All my apologies for the unscheduled two-week hiatus me and this not-blog have been on. I know many of you have far more treacherous and ongoing weather conditions so it seems nervy to complain about some rain, so I won't. What I will do is mention, just in passing, that the SoCal rains caused some pretty serious flooding in my writing studio. A friend's LP's that were being stored for "safe-keeping" in my studio sadly got the brunt of it: they were directly in the line of fire... er, water.

But since then, said LP's (for you youngsters out there, LP = Long Playing, which is not a sex term, but just the length of a record which is an archaic, although superior form of sound recording and playback. Google it or read it on Wiki or whatever it is you do) are stacked on my desk, my chair, my filing cabinet making working in there far too difficult while furnishing me with a valid excuse for said non-planned hiatus.


So, last week when it was pouring, I opened the door and offered to hold my neighbors across the way's FedEx package so it wouldn't get drowned. I even left the neighbor a note saying I have it just in case it was important, timely. But this morning, when the DHL guy knocked and asked if I would sign/hold a package for the neighbor next to me I told them I don't speak with her, which is true. Me and Thurman are grudge-holders of the 9th Order and that bitch's stupid bitch of a dog (I really blame the owner but there is collateral damage) took a chomp out of Thurm's noggin when he was still a tiny kitten, so yeah -- no neighborly favors.

Still working on the cover of "Rose," waiting to get in the editing room for "To Begin Again," and still waiting to sell even a single T-shirt.

I'll try and get the studio cleared out and dried out and then see what's back there to share with you. Y'all were probably enjoying xmas and stuff and weren't even looking here anyway...

My apologies to ALL of you who checked in yesterday to find out the second difference between at&pee and Metro-PCS outside of the obvious less than half the cost and who cares about that: I know you’re all addicted to your I (am not actually a) phone, but I can actually make a call with my new one. Crap! I may even call you now.
Here’s the second thing I noticed immediately: When my new phone was fully charged, it beeped and told me that I should unplug the adaptor/charger to conserve energy. Now, I cannot speak for each and every at&pee model phone – only for the ones that I have had over the years – but when those phones were fully charged they instructed me to shove the free end up my rectum and leave it there. Now, many of you may like that, and by all means, don’t let me try and influence you otherwise, I’m just sharing my observations and now there’s more room for my head up my ass.
So there…

The cover photographs for my short story collection are now in my possession; working on cover design and formatting right now. The rock is still being pushed up the hill, but it’s getting closer and now it’s closer still…

RIP Bob “Rocket Robert” Feller, one of the finest right-handed pitchers baseball has ever seen and a fine, if outspoken gentleman. I recall meeting Mr. Feller at one of the first, big baseball memorabilia conventions I attended as a kid. He took the time to look up at you and talk (so unlike the Say Hey kid) as he signed a baseball or photograph. The starting nine up in Heaven just got all that much better.
Speaking of better, I “suppose” the Phils have done that, poaching Cliff Lee. And most sour grapes aside, who wants a guy who’s afraid to pitch in the heated American League East? Would have liked to have him for the short run, but a seven year contract (the Yankees can afford the money) for a 32 year old lefty who is already having serious back issues could have been quite an albatross. Good luck there, Missus Lee in the City of Brother Love where they spit on the home team’s wives.
But I do hope Andy Pettitte comes back for one more go around; sure do like those crafty, smart lefthanders hurling for the Yanks in the big ballpark in the Bronx.

Rant #1 (vs. AT&T)
So, last week I called AT&Pee to look into lower cost options for my internet and land-line phone from them. I explained my situation and inquired as to what they could do to help keep my business and save me some money. The oh-so very helpful customer “service” representative first told me that I could change my phone to a limited number of minutes (instead of unlimited) which would be slightly less expensive (we’re talking only a few bucks, actually) but she looked at my usage and told me I would be subject to overage fees because of my usage.
When I told her that I had NO choice but to use my land-line because my cell phone (foolishly, also through AT&Pee) doesn’t work in either my home or my office. My actual monthly charge would wind up costing me more and I would have to pay attention to my minutes. Yeah, that’s great. Thanks, but FOAD.
And then I inquire into ways to lower my internet charges from them. I am informed if I cut my speed in half I can save a whopping five bucks a month! Beverly Hills, here I come! But now, here’s the really, really great part of that: Yesterday I received a post-card from AT&Pee hoping that I am loving my shitty service and to inform me that the costs of that service would be going up on February 1st by, hold your breath, that very same five bucks I would be “saving.”
Of course, the customer disservice agent neglected to inform me of that. I mean, why be helpful. So, I’m just gonna jack from the neighbors and tell AT&Pee where they can stick that five bucks in rusty quarters.
Rant #2 (vs. Carrington Property “Service”)
So, as I am in the process of getting rid of AT&Pee, CPS is going to have a time trying to get rid of me. I am done paying rent on an unsafe, insecure unit and have informed them, as well as the bank that actually now owns my home, that (A) I won’t give them another dime and (B) Why—I hung Lynne Brown, my property “manager,” out to dry listing the broken promises, the flat-out lies and the failure to even put in working smoke detectors in my home after seven months.
Part of me hopes that I am still here when they attempt to rent the four vacant units. Rent Strike signs won’t do it – my unit is the first any potential leasee would see upon entering our bungalow complex – so they’ll get treated to my spray-painted window decorations. I’m thinking:
1. Lynne Brown is a liar
2. CPS are wanna-be slumlords
3. I wouldn’t rent from them if I were YOU!

Okay, I am done with this morning’s rants. Tomorrow I will get back to my normally sunny disposition and bitch about why really short guys should not front bands and maybe how there is still time to be the first to buy one of my T-shirt designs (I suspect I may be the only one to sport my “God is Love* *Some Restrictions Apply,” and the first to buy my book, but that’s cool.
And don’t worry—Cliff Lee and his missus shall also face the wrath of my bombast…

Beer, wine, baby?
It used to be when you’re going to a house party, you don’t show up empty-handed. And it used to be that a six-pack or a bottle of red wine would suffice, but no longer. Apparently unless you show up with an infant in a baby bjorn or a toddler toddling about, you have come unequipped; you might as well have come empty-handed and then planted yourself in front of the bar, drinking the best thing out on it.
And I don’t want to say that Nazis or Hawthorne had the right idea, but wouldn’t it serve everyone in attendance all that much better if the moms had to wear color-coordinated tags? A very simple system indicating which of these women are single moms and/or those interested in becoming single moms from the ones who had husbands or baby-daddies at home watching football and drinking their own beer from the ones for whom the very idea of sex brings up dark visions of stretch marks and morning sickness?
Of course, the party the previous evening had its own coding problem. When you show up fashionably late (how late? The game of Trivial Pursuit was already in progress) how are you to know that in the spirit of fairness