My Doctor Who obsession continues unabated. Tom Baker, while being the fourth actor to play the Doctor, became the most famous in the role. Here is a string of outtakes he did for a commerical voiceover.

Hilarious.

The Return of the King

The trailer of the final Lord of the Rings film can be found here.

Wow.

Choices.

First of all, I have a new cellphone.

Second, in Pulp Fiction Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman) gives Vincent Vega (played by John Travolta) a personality test of sorts. You remember she gives him choices between two pop culture opposites (of a sort) to determine what kind of guy he is. Ginger... or Mary Anne? Elvis... or The Beatles? The Brady Bunch... or the Partridge Family?

In that vein, one could ask, "Star Trek... or Doctor Who?"

For the one (two?) people reading this unaware of what it is, Doctor Who is the longest running British science fiction tv show. It began over there in the 1960's the way Star Trek started in the States. Both series are inescapable pop cultural touchstones in their respective countries. Both have very devoted fanbases. The similarities end there though.

Doctor Who follows the adventures of an 800 year old renegade Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He journeys through time and space (with companions that he picks up) in a stolen machine called a T.A.R.D.I.S. (short for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space).

Initially the TARDIS was supposed to be able to change its appearance in order to better fit in with the surroundings. However, something went wrong with that part of it-- so it always looks like a blue London police call box.

At its best, Doctor Who was short on budget but long on charm, creativity, weirdness, idiosyncracy, cleverness, freedom, and the lure of adventure. No explanation of Trek is necessary I hope.

So which is it for you? Star Trek or Doctor Who? Don't tell me you don't like science fiction because we live in a science fiction world and I won't believe you.

All this is preface to the news that Doctor Who is returning!

I lost my cellphone.

That's the gist of it. Anyone trying to contact me for the next couple days by phone is doomed to failure. Left it on the train due to overenthusiastic reading of Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter.

Hopefully all will turn out all right. More later.

Television's Golden Age

So, I picked up Quicksilver yesterday. I'm too caught up in a few other books to start it yet though. Sigh.

On the way home from the bookstore, I stopped by Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee. Eddie's is one of the greatest video stores in the entire country. They've been around for over thirty years and have somewhere around 60,000 tapes.

I love their collection of old television programs. I've made it a habit to go and rent several tapes of certain series at one time. To give myself a taste of what it was all about. In particular, I love the mystery, adventure, and western shows of the 1960's: The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Burke's Law, and the westerns of the period: The Wild, Wild West; Have Gun --Will Travel, Maverick; and one that is completely new to me: Yancy Derringer.

Yancy Derringer follows the adventures of an ex-Conferderate soldier turned river boat gambler and secret agent for John Colton, administrator of New Orleans. Here's a bit of dialogue from the pilot. Colton has just asked Derringer to work for him in secret (meaning if he's caught, Colton can't lift a hand to help him):

Derringer: You on one side of the law, me on the other?

Colton: Yes.

Derringer: The same law?

Colton: That's right.

Derringer: What you want is a rakehell, a rogue, a scoundrel, a gentleman, a smuggler, a gambler, and a fool.

Colton: Well, Mr. Derringer?

Derringer: Well, Mr. Colton... guess I'm your huckleberry.

They just don't make 'em like that anymore. Damn it.

Marriage, and all that.

In the past few weeks, two of my friends have gotten married. Mark, who's been a friend for the past three years and Rob, who has tolerated and enjoyed my friendship for going on thirty years. Yipes.

(Here I should point out that the two did not marry each other but rather the ladyloves of their choosing. Second marriages for both as well.)

Mark's wedding was understated and classy. Held at the courthouse in Santa Barbara, which used to be a mission and so looked like a church anyhow. There was alcohol.

Rob's wedding was much more formal. I was part of the wedding party and so got to wear a tuxedo. It marred by the fact that it was dry and the name Jesus was tossed around more than Frisbees at Venice Beach.

Listen: No one, and I mean No One should be expected (allowed?) to marry or bury a loved one without the presence of alcoholic beverages. Drinking is a fucking requirement, folks. Much proselytising about how okay the Lord is with your matrimonial union doesn't cut it. Ever.

Your Lord Jesus did not spend his time turning water into wine so you could just blow it off. It is your duty as Christians to go forth and turn wine into water.

The most anticipated book of the year

I have been extraordinarily lax about posting here lately. Totally amateurish on my part. That ends here.

2003 has just been an incredible year in terms of pop culture. By far though the thing I've been looking forward to the most is Neal Stephenson's new novel: Quicksilver. It's the follow-up to Cryptonomicon, and like that one deals with codes, power, money, freedom, and intellectual thrills. Simply put: Stephenson writes geek fiction.

