put the hatchet down. Careful with that axe, Eugene.One of the things I've found with all the books that I've written under my own name (as opposed to the ones that my name doesn't show up on and never will so don't even ask) is that I end up reinventing the process of writing them each time. This does great things for my incipient anxiety and confidence, let me tell you that. I don't know if it's restlessness or propensity towards boredom. Tough to tell.Of course, this makes me wonder if I can keep cranking out work in the same world or if I'll get bored with that, too. My guess is I'll keep changing the rules to keep myself diverted and I suspect that will alienate audiences who want me to just keep doing the funny stuff. Oh well, let's burn that bridge when we get to it at least.MY DROWNING CHORUS started out as the third book in the HAZELAND series, truth be told. I was all set to write out GLASS WOLVES and run with that. See, there's the character-driven story and then there's the world-driven storyline. They're two different things, but they have to be made to agree and reinforce each other, else why are you even doing that? Okay, you can have them at odds with one another and that drives tension, sure. But I had a character arc in mind and it simply wasn't mapping to the world arc. The trick with that is recognizing when a thing isn't working and jettison it or make a different set of choices. It's not always easy to do. Particularly if you get attached to something or a set of somethings. Character trumps other considerations (for the most part) so I let that one call the shots. Luckily it was just a matter of putting the character and arc into a different setting/adversary. I don't want to say "antagonist" because that's projecting a bunch of human assumptions onto a thing that may or may not have any pretense at humanity. Spoiler, I guess.This was something that I figured out, luckily, pretty early into things. I want to say that I got the green light for the next couple HAZELAND books after QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS in early-mid October. I had skeletal plots for each of them, seven in total. Then I spent the time between then and World Fantasy in November working out the plots some and digging into the second book. Kept running into walls, like I said, with the character-driven story and the situation. So, flying back from LA I just decided to swap some elements around and it more or less worked.From then it was another three or so weeks of hammering stupidly on the plot and handwriting a lot of stuff (handwriting is for when I need to be slow, keyboards are for when I need to put out pages, and honestly, I do better when I can just get rolling on those). So I actually have a notebook where I was doing a lot of pre-writing work and laying out wiring for the circuits to all plug in together.Let me say that writing in a familiar setting and time (even if I'm breaking some rules with both) takes a lot of work off my shoulders. You folks doing full worldbuilding and going thousands of years in the future, you're insane and I salute you. I'm pretty familiar with the HAZELAND setting, since a lot of it resides within my own memory, though I do have a pretty decent library covering the place now.So at this point, just after New Years, I have a bunch of scribbled pages (and several attempts to use outlining software, all of which were miserable failures) on a variety of setting/character/other notes. Using those, I transcribe what I need to into a Scrivener file. Now, Scriviner is fine. Lots of people swear it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I use it as a way to keep little note cards, primarily, and as a bible/database on things. In the plotting phase, I'll make a scene/plot point note and just put it in there.Eventually I have enough to have a very rough idea of how the plot will unfold (though often with helpful notes like FIX THIS LATER, thanks past me). I'll use that mostly linear events sequence to write out a first rough plot. In my case it was about ten or so pages, single spaced maybe?Then I used that to fill out what needed filling out, sometimes with chunks of dialogue or just a scene/setting piece that I wanted to balance things against. But a lot of it takes place on a blank stage and that gives me the flexibility to make settings more interesting even if the scene itself doesn't zing just yet. But then I also try not to write the scenes that people want to skip over (thanks John MacDonald).Okay, deep breath here. Because this is not enough to start a book. At least not for me.See, QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS was contracted at 30k words (and was originally going to be a serial, so I had it planned out in discrete parts to begin with.) At that point, it's just four little short stories. I can pretty much hold that in my head at once. No biggie.Of course, I turned it in at about 40k words. Luckily, it wasn't cut.MY DROWNING CHORUS was supposed to be 60k words. Double the length right off the bat. Yeah, that I can't all juggle at once. Maybe after this one I can, I dunno. Neuroplasticity and all that jazz. Ten pages wasn't enough of a structure for that. Original outline for QONT was around that length when it was approved, if memory serves.So I wrote out a pretty full synopsis.Deep breath.It went fifty double spaced pages. That was a couple days of work because at that point it's not so much writing as it is transcribing, filling out a little bit. Still, fifty pages. Terrifying prospect when you're looking at a book that isn't all that much longer than that when all is said and done. I began to panic as to having too much material. (I was also right.)Anyways, next step was to write a two page synopsis for the publisher/editor to make sure this was all jake. Easier to fix it then than to fix it in a written work, lemme tell ya.Synopsis gets approved.Then I really panic because I have to do this now. And I feel like I'm not prepared enough. Maybe I'm not. So I spend a week doing anything but write or just pretending to poke at the outline to "fix" things that aren't really there. Which means its time to start writing this. The writing of which takes around ten-twelve weeks. Mostly in about three hour chunks at a time. Four hundred and seventy pages in that time, just under three months. I'm not editing during this time. I suck at editing. Really, I'm the worst. At least on my own material. And if I edited someone else's work, all I'd do is make it more like mine. That's not a good idea. Seriously though, I'm just writing this stuff. The whole point is to get pages that can be fixed.Before I sent this book out to first readers, I made a quick pass through, mostly to get things close to the maximum length for the publisher (I'm still over -- oh well). Which meant stripping out a thing I wanted to do entirely and slicing out at least one subplot and cutting short another one. (I have indeed posted some of what was cut on this very site. It's not hard to find.) There were some minor tweaks in wording and some suturing where I did the surgery, but that's basically it. Still waiting to hear back from first readers to make sure it makes sense to someone not me.The first couple have indicated that it indeed does. I'll take it.So, yeah, easy. But then I've been doing this for awhile.

