So that's what Comicpalooza is like

As I'm writing this, I have been home for less than an hour.  Comicpalooza is still in my ears, on my skin, and pressing into the soles of my feet.  I had not been inside the George R. Brown center before, so I was unaware that the whole lower floor is one huge room with partial walls to block sight and a little bit of sound, so the layout itself was a surprise.  There were wrestlers, rollerderby-ers, and tesla coils.  Wow.
Claudia's booth was on one of the dealer's aisles, and the next one was where they put all the VIPs who were signing autographs.  So if George Takei had leaned too far back in his chair, he would've fallen right through the pvc-framed fabric wall and into her lap.  (I don't think she would have complained)
There was a movie production company, Odyssee Pictures, right next to us, and if Michael Biehn had leaned back too far, he would've fallen into their booth.  They were playing trailers for some of their films, including 'Jacob,' 'Sweatshop,' and others that I'll have to check out.
The Manapunk booth was a couple of aisles down, and we checked on each other back and forth during the day, because when you're working a con, sometimes you're stuck at your booth for a while, and it's nice to have someone spell you for a few minutes when you need it.
There were costumes galore, including a black dalek, lots of Harley Quinns, two Batgirls right across the aisle from us, and Tank Girl and one of her Wallabees.  I was wearing my tiger-striped Yukata, which Claudia made for me and which got me invited to pose for a picture with some people in steampunk costumes.  I wasn't kidding about any of the attractions, either.  I never saw the wrestlers except when they were walking around, but every once in a while a nice woman in roller-skates would zip by handing out flyers on when the next match was scheduled.  They usually had names like 'Sweetie Todd' or 'Maul McCartney' on their uniforms.  I spent some time over at the A.R.M.A. display, and got to hear music from a band who played while GIGANTIC tesla coils were shooting lighting around everywhere on stage.  Again, wow.
Claudia was interviewed by a blogger, and the tape is on his Youtube channel, Bratac123.
Business was good, and now we're home for a couple of days.  Then we hit the road for A-kon.  Bit of a downer when I checked my e-mail, though.  Cutting block Press has passed on 'Mine.'  Oh well.  Any weekend where your wife gets the belly dancers who visit her booth to give you a hip swing or three is a damn good one.

Bittermint tea and ironlace orchids

To heck with it, this is worthy of a special post.  Because the wife and I are going to have back to back conventions, (comicpalooza and A-kon) I set myself a deadline of having Bittermint done by this weekend.  Last night I got it done.
I hate deadlines.  I understand them, but I have the same amount of love for them that I have for rectal fungus.  In the back of my mind every deadline, every single one, is linked to that episode of 'Colin's Sandwich' where he works through heaven and hell to get something turned in on time, and the twit who commissioned it just has him set it on his desk, cheerily dropping the fact that he won't be reading it anytime soon.  Irrational?  Hell, yes.  Now tell me it doesn't really happen.
The car is loaded, and my wife will be setting up the Pan-Gaia Designs booth at Comicpalooza tomorrow after work.  I'll be at the booth with her Saturday and Sunday.  If you're in the area, stop by and say hello.

'The Hunger' makes me even hungrier

Okay, this is a day late, and hopefully it won't be a dollar short.  I'm working like hell trying to get Bittermint done, but like everything else it just gets bigger the more I pound at it.
A while back I bought a trade paperback based solely on the cool cover, which had a very creepy image of a man's distorted face.  It was a collections of short stories by a guy I had never heard of, David Nickle.  I went through the book in less than a week, which with the time I have to read is damn fast.  I then had a new author to watch.
These days I'm watching the TV series 'The Hunger' when I get a chance, and the other night I saw a familiar name in the selection, 'The Sloan Men.'  Sure enough, the opening credits marked it as based on Nickle's work.  I got to meet Mr. Nickle earlier at Horror Con, and I shook his hand and thanked him for writing the book.  Seeing his name and his story gave me one more little tangible reminder that writers do actually get published, and sometimes their stories do get picked up to make TV shows and movies.  I'll have to admit that the number of my stories that would be suitable even for cable might be a bit slim, but I'm not done writing yet.
Comic Palooza is coming up this weekend!  Yay!!