Less than to go now, and I can't wait. I even took a vacation day so I could stay home and read his latest opus? Can you believe that?

(Reminder: Must get girlfriend immediately. If this were Bangkok, I could get one on the way home from work. Kidding.)

Brian Eno has written a piece concerning Lessons in How to Lie About Iraq. Naturally, it originally saw light of day in a British newspaper. Pay particular attention to the bit where he recounts talking to a Russian musician about dealing with propaganda. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said he would choose a free press over a free government. We should be so lucky.

Which reminds me, I need to pick up a deck of Eno's Oblique Strategies cards. Alan Moore has a set don't you know.

Friendship

"What is friendship? It’s telephoning a friend at night to say, ‘Be a pal, get your gun and come over quickly’ – and hearing the reply, ‘O.K., be right there.’ " -- Jean-Pierre Melville

The French have an aspect of romantic fatalism to their culture that I find completely irresistible. You can see it in things as Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It's unmistakable in Casablanca (which while not being French was hugely influenced by Julien Duvivier's 1936 film Pepe Le Moko. Bogart was a film icon in Paris years before he became one in the US.

Along these lines, the Criterion Collection is going to release Le Circle Rouge. It will make a nice companion to Bob Le Flambeur. The French understand something about film noir. They coined the term.

My mother died back in June. The day of her funeral (miserable in so many ways), I checked my e-mail and found this. It was an e-mail from Jeremy. He claims to have seen it in a dream. It cheered me immensely. I don't even have dreams about myself where I come off that cool, but I've started.

He's probably the kind of friend Melville was going on about.

Resume of the assshole in charge.

I found this somewhere. It speaks for itself really. Rather too eloquently, I might add.

Sigh.

GEORGE W. BUSH



Past work experience:

I ran for congress and lost.
I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.


Accomplishments:

With my father's help and nearly the same name, I was elected Governor of Texas.
I changed pollution laws for oil and power companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the nation.
I replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government in billions in borrowed money.
I set a record for most executions by any governor in American history.
I became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of Republican appointments to the Supreme Court.


Accomplishments as President:

Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the country's surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered the record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
Set an all-time record for the biggest stock market drop in its history.


I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record and in my year in office set the all-time record for most vacation days taken by any president.



After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips of any other president in U.S. history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
I set the all-time record for the most mortgage foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I set the record for the lowest number of press conferences than any president since the invention of television.


I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have done.



I cut healthcare benefits for war veterans and set the all-time record for the most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/

I dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.

My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.

Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history.

(The 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).



I am the first president in U.S. history to have all 50 states bankrupted at the same time.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
I created the largest government bureaucracy in the history of the United States and set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history, while at the same time proposing tax cuts.
I am the first president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.


I hold the record for most corporate campaign donations.

My biggest lifetime campaign contributor, one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

I am the first president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

I am the first U.S. president to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

I set all-time records for the number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.

I failed to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.

I failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.



Records and References:

I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).

I was AWOL from National Guard.

Records from my tenure as governor of Texas are in my father's library, unavailable for public view.

All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed and unavailable for public view.

All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed and unavailable for public view.

Any records or minutes my VP or I attended regarding public energy policy are sealed and unavailable for public review.



For personal references please speak to my daddy or Uncle James Baker.

They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.

I bought the new issue of Playboy yesterday. It's the "Women of Starbucks" issue, and if nude baristas are your thing you could do worse than pick it up. Actually, don't buy it. It's nothing but depressing.

The previous bit was nabbed from a book called The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore by George Khoury and friends, published by TwoMorrows Publishing and available for the reasonable price of $24.95. I recommend it to one and all, as an excellent resource of insight, interviews, and tribute to one of the finest writers alive.

I am not even joking a little bit when I say that.

ALAN MOORE'S FIVE TIPS FOR WOULD-BE COMICS WRITERS

1. Don't.
2. No, really don't.
3. DEFINITELY don't---I mean it.
4. Whatever you might be imagining about a life of writing, it's not like that.
5. OK, if you're going to anyway, if you're going to be a writer of any quality, you will have to commit yourself to writing---which is something that, when you're young and idealistic, sounds incredibly easy to do, but you should commit almost as if you were some ancient Greek or Egyptian committing yourself to a god.

If you do right by the god, then the god may, at some point in the future, reward you. But if you slack off and don't do right by your talent or your god, then you are heading for a world of immense and unimaginable pain. If you have a gift that you choose to pursue, then you have to pursue it seriously. Don't be half-assed about it, but realize what that commitment means.

Committing yourself to writing will mean, to a certain extent, your writing will become the most important part of your life---and that's a big thing to say. It can have a distancing effect upon other relationships. It can be sometimes quite a solitary life. If you're committed to your writing, you're going to spend most of your life indoors in a silent, empty room, concentrating on a pen and a piece of paper or their equivalent. Be prepared to take it seriously and be prepared to follow where it takes you, even if that takes you to some very strange places.