FULL BLEED: COUGHED OUT OF THE SEA

Yeah, this thing is still on. Just been busy.Finished the first draft of MY DROWNING CHORUS, that being the second in the continuing series of HAZELAND books, following librarian and forger Cait MacReady through the LA of the recent past haunted by things with and without name. Pretty happy with how it turned out, even if I had to shed a bunch of stuff that I'd wanted to include but maybe wasn't that important to begin with.I was going to go through a little breakdown of the process behind the book, but I'm wondering if that's even necessary at this point. Not a lot of demand for that sort of thing, honestly. People don't want to hear about the struggles behind it (there weren't that many anyways, aside from having the plague show up about 2/3 of the way through and really reinforce some things) they want advice as to how to succeed, how to get readers, that sort of thing.Hell, I'd love some of that myself. Anyone got any ideas? Giving away content doesn't work. It just gets people accustomed to getting stuff for free so that when you even ask for a tip in the tip jar, they get shirty about it. Hey, I get it. Times are tight. But all the same, I'm not in this for my health. If I were, I'd have gotten a job that has insurance of some kind.Seriously. Nobody's doing this to get rich. Maybe there was a time that happened, but with the Chicxulub-size meteor heading towards, uh, everything right now. Oh, you think it's already hit. Yeah, nope. What we're seeing right now is an anticipatory cratering. Nobody knows how bad it's gonna be until it is. But it'll be far worse than it is now.Enough gloom and doom. We're in it and the only way out will be to climb once the dust settles. Gotta wonder if people will even have the patience for horror afterwards, after seeing it on the news for now and as long as it'll follow, and honestly that we've been in for years.I know that I burned out on horror some time back. This isn't me burning bridges or anything, but it is a reconsideration of what I'm taking in, I suppose. Sure, I'll still watch Romero or pop in the HELLRAISER films or stuff like that. Even the fun and messed up stuff from the 80s and 90s, and even today when I can find it (though that's harder these days.) Even the elevated stuff, I look at askance. Not to open the can of worms as to the value of the term "elevate" in relation to horror (which I think is as valuable a term as "guilty pleasure" which is to say of no value whatsoever.) I guess I just want to have some fun with it, and fun is anathema to a lot of horror now. Gotta be serious, stern, refined and blah blah blah. If it works for you, great.But I burned out on feel-bad. Gotta have some victories in your life and your art, and the easy path to horror for some is just the relentless downer, the sort of forced helplessness that comes with so much of the serious stuff. I know. I'm just soft. Sure. Guilty as charged. You won. Carcosa ain't gotta be horrible. Without some elation or lightness, your horror is about as fun as most homemade sourdough bread and you managed to skip the salt (not that I would ever make such a tragic culinary mistake.)So, yeah. MY DROWNING CHORUS is something that I'll probably call horror in interviews because it's easier to say that than to talk about how it orbits around horror but doesn't fall in the gravity well. There's magic and weird nameless things and things that are much bigger and older than humanity and a universe full of rules apparently broken in interesting ways. But it's not horror. 'Cause horror is all about that destination, where you get to at the end, and I've eaten up enough bummer trips. I'm all about that moment in DAWN OF THE DEAD where Peter turns from putting a gun to his head to climbing out onto the roof and catching the helicopter to an uncertain life somewhere else, but it's at least a life.I suppose I should stay more on-brand and reinforce you and your choices, particularly in the genre content you wish to consume. But I can't really do that. All I can do is write what I write. You want to talk about that stuff honestly, well, great. But don't look to me as product or brand. What I write is the brand, and that's gonna change as times change, because otherwise you're dead inside, yeah? I'm not interested in the survival of any particular genre/subgenre/mode/whatever. I've always liked stuff on the outside and that's not about to change. Okay, well yeah, that's me not talking process. Whoops. I really did intend this to be a much more product-reinforcing post. I've got to work on this some.As for MY DROWNING CHORUS and what it's about? It's about climbing out of the hole, and how the hole that you dug might have been one you made yourself in the first place. It's about time and water, eating your way through Los Angeles, teenage mixtapes and what you need when you hit rock bottom then keep digging. Gotta keep working, right? Next book up is GLASS WOLVES, which is the third in the HAZELAND series, and will again center on Cait MacReady. It's about the borders between wilderness and civilization, time as a slow liquid and predator/prey.After that is my gothic space fantasy VOIDMAW, which is a big departure from everything else I've ever written and I wonder if I can make my voice work with that. Should be interesting.

THE UGLY FISH

Hey there. Another piece of free fiction for you all. This one from MY DROWNING CHORUS, which will likely have to be cut in the interests of space, but honestly, I can't predict anything that's going on right now.As for the book itself, I'm on page 450 of a 400 page manuscript, you read that right. It'll be at least another 20 before I'm done. But I can't tell you anything more than that. Everything is up in the air and that includes even my humble works.Here's your story, about a night watchman named Gonzo and the haunted, closed-down aquarium that he patrols.Stay safe out there.--Eliano Gonzales-Lynne usually went by "Gonzo," the name having been given him when he took on three of the front four of Pacoima Polytech's football team, nearly seven hundred pounds of them versus one-fifty, soaking wet and holding two cinder blocks. It was in the parking lot of the Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake and they'd hassled him endlessly, before finally making a grab at his then girlfriend, now wife Ronnie Diaz. The biggest one had pulled her half-way through the window of his primer-gray nova and Gonzo went for it. The neon of that sky-high Bob's sign lit the scene as people made a circle around the fray, all whooping and cheering. Those assholes had it coming to them for a long, long time.He remembered it for a moment as he leaned against the railing of the big whale tank. The new owners hadn't emptied the water yet, though the whale was off to San Diego or Miami or some other damn place. Popping a Marlboro from the pack in his uniform coat pocket, he flicked the match with a thumb and smelled the bitter hell-smell of sulfur over the faintly septic scent of the couple million gallons of salt water going rancid. No techs for maintenance now. The only crew left at Marine World was security to make sure nobody stole anything or vandalized what couldn't be unbolted and carted off. How the hell were they gonna get that big, sad orca 'cross-country, he wondered?Stupid white bankers, all interested in counting more money and not how they were gonna move that damn whale. It didn't make sense. Marine World was on hard times, sure, everyone was. No reason to close a place with history.He remembered taking Ronnie down here. She loved the tropical fishes like living jewels in those bright-lit tanks, so many you'd go crazy trying to count them. Gonzo didn't complain about how much it cost to come out to Palos Verdes or the traffic or paying two dollars for a beer, even a Budweiser at that. He just loved to watch her face all bathed in that light, watching her little gemstone fish. They came so often, he ended up getting a job here. Why not? It was steady. At least until everything wasn't. He sucked down the cigarette and figured he'd at least pretend to do his rounds. There hadn't been anything after the first week of curiosity seekers and jazzed-up kids on a dare hopping the fence. Gonzo figured there was maybe another month of this before the whole thing got condemned, or at least written-off to the point where they wouldn't want to pay his salary any longer.His fingers rolled the butt between them and he thought about tossing it in the pool. Why not? The rising moon cast a big reflection in it, all dancing in crescent ripples brought on by the winds. At least the diablo winds were over now, so hot in November that he sweat through his undershirt just standing in the night. He thought about tossing that butt, but then he imagined the horror on Ronnie's face if she'd seen him. Trash can is right over there, just go do it.Gonzo stubbed the butt on his boot sole. He'd stopped wearing the regulation shoes some time ago, and his boss was long gone. He ground it down good when he heard the splash.It sounded like a Southern Pacific diesel engine had been dropped in the water, from a big height, taller even than that Bob's sign. Not even that black and white whale made a sound like that when he was side-flopping like he'd do when he got really bored or agitated. It was too big a sound.Gonzo's hand went to his billy club and rested there, without a thought of it. The sickly salt smell got huge, splattering from the broken surface. On it, the moonlight went violent and erratic, floating around like the stars Gonzo saw when that Miles kid went dirty and rabbit-punched."Who's there!?" Gonzo shouted. He wasn't that skinny kid any more, so his voice had a real belt to it now.There wasn't any reply other than the rippling water slapping up and over the splash glass. The front several rows of the seats glistened with fresh salt water, dripping wet now."This shit isn't funny and you're trespassing! So you better get while you can!"No giggling, no scuffling of running feet. Just the dripping from those wet stadium chairs and the sloshing, like something big was still under the surface. Like something pushing the water, just as you might in a sink or bathtub. But it was doing it easy, like it was born to this.The settled from wind-blown wavelets and splash scatter to something more even, lurching uneasily. In the moonlight, Gonzo couldn't see anything clearly. It was either that deep blue, so blue it was black or it was tricky and blank silver white. Maybe there was something down there. Now it all looked dark as the surface settled. It was all dark down there.Something electric gnawed up and down Gonzo's spine. He knew the feeling but it was one he didn't spend a lot of time with. Not even when he saw red and charged those football players in the parking lot did he feel fear. That was just snap rage. This was like the feeling when the front door would ring with key-scratches at three in the morning, three because the bars let out at two and it sometimes took his father a whole hour to make it back home.Gonzo knew who was coming through that door, but never what he'd get from him. Neither did his mother or sisters. Sometimes it was sloppy hugs and kisses on the forehead, sometimes it was unreasonable rage that always came like thunder out of a clear sky.It was something big down there. As big as his father coming through that door frame, streetlight carving out his dark shape against that misty and awful yellow cast."You got a minute before I get down there!" Gonzo's voice roared, but even he knew it was hollow. "I suggest you be gone by then." He went down the stairs one at a time, Mag-Lite throwing out an uneven pool at his feet. It flickered and went out, like it was scared too and just took off."¡Cabrón! Stupid damn light." Gonzo shook it violently and the light went on and off before going out a second time.The water was quiet now, even the drips had let up. Gonzo gave up on getting the light back, holding it in one hand still. His other on the railing, instinctively as his foot hit the edge of the splashed water. Grip-tape or not, that stuff was slippery.He stopped in front of the tank and from here, it was all lit up blue and almost neon-glowing. Particles of junk and dust stirred up and were suspended in the water, drifting and just catching the light.Gonzo tapped the light against the railing, trying to bring it back. Even that small comfort would be better than the treacherous moonlight.Then the debris in the water danced and flowed as if it were alive. The surface looked like a silver line joined to a black one, like a snake undulating as it stretched across the whole of the plexiglass-paneled wall. It was beautiful.On the other side, something rose from the bottom of the tank, almost too big to see. Moonlight spilled from its back, making tiger-stripe silver shapes as the light bent in the water. And there was more texture there, like scars that never healed right. Maybe that black skin had been smooth once, but it was no longer. Gouges and bites and scrapes from a lifetime of battle, those were shown by the dancing moonlight.The shape turned, almost too big to do so in the tank, massive muscles rippling under the skin.Gonzo was locked in place, staring at the huge and ugly fish. He was tapping that Mag-Lite on his thigh without realizing it, at least until it flickered into life again.Gonzo brought the ring of light, sickly and yellow as the sodium lamps on his street, up to the glass wall as the shape simply moved. Maybe it was coming, maybe it was going. It was too big to tell, just too big. He tried to calculate how big it must have been, since that old sad whale had room to jump and play in this tank. Ronnie had loved that sad whale too, just not as much as her jeweled fish.The ring of light stopped and there was a place where the black skin ended, becoming a huge patch of gray-white. It must have been as big as a man, just that patch, just that part of the shape. There was an ugly slit in it, arrow-straight, and a swarm of pink and puckered lacerations that sometimes even crossed that slit.Then the thing opened its jaws and its teeth were as big as hands. Gonzo screamed as he saw that yawning red chasm open up, red then black where who knows what had been eaten and digested. It looked big enough to eat dinosaurs. Gonzo screamed and the light flashed across the thing's skull. He saw the dead-white eye with a black hole drilled in it, and that eye was bigger than a car tire.A spasm ran through the thing and it slammed against the plexiglass, towards where Gonzo was standing. It did not shatter, so much as split, as if hit with an axe, a jagged fault running from top to bottom. Just as easily as Gonzo would have swatted a fly. There was an instant of the crack being illuminated in brightest white, catching the moon just right. Then the water started pushing through.Gonzo was up the first flight before the water hit the concrete.His heart rattled around like a tire blown at a hundred miles an hour. The pulse ran through his veins and they felt like they were going to burst as easy as that plexi did. But he made himself turn around, just like that one day that he made himself stand up to that drunken bastard and those dumb jocks.The thing in the tank, as big as it was, was not whole. Black clouds of liquid surged through the tank, driven by the ugly fish's mortal thrashings. Bloody water heaved over the broken plastic panels and steel frames bent like paper clips. The smell of it made Gonzo sick to his stomach, knotted and boiling. As the thing turned, it came around, showing him its wound.It had been bitten in half, ragged wound torn through the whole of its body. Something had taken a bite and that bite had gutted the ugly fish.Gonzo turned off the light. He'd seen enough. He could still see the darkness of the shape as it twitched and writhed, coming to the surface now like a new island in a tiny sea. The smell of blood and bowels was overwhelming, clouding everything. He puked and knew he'd never smoke Marlboros again, maybe not even cigarettes ever.By the time he got to the service phone and figured out who even to call and got back to the tank to wait there for help, the thing was gone. Just the cloudy water left behind. Nothing sinks that fast, and he went up on even the whale performer tower to look right in, after turning on the pool lights. There was only an oily red sea like a scab waiting to happen. It stayed like that until the weather made a freakish turn to rain, but the rain alone would never make that tank run clear again.Gonzo quit that night and never went back.

FULL BLEED: BURNING AIRLINES GIVE YOU SO MUCH MORE

So, I came across this and maybe it's of some historical interest.Background. The year is 2003, and I'm a regular attendee of the San Diego Comic Con and it being the time of the nascent comics blogosphere and I'm writing things that I want to promote, I offer my labor for exposure. In this case, to Newsarama, which once was (and still is, I suppose) a daily website covering comics culture. I was also writing a free column for Broken Frontier back then, coming out once every two weeks. Anyways, this is me reporting on the Grant Morrison panel that took place at SDCC in 2003, when he was running full speed on NEW X-MEN (and it sneaked out on the floor that he was walking away from Marvel that year, to return to DC with books like WE3, VINMANARAMA and THE FILTH, which was already underway. Oh, and SEAGUY.)Enjoy this time capsule, and forgive my misspelling of Qlippoth.--SDCC'S GRANT MORRISON PANEL – Notes by Matt Maxwell for Newsarama, July 2003.Comics-related news only amounted to about one-third of what Grant Morrison opted to discuss at his panel on Friday at SDCC. While he broke the news early about departing New X-Men with #154, there was plenty of other topics…and existential ideas touched upon.by Matthew MaxwellAfter a quick, cobweb-clearing shout into the microphone to wake the room up - as the air-conditioning seemed to have failed and half the room was fanning itself off with whatever could be found, things got rolling. There will be no Marvel Boy II. The story that Morrison wanted to do was deemed “too cosmic” by the powers that be, so it won’t be happening. He didn’t seem overly bothered by it, though.He’s recently signed a two-year exclusive to DC, which means that his work on New X-Men will draw to a close with issue #154, which ends an arc illustrated by Marc Silvestri. He joked that it could be seen as the last issue of the New X-Men altogether as well. He’d also later state that not only was it the end of the X-Men, but the end of a lot of other things, but he didn’t want to ruin things for future readers - spoilers in at the end of things, though.Talking about The Filth, Morrison said that the next issue was a “psychic destroyer” and that if you’re going to read the series, you better read it all the way through to get the necessary closure, continuing his joke begun at the Vertigo panel where he said that if people had picked up an issue or two but didn’t read the final issue of the series, it would kill them.Morrison also described the process of writing The Filth as, difficult and painful at best, and life-threatening in its most harrowing moments. There was a quick aside about jumping out of balconies of Los Angeles Hotels and the like, but he moves on quickly.Even though he’s signed to DC, there will be no Le Sexxy, which he described briefly as a former rock-star opening an 80s-themed café in Glasgow; mayhem ensues. He’s not really interested in taking the project over to a place like Avatar, either. It’s not going to happen and he seemed as if he’d moved on.We3 (“We Three”) is a project that he has developing over at DC, which he described as “heartbreaking, emotional stuff.” He mentioned some other projects briefly, but didn’t offer too many details, though he had some ideas for Captain Marvel Junior. Mr. Morrison wouldn’t answer questions as to the nature with his project with Frank Quitely, however.Mr. Morrison described how he approached his run on JLA as mythology, where the plot drives the characters. This in opposition to the X-Men where the character conflicts drive the plot. This is a subject that would some up more than once.When asked about his attempt to bring sentience to the DC universe, Grant described the concept of ‘emergence’ (best to Google it, folks) and how systems, once they become sufficiently complex, begin to generate their own intelligence and consciousness. More on some of this a little further in.Sleepless Nights, the film that he’s developing over at Dreamworks, moves slowly through the Hollywood machine, but there’s not much to report on that front. He described the project as a “Halloween Classic”, but not to expect anything to happen until it happens.As mentioned previously, the body of the panel was not dominated by direct comics-related talk, though not necessarily on the industry politics side of things, a matter which didn’t really seem to be of great importance - even with the surprise presence of Mark Waid who inquired more than once ‘So is it true that you know Mark Millar?’When he was talking about superheroes, Morrison said that (as noted above) he’s got very different approaches to the different books that he takes on. His work on JLA was marked by iconic characters going through huge, larger-than-life plots more closely resembling Greek Mythology than anything else. The X-Men work that he’s done is far more character-driven, and as such was much more intimate and on a smaller scale (though against a larger backdrop of global mutant politics.) Both sides have their challenges and rewards, it seemed.He said that his work on New X-Men was always a challenge to the status quo, as was the very presence of mutants themselves in the Marvel universe.When asked who’d win in a battle between the X-Men and the JLA, he simply said “Batman would just say ‘You’re all in a lot of trouble.’”Mr. Morrison was asked about his ‘scorched-earth’ policy towards books that he’s written, saying that it was basically impossible to follow in his footsteps. Mark Waid piped up “Hey!” to raucous laughter from the audience. Mr. Morrison went on to say that he didn’t really agree with that. Perhaps people felt that way because he actually ended stories (when he was given the opportunity) at the end of his runs. But even then, he ended his JLA run with the team racing off to deal with another crisis, changing none of them permanently. Asked why he doesn’t draw, Morrison said that he simply wasn’t very good at that. Waid took a moment to disabuse the audience of that notion. He talked about how Morrison not only did page breakdowns for much of his own work as part of the process, but that he was heavily involved in the design of things, particularly on Doom Patrol. Waid continued and praised Morrison as one of the most visually-oriented comics writers that he’d worked with.Okay. Things start getting really crazy right after this. You’ve been warned.When asked about influences, Morrison pointed out William S. Burroughs as a specific influence on Doom Patrol, going to far as to call him the “Patron Saint of the book.” He also acknowledged specific techniques, like cut-up and deliberate mis-spell-correction to add a bit to the mix of things. Though he also admitted that he’s not really interested in specific process-writing/technique at all now. He went on to describe that the writing process for him involves much input from the characters themselves as anyone else. He’d originally written The Beak (from New X-Men) as a character to be killed off shortly after his appearance in the “Imperial” storyline, but that Beak started speaking up in his head and simply wouldn’t allow it. “Before you know it, he’d done all this crazy stuff and gotten a girl pregnant,” Morrison mused. Of course, all this tied into the concept of emergence. Briefly stated, once a series of rules/concepts/organisms gets sufficiently complicated, a larger pattern emerges out of the whole. This is the concept behind “smart mobs” and beehives alike. There’s a single mind in a hive, but you couldn’t find it in an individual bee. As an aside, that’s the best way I can describe it; if you want more, seriously, Google ‘emergence’ and prepare to be overwhelmed.Going further into The Filth, he talked about how the book worked him over. “The Klippoth definitely had me in its grip, then,” Morrison admitted. He went on to talk about The Filth as sort of a vaccine against the very things that the book is about. The Hand is kind of a defense mechanism/antibody for the psyche of the human race, with each of its divisions being modeled after a particular part of the immune system. Continuing, he described how each body is made up of billions of cells, but in and around all of those cells are some ten times that number in bacteria/viruses/other organisms and how they could be an emergent intelligence in and of themselves. Follow this line of thought if you dare, but the ready implication being ‘Who’s *really* doing the thinking in your body?’Asked about the current state of the world, particularly the war in Iraq, Mr. Morrison offered, “perhaps it’s just an essential part of the system, as horrible as that may seem.” He wasn’t particularly interested in being part of any active anti-war movement, and noted that in his previous experience, a number of those people only seemed to be “interested in meeting up with the police.”Morrison then mused on the cyclic nature of realism/fantasy in comics, each peaking in approximately a ten-year cycle from WWII onwards. From the crazed fantasy of the Silver Age (and even before) as well as the over-the-top horror of the EC comics, to the nods towards Marvel setting superheroics in the ‘real’ world in the ‘60s, to the creative explosion of Marvel in the 70s, and then the grim/gritty school of the ‘80s and into the ‘90s. He noted that things seem to be moving to the fantastic side of the continuum again these days (a side he seems decidedly more comfortable with).He went on to talk about how he’s not entirely thrilled with realistic comics. Realistic characters, yes, but once you put superheroes in the real world; they seem more than a bit silly. Morrison said that you couldn’t drag the gods to Earth and keep them as gods. “Realistically, the Flash would be able to take care of every super-villain everywhere over his lunch break, but how much fun is that?”When asked to talk about The Invisibles, Morrison referred to it as not only a treatise on how to do magic, but as a wider introduction to a different way of seeing things (which is a mild understatement, for any readers who’ve plowed all the way through it). He went into particular detail regarding looking at 4th+ dimensional perception (assuming that we live in the fourth dimension: i.e., the three that we’re accustomed to plus Time as the fourth). As shown graphically in “The Invisible Kingdom”, he talked about how we leave “trails” through time, that to our perception in the present are inaccessible. But that if you were able to step outside the bounds of normal time, you could see a person/thing’s entire existence trailing off in the past, to a point far enough in the past where everything was a single Thing just before the Big Bang. Like a lot of the subject matter of the panel, it was pretty dense stuff and certainly demanded a lot of the listener.Talking about comics generally, he said that they “move very quickly” as compared to other media like novels or movies in particular. From the time that he writes a script, if he’s on a normal schedule and not writing ahead, he can see the final product in four months or so. That’s not a lot of lead time when compared to the other media, which move in a course of years rather than months. This is why comics are so flexible in terms of adaptability and keeping up with events as they happen.There was some discussion as to his loathing of folk music, and how Punk saved everything in 1977. Ironically, he’s written a vaguely folk album of songs that he hopes to have released soon. Though, he’s wary as to announcing these things before they’re more or less ready to go.Asked of his thoughts on Alan Moore’s Promethea, Mr. Morrison said “It’s really well-drawn.” He went on to talk about the Kabbalah, and how like any system (like the Chakra system of Buddhism) is really only a tool to describe life around you. It’s not necessary to chain yourself to any one system, and there’s nothing to prevent you from coming up with your own way of doing things, whether it was with magic or anything else. This was one of his aims with The Invisibles as he described above.When asked what his favorite hangover cure was, Mr. Morrison said simply: “Don’t drink. Or live in Scotland and drink all the time.” Finally, Mr. Morrison was coaxed into singing a bit for the audience, for which he chose a bit from the John Lennon incantation that King Mob performed at the beginning of The Invisibles, to enthusiastic applause, even if he was just a tad reluctant to do so.SPOILER FROM ABOVE…..Morrison plans on destroying the Marvel Universe. Really. Newsarama thanks Matthew Maxwell and Broken Frontier for their help in assembling this article.