Ever since last week's post, I've been pondering the point I tried to make, and when I re-read it just now, I have to concede that it got away from me.  It wasn't that I was complaining how awkward of a fit the world can sometimes be, but I was trying to say how my tastes make me who I am, and yours make you who you are.  If I listened to more Journey and less Dio, I might not have gotten the idea for a story about what a person's first few minutes of the afterlife are like.  If I didn't read Richard Matheson, who knows what I would write?  If I don't fit in the world, well then the world can damn well live with it, or change.
I'm posting this a day late, and yesterday was Mother's Day.  I hope everyone had a good one, and that good memories ruled the day.  If there were bad ones, give them their day in court.  That means let them have their say, but also lay out the evidence against them.
I'm hoping to have the rewrite of Bittermint done before Comic Palooza, and I'm also working on a not-so-short story titled 'Blood.'  I may turn it into my first experiment in chopping a long story down to a more marketable length.
More to follow.

Having rare tastes

The other morning I was headed in to work, (not my happiest part of the day) and while I was channel-surfing on the radio, I caught a song I hadn't heard in a while.  Run To The Hills, by Iron Maiden.  I was a Maiden fan way back in middle school, and for a while I bought every album of theirs that I could get my hands on.  This was way back when you actually bought a flat disk the size of a dinner plate, and then played it on a record-player.  Eventually I switched over to cassette tapes, and these days I'm grudgingly buying MP3's off Amazon.  I still miss getting to hold the album in my hands and stare at Derek Riggs's cover art.
Those days back then were when I did most of my exploring of what life has to offer.  Not all of it, and not even as much as wish I had.  I let a lot of opportunities go by that I wish I had taken advantage of, but I also found magic.  I listened to Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath.  I read Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Dean Koontz.  I discovered House of Mystery, I watched The Legend of Hell House, and I saw a weird martial art that had a really bad reputation become one of the latest crazes.  I played Dungeons and Dragons, and I started to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to go walk around the neighborhood because I couldn't sleep.
None of those things gave me much to talk about to the kids I went to school with.  I made a few friends who became a gaming group, and my best friend in those days was also a Maiden fan, and that was the bunch I hung out with.
These days I still like good heavy metal, intelligent horror, gaming, and the little bits of reality that Mr and Mrs North America seem to try their damnedest to sweep under the rug.  I have a larger group of friends with tastes like mine, and even when our tastes don't match exactly, nine times out of ten we still get the appeal that the story, movie, or hobby has for the other person.  The dialect may be different, but the language is the same.

That same morning that I heard Run To the Hills, a co-worker in the break room was reading the sports section and asked if liked boxing.  I already knew better than to try to explain that I like boxing as a martial art, but that if I've ever watched a match, it was playing on a screen somewhere in the background of a restaurant I was at, and I didn't look at the people's names, I just looked at each fighter to see if they were heavy on their feet or if they overextended their punches.  So I dodged the issue with a simpler truth, I don't watch television.  Cue awkward silence.
Now here's the point: was it awkward for me, or for him?  I've been like this my whole life, this is who I am.  I've also known people who read the sports section, watch TV, and who don't read.  I don't speak their language, but I know it when I hear it.  I can usually find something in the thread of conversation to go with and keep it going.  Those times when I can't, or decide that whatever I'm working on writing at that moment needs my attention, the conversation dies.  The other person has no more clue about what to say to me than he or she would if a die-hard Trekker asked them to get in on the Kirk vs Picard debate.  I dislike the 'us' verses 'them' mentality because it falls short of the truth that we're not that damn different, but from the other side of the mirror, are we?  Just what do the muggles think of these strange people?
What, you think I have the answer?  I just work here.  Now let me get back to writing a ghost story where a man in post-revolutionary days is haunted by his living son.