This is by no means the most glamorous profession.

Don't say that I didn't warn you.

Been there and back.

Haven't posted in a while. The end of that date left me somewhat depressed. I should have written anyway, but didn't feel like working up the energy to even breathe if you can imagine it.

Anyway, I want to talk about some other stuff. Like books! And comics! And... Other things!

I set aside Declare by Tim Powers to read some other worthies:

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane- I've read everything by this guy, and he is really turning out some incredible stuff. He's written seven novels so far, and every one of them is an addictive thriller written by someone with a poet's sense of the language. This is probably my least favorite of his books, but I have nothing but admiration for the guts he had to write it.

The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires by Brian Stableford- Stableford has long been a writer I wished to try. He writes in a lot of different genres, but one of the things he's really known for is his scientific romances (this is a term used to describe the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and other early writers of science fiction).

After that, I figure on reading the entirety of Raymond Chandler's work. Start with the short stories, then burn through all seven novels. I am addicted to story, and need as much as I get of it right now.

Speaking of which, which I wasn't, here's an interview with one of my heroes, Grant Morrison. Pay particular attention to the portion where he talks of his upcoming comic Vimanarama. I'm really looking forward to this. Morrison had an indelible effect on the way I think when I was in my teens. Unlike many other writers, he continues to impress to this day. Fucking pop genius.

Epiphany: In which the discovery is made that I am in all fact, a complete dolt.

She took me out for dinner in honor of my birthday, belatedly, Thursday evening. We drove around for about an hour, as she was trying to be spontaneous and pick a place that she could barely remember. Thing is, she picked me up at nine, and by ten the restaurants she had in mind were starting to close.

After wandering around like this for a bit we finally ended up in Tangiers-- a restaurant in Los Feliz. Dinner was great, and then she gave me a present of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. For such a small book, it has a lot of meat to chew on. It is one of the most wonderful thoughtful gifts anyone has ever given to me.

I might be falling in love with this girl.

Anyway, I should point out that the "date" as it were ended badly. I realize that sometimes I reveal my emotions with about as much charm as an Old Testament god. It's about that appealing too. Ugh. I'm certain she thinks I'm an idiot.

The Friend Zone

Bah. I have been banished (again) to The Friend Zone. You know that place: it's where Burgess Meredith wound up in a library after a nuclear war with all the books he could possibly want to read at his fingers-- only to break his glasses. Where William Shatner leaves a mental institution only to find himself on a plane that has a demonic thing attacking the wing. Where--

Oh wait, that's The Twilight Zone. Well it feels the same from where I'm standing. If I could just find the Rod Serling jerk in control of the place, I'd bust him one in the nose.

A snippet of conversation.

Here is an excahange between my boss and I yesterday:

Jack: So, if I joined a religion that required me to spend my holy days totally debauched in worship of Nyarlahotep, could I be excluded from working Sundays?

Bosslady: No, you can't use that reason. Better people than you have tried.

Jack: (pause) There are no better people than me.

Girl Interrupted Me

For the past few days, the statement "everything is going according to plan" has been running through my head. Not, let me point out, in a God sees all, knows all, etc. manner. No. Rather it plays in the smiling with a drink in his hand, astonishingly clever, loaded with charm, laconic 1960s film hero way (how's that for some keen personal insight into your scribe's brain?).

Whenever things would get messed up, go counter to my wishes, or generally go pear shaped as they inevitably do: S'alright. All is well. EIGATP. I like to think Norman Vincent Peale would be pleased, and slightly scandalised.

Last night, I had a date with a girl. We ate at Tommy's, watched Wings Of Desire, and talked. I leaned over to kiss her and...

...Girl said no. Can you believe that? Girl Said No. Urrrgh. We debated and discussed the matter. I brought out Occam's Razor and some Cream of the Jest. Girl would not be swayed. She still say no.

Still, no reason to be discouraged. Everything Is Going According To Plan. I'm seeing her again on Thursday night, where she has another chance to say, "No." On the bright side though, it is also a golden opportunity for her to say, "Yes."

Books of the moment.

Just finished:

The King's Coat by Dewey Lambdin

The Big Blow by Joe R. Lansdale

Hardcase by Dan Simmons

I've started Declare by Tim Powers. The author describes it as "tradecraft meets Lovecraft."

? ? ?

Randall, a friend of mine, is in the hospital this week. His heart is beating out of rhythm apparently. Not certain what's going to happen, but he may end up on some kind of heart medication or wearing a pacemaker. He just turned thirty. Christ.