CINDY SAYS

So this here's a piece of fiction that I wrote for one of those anthology calls. Yeah, it didn't get accepted. You're as shocked as I am.It's a shorter bit of a much longer work called CINDY SAYS, but that title can still stick here. Yes, it's part of HAZELAND/QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS. No, the photo above is not of the theatre marquee mentioned, but it's as close as I could get.Hope you enjoy it.Yes, there's a couple inaccuracies. You got me.--CINDY SAYSWalter Tsang ran a bunch of three-car jam insurance scams out of an office on Seventh Street in downtown. Two confederate cars box in a third and both agree that the third one caused it. Worked a charm when you chose the right targets. The money was good, too. While it lasted. Kept me in rent and drinks and spending money between gigs after school, not that school did me a lick of good. Kept me somewhere between squalor and splendor and that was just fine for the time.I just wish it had lasted. And I really wish that Terry hadn't coughed up everybody's name to the driver of that sweet Mercury. But from what I heard, he was hanging upside down at the time, eight stories over Broadway, looking up but seeing asphalt like it was the inevitable sky. Anyone who tells you they'd have done different is lying or stupid. The drivers even let him walk away from it, change his pants and leave town. Serves him right. I told him that going after old beauties was never worth it. Folks who drive those take the bent fenders very personally. Go with the new, I said. Pick someone who's used to paying their way out of an inconvenience. Pick someone who's going to forget you once they drive off the shoulder of the 101 on their way to Santa Barbara for the weekend. For the love of god, pick someone who's just leasing and doesn't give half a fuck.But no. They grazed the Merc and pretty soon after that, Walter remembered that he had a very sick mother in Baltimore, probably on her deathbed even. Terry, Phil, even Ramon who was dumb-luck tougher than Job. He got the worst of it. I mean, he'll be able to eat solid food again, but never ribs. Not a tooth of his own in his head, or so I heard. Pretty soon, it was just me out of the crew left in town. But I'll never leave. No spooky crew was going to chase me out of the place where I was born and where I'd die, probably alone in a fleatrap, but on my own feet in my own town. And I was going to go out for a drink in my own town. Still had money, even if it was too big to spend anywhere but Fort Knox.-The air outside the Criss Cross Club on Broadway was cool and fresh. Inside was all smoke and sweat and Patsy Cline on the juke making everything even sadder and crazier. Wind must've been blowing off the ocean, but it was jammed with electricity like the juice from all the neon and the marquees was leaking out, jangling everything up. It wasn't just the gin and sevens, either. I'm no lightweight. I can take three and still drive Mulholland with one hand, curves and all. Pulled out the lighter and tipped the last one out of a pack of Benson and Hedges, held onto the pack absently. Took a quarter in a long breath and let it fill me up. Not a shake in these hands.I gulped down the sights, staring down to the west. The lights of the Theatre District buzzed and hummed in familiar color wash of industrial rainbow. Above those, the KRKD tower beacon pulsed and I breathed with that for a moment. Across the street, a kid on a ladder struggled with the changeover marquee for the Million Dollar Theatre. He falteringly placed a letter with one hand and gripped the ladder with the other. All he had up so far was BLA, which I laughed at. Out loud, I guess."Hey, what's so funny, guy?" the woman asked.I turned, half-realizing I was pulling myself up straight and sucking in the middle afforded me by a diet of tacos and fries and any drink not nailed down. Not that I was on the prowl, not that I'd made time for that in a long time. But you have to play the game when you're out on the field.She stood like a local but didn't dress like it. It was a weird mix of what kids might wear at the Masque, but not cheap, not ripped and not from the rack. Her top was folded and pleated down her chest, but shoulders left exposed wholly, with slashed openings in the sleeve exposing her upper arms. All of her was colored red spilling from the Criss Cross signage buzzing above us. She should have been on stage. She had that look."You gonna talk or stare?" she asked with stiletto snap. "Not that I don't appreciate the attention.""Oh, hey, sorry. Just, you're overdressed for here is all.""Where's here?" She took a long drag off the last reach of her cigarette and it glowed as hard and red as the neon. "Downtown. You should be somewhere classier. Maybe younger.""Downtown where, uh, I didn't catch your name." She drew in an appraisal in the time it took for her to finish her smoke and exhaled. It went out like blood clouded in still water. There was something else in it. Maybe a lilac smell, but folded into the tobacco."Kent. Kent An—""We're going to stop at 'Kent' and we're just going to pretend that pretentious 't' isn't stuck on the end, okay?" Her eyes were dark and bright, made even more so by the lines of rouge and shadow traced out over the left side of her face. Her black hair had started out bound tightly but was beginning to go unkempt, or maybe every strand was placed with some care, I couldn't tell which. I'd have believed either."Okay. We'll keep it at that. And downtown Los Angeles in late June, if I'm to take your question on its face. Where else would we be?" I let the butt drop from between my fingers and smashed it out without looking, catching the bare spot in the sole and an instant of heat caught me unawares."Okay, you're not that drunk. You don't need to walk the line to convince me," she smiled and even in the dusk it was brighter than every sign on the street. "I was just walking downtown, looking up the Eastern Columbia. It's kind of a long way out of my way, don't see it often.""You live in the Valley?"She tilted her head for a second and smirked and I forgot where I was."Oh no. Nuke the Valley. Fuck the suburbs.""It's weird, hearing a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn say 'fuck'.""Hepburn?" Her face clouded over with a bafflement that couldn't be faked. "Oh, you mean that girl from Roman Holiday? God, what a tragic story. She could have had a career."I tried to juggle that in my head. Maybe it was the gin. Maybe it was the all of her. "No, she was in Breakfast at—"The dude across the street yelled something in Spanish as the ladder rocked beneath him. He danced like Harold Lloyd on a biplane wing, silhouetted against the white acrylic of the marquee. She laughed as he righted himself. "Poor kid.""They oughta get a taller ladder.""Yeah." She turned back to face me, red and purple lit from the dusk. "Hey, you got a smoke?"I reached for the pack and grimaced. "I'm out.""Well, I shouldn't do this, but I'll save you here." She pulled out a slim handbag, dodging around the thin wires of one of those Walkman tape players on her belt. The headphones rested around her neck and I'd have traded places with those for nothing. "What're you listening to these days?" I asked. "I'm into that new Oingo Boingo album. And a buddy of mine in the business slipped me an advance of the new X."She looked at me like I was speaking Greek. "The new Doors album. Under a Big Black Sun, I think. It sounds kinda desperate, but nice to see that they haven't given up." She pressed something into my hand. It felt like a tape case, but the dimensions were wrong. It was thinner, but wider, not right at all. Maybe some new format."What the hell?" I stared at the picture of the band on the front. There was Jim Morrison front and center, thicker like Brando, locks shorn and harder-edged. "Hey, uh, what is this? Morrison's dead. Paris, 1971. Bath time gone bad.""Here. Just calm down and have a smoke. Clear your head some." She took back the tape and swapped it for a pack of cigarettes. I looked at the package and read the brand in the half-light.""Fatima. Wow. That takes me back. Jack Webb used to advertise these. Rod Serling, too. Probably what killed him."She shook her head and said "Takes you back? It's 1982 everywhere. Now light one and pass it to me. I'm going to have to go soon." I did as she told me to, trying to pull off cool with both between my lips for a moment as I dragged on them to start the burn. She watched me in the yellow glow of the lighter and I didn't want to be anywhere else. But I won't kid myself. She was playing with me, but maybe I enjoyed being played with. Like I said, it'd been awhile.My head went ether as I drew another breath. Spots swam at the edge of my vision and the color bled and danced. I felt like I'd just had the bottle and was ready to dance with a barstool. I closed my eyes and the afterimage of the movie marquee danced in pink and purple on my eyelids."You should probably slow down on those.""What's in 'em? Angel dust?"She laughed with a sound as pure as the first rain hitting the street. "Plain, ordinary tobacco.""Tobacco from where?" I opened my eyes and had to steady myself. The colors everywhere were wrong. Even the red from the Criss Cross neon. It was deeper crimson. Utterly lush. The woman took the lit cigarette from my lips but I could only barely feel it. "Just breathe the smoke for a minute. You're fine."Gasoline on water sheen squirmed around my peripheral vision as I fixed on the Million Dollar Theatre as a beacon. I heard distant bells approaching from down Broadway and all I could smell was lilacs. The title on the marquee came into focus. Electric Sheep starring Tommy Lee Jones, it read. It was completed when not even a word had been finished before."Say something, Ken. You're freaking me out.""I'm freaking me out. Hey, what even is your name?""It's Cindy." I could feel her leading me to one of those concrete planters that lined Broadway and she turned me so that I could lean against it without falling over. I felt like I was made of hummingbirds and none of was heading in any particular direction. The bell rang closer now like a big bike, ding-ding."Look, I don't mind the trip, just warn me next time."The air tasted funny, exhaust tanged with ozone and what smelled like fruit and chicken roasting on a nearby grill. I was hungry for this and I'd never even known it."Open up your eyes. But don't get weird. I'm right here."I tried to push the smokes back to her, but her hand wrapped around mine, touch more electric than anything in the airwaves. "You're gonna want to keep those. Just don't use 'em all up at once.""You're reading that sign, right? 'Electric Sheep'?""I sure am. Watched the crew film some of it in the Bradbury right there. We're standing in one of their shots.""Yeah, hey, I remember that. But not the—"I stopped speaking and watched the trolley car roll by, clacking on sunken rails, sparks arcing from the overhead wires. The conductor waved jauntily as he passed us, peaked cap perched on his head, lit from beneath."You're going to catch flies you keep gaping like that.""The hell was that?""The Red Line. What did you think it was?" She patted me on the shoulder and laughed. "Yeah, I think you'll be okay. Just take it slow."I stood and looked down Broadway into the deepening sunset. The ragged skyline was familiar, but not. The lights of the Theatre District dazzled, neon brighter than I'd ever seen it. Only they were the wrong colors. You know how Coke has that Coke and it's the same red every place you see it? These were wrong. The shades were off, some lighter, some deeper.And there was the word RICHFIELD spelled out in vertically-oriented block letters, orange and blue. They were small in the distance but they were right there. I tried not to think about how the Richfield Tower had been disassembled when I was a kid, saw it on the news and knew that time was passing right before me. "Oh, you dig the Richfield, too? Always been a favorite." She moved closer to me and her perfume added to the sensory confusion."I loved it too. Too bad it was torn down when I was ten.""That's when they ripped the Eastern Columbia down, you mean. And put up that stupid glass box. Midcentury revival my butt." She drew a deep breath and exhaled."Where am I? I asked. "Is this where you're from?""Los Angeles, same as you. My apartment's off Fig. I get breakfast at the Pantry, same as you I bet.""Only on Saturdays." I took the cigarette out of my mouth. I'd had enough. "Cindy, this is fun, but I'm at sea here."Someone down the street yelled "Pollo y pastor!" A street vendor poked at the grill with a long pair of tongs and a swarm of sparks jumped from it."It's June 24, 1982. You're in Los Angeles. Don't sweat anything else." Something crinkled in her hands. "Look at this. 'Cause here's tomorrow." She shoved some paper into my hands."Hollywood Park grand re-opening," I read from the glossy flyer. It felt slick as motor oil in my hands. There was a list of horses and riders I didn't recognize. Iceberg Lettuce, Hot Rail, Wild Gift, Spillover. "Yeah, so? I have no luck with the ponies.""Luck's for suckers. My sister knows a guy who knows how it's going to play out." Her eyes fairly glittered as brightly as the Red Line's sparks. "Hot Rail in the seventh. Look at those odds.""That says thirteen to one.""Pretend it's guaranteed instead."I stuffed the nearly-empty package of Fatimas into my coat pocket without thought."Why are you telling me this?""Maybe some secrets are too good to keep. Maybe I thought you could use some extra scratch given the hole in your shoes." She stubbed out the remains of her cigarette on the concrete sidewalk. The light on her face shone too-deep red."Nothing gets past you, huh?""Not when I'm paying attention. Now maybe you want to wear your shoes out a little more and walk me back to my neighborhood?"A pack of late-sixties model cars rolled low and slow past the two of us, arms resting on open windows, music blaring. "What're those low-riders? What models?"The candyflake glitter was reflected in her eyes as she appraised them. "Antelope mostly. There's a Thunderhead and a Gold Eagle in there. Aren't they—"I heard the scuffling footstep before the guy hit us. He tried to sweep past her, snagging her purse as he went. A long black athletic sweatshirt hung off him, blazes of white writing on the back flashing before he turned. My hand held onto one of the straps that he'd slipped off as he crossed by and in front. He was skinny, rag and bone thin, but he pulled on the strap like a drowning man reaching for a raft."Get off!" Cindy yelled. She pulled a hand off her belt and a silver canister flashed as she brought it up and leveled it at the guy. I tried holding onto the purse, but friction burned against my palm as it came free."Gimme that--!" the thief's voice was shrill and shrieking, rising to a high whine as the spray hit him aside the face. I could only see the reflection of eyes there, the rest of it inky black shadow.I reached again for the purse as he wailed and clambered to his feet. Cindy took half a step back and brought her left foot up, ready to drive a spiked heel through anything she could get a hold of. Admiration flared up in me, envying her refusal to take anything from anyone. That wouldn't have been me, but I'd have wanted it to be.The thief lashed out with a sneaker-clad foot, hitting Cindy's balance off center as she prepared to slam her foot down. I half-lunged and threw myself, catching her around the waist so she didn't eat asphalt. Nobody should. She fell against my arm and almost took me down with her. I hauled us both up to our feet and she was stiff with rage."Are you okay?""I'm fine! He's getting—" I let her stand on her own and started after the guy as he ran up Second street. He was all wiry speed, even if a little unsteady from the macing he'd just gotten. Cindy must've missed him; normally that stuff puts a guy on his knees. Less noisy than a shotgun and works on drunks. He was making speed up Broadway, running in front of a pack of mismatched headlights. I crossed behind, laughing that he was only making things harder for himself. He ran up Second towards Hill and I was right behind.Off to the right, the rails gleamed in the streetlights that shone in the wrong color. Too cold, too clean. I tried not to let it bother me as I ran hard for the guy. Every running step put stars on my feet. Never go cheap on shoes. Got a good look at the back of his jacket. It read CROW (something) in two rows of hand-painted white on the black fabric. A band? A gang? I didn't know. I'd never heard of them. But why would I have? This was LA but not. Everything around me screamed that. It was an echo of a place, but the echo came back only mostly accurate, enough to add up to a sense of alienate familiarity.Up ahead, the dude ran towards the mouth of the Second street tunnel on the other side of Hill. He was beginning to wind out, and I was, too. He darted into the empty intersection, just behind the unfamiliar shape of a delivery truck filled with Alta-Dena milk. "Drop the purse and! I won't have to! Mess you up!" I shouted between burning breaths. I wasn't convinced but then I didn't have to be.My chest was going to furnace as he hit the tunnel. He was frozen against the glare of an oncoming trolley. He was also looking back, maybe trying to size me up. I got the impression that he was a runner and would fold pretty fast if I caught him."Croweater needs this! You can't—!" he shouted as he spilled down to the raised sidewalk. The purse flew down into the nearby rails as I falteringly caught up to him. The purse was a dark smudge in the light of the oncoming trolley. I figured the clearance wouldn't destroy the bag, but didn't want to take the chance. I'd gone this far. Why not get run over by a phantom train to impress a girl, right?The lights in the tunnel flickered for a moment as I vaulted the handrail and hit the roadbed, nearly losing any footing. The light from the headlamp ramped up and a horn sounded like God himself was at the wheel. More flickering, like the whole world was coming off the sprockets for a moment. My hand closed around the vinyl of the purse and I snatched it close as I rolled off the tracks, but into the auto lanes.Not my best plan, sure.The train rolled at me and then the sound stopped dead. No echo, no doppler, just a subtle ringing in my ears as I stood up in the green-lit tiled tunnel.And everything tasted different. There was no ozone, no crackle in the air. The color was right and the million little differences that had crept up on me before were gone. I could feel a tension dissipate out of me like heat radiating off a summer street.The blare of a honking Mercedes hit me from all sides, bouncing around the hard tile and I stepped back onto the sidewalk without a thought. Because there was no rail to vault.Because there was no mugger sprawled out on the concrete in front of me.I peered at the spot where he'd been and couldn't find anything there. No scuffmarks, no sweat, no nothing.And I knew in my heart if I walked back to the Criss Cross Club on Broadway, there'd be no Cindy.But I carried her purse the entire way. Didn't look in it once. Walked the shakes out of me and looked down Broadway. No Cindy. No Richfield Tower. All the colors were all right. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both as I patted my pocket for the pack of smokes she'd given me. They were right there where I'd put 'em.I looked for what I'd seen before, after calming down some, just feeling as empty and hollow as the rattling wind.-Home was no longer that. I figured that out the second that I'd seen the door to my place hanging open. The deadbolt had been punched right out, leaving only a suggestive black hole in the fakeshit wood where it had been. I stopped on the stairs for a moment, thinking about reaching my hand through and maybe getting it chopped off for my trouble. Whoever had gotten to Tsang and Terry and everyone else had gotten down far enough on their list to get to me, the most puny and inconsequential cog in their inconvenience.I stole back down the stairs and down the scattered streetlamps of Figureoa to the Pantry. I didn't know what time it was, but I knew it'd be open. And the phone out front was usually in working order. I punched in Tom's number and tried not to freak out at every shadow that moved. I couldn't stay here. Everyone else had left town so maybe it was time for me to, and the suburbs over the hills wouldn't do."Nuke the Valley," indeed, I whispered at the third ring."Who the Christ calls at two AM?" Tom snarled into line, any threat there dulled by the sleepiness in his voice."Tom, it's your brother. I got some trouble." I watched oncoming traffic as a I spoke, trying to stay measured. He wouldn't put up with me if I flipped out."When don't you?""This is worse than usual. Looks like it's time to move. I'm gonna need the box from you."He yawned. "The box you told me not to give you. That one.""The very one. Can I stop by and get it?""It's not here, man.""You gave it away?""I'd never do that. Not to my favorite brother. It's at the studio, locked up.""The studio?""Safer there than here. You can get it in the morning.""It's the morning now.""You can get it when the sun's up and the vampires aren't out. Not before.""Fine. I'll be there at nine.""Hey, you oughta know." He swallowed hard. "Catherine's still working there. And there ain't much place to hide.""Maybe she won't come in tomorrow. She's still got school, right?" I swallowed a dry fist of hair down my throat. "Besides, I have way bigger problems than her.""Do you, really?""Swear I do. Goodnight.""Goodnight, kid."I listened to the coins drop in the guts of the phone and let it rest. No point in arguing with him. And I wasn't getting anywhere without the money to travel. What I had in my pocket might get me to Pacoima, but that wasn't near far enough.I went into the Pantry and sat down at a counter which hadn't changed in more than sixty years. Maybe it was the comedown from all the adrenalin I'd pumped out tonight but I couldn't stop myself from thinking about all the time recorded here, all the decision branches that split and split again going from a single through-line to one that clouded into an endlessly multiplied uncertainty. Like a tree growing from a single trunk line.Yet one was real and solid and the others were unreachable if you even knew to look for them. I took out the packet of cigarettes and stared at the label again. It was from another time. Not my through-line past, but one of those others, one that had broken off and still continued growing on its own accord. It had become a of tree but different than the one I'd spent my under. Could I live in another? One almost like the one I lived my whole life in?"Hey pal," the waitress said, snapping me out of my recursive waking dream. "You can't stay here unless you order something. You just can't stay here." I'll admit. I stared at her for a time just then."Yeah. I know." I put the cigarettes back. I could feel that there were maybe six or seven in there. Who knew how long those would last. "Just gimme some hash browns and eggs and you can park the pot right here." I slapped my hand on the chipped formica, black gaps in the corners like rivers wound through granite.I could ride MTD after I got kicked out of here, at least for a couple hours.The hash browns were great. I wondered if I'd ever have another plate like them. After I finished, I went through the contents of her purse by feel, fumbling around where I couldn't look. -Yellow-green fluorescent tubes lit up the inside of the bus, showing the dirt and whatever else stuck to the floor everywhere. It stayed off freeways, making wide lurching turns and I just let the rows of stucco in the mist roll past me, half-fugue and half-sleep. I made the connections and transfers without thought, my stash of quarters eroding over time as the last miles were eaten up and I found myself on Lankershim near Magnolia. Still LA but other LA. The Valley, fucked.My brother Tom worked for one of those tabloid shows, Quest4. It's The Weekly World News meets Disney-level nature documentaries layered with just enough actual fact that they can avoid being called fiction. I even worked there, for a little while. Cath got me the job while we were still a thing, but I managed to piss that away just like I pissed her off. What can I say? It's a talent.I didn't know whether to be flattered or appalled when the guard recognized me, even though I felt like dogshit wrapped in that diagonal-striped blazer."Nice purse, K.""I don't have time for the jokes today. So just imagine I said 'fuck you' in reply.""You're still overwriting," he said as he buzzed me in.Behind me, the sun was shining through the last of the high clouds and it was going to be hot as hell today.The Quest4 offices and writer's room and editing bay and research library were all in the same space of a lower-floor soundstage built in the sixties television boom. Like a lot of small operations, it was held together by substandard drywall and the fear that you really wouldn't find a better gig than this before unemployment ran out.I only hated myself a little for being afraid that I'd run into her sitting behind her desk, pen in her hand like an unlit cigarette. I was afraid she'd let me have it, the whole nine yards. It was no less than I deserved.But I was really afraid that I'd only get a refusal to be acknowledged. That's what I'd really earned. Fury would be recognition that I had mattered once, even if it was a branch that no longer connected.

POTD 02/19/20

Orinda CA, 2015. I was going to run with a photo of the Orinda theatre neon, but I figured that was too easy.

POTD - 02/18/20

From 1981. Taken on my mom's Pentax SLR (which I couldn't use any more even if I still had it because I can't focus a split-ring due to my vision -- that or I'd need coke-bottle-bottom glasses to do so.)I have the film negatives still. I think. But no prints, so this is taken from the contact sheet. And yes, this is the living room of the house I grew up in. Identify the following:Analog digital clockLouvered glass windowsSuitably erudite reading materialsSlide-selector cable boxFairchild Channel F game cartridges (think we got an Intellivision not long after)Radiation-producing cathode-ray-tube televised entertainment unit

POTD 02/17/20

Film shot, taken in the kitchen of my old home in San Diego, probably 1996.

POTD 02/15-16/20

Double shot from a night in Sacramento in 2015.

POTD 02/14/20

Sorry, no Valentine's-themed photography today. Just a shot taken in North Hollywood in 2015 in honor of a scene I was supposed to write today but life kinda got in the way. Oh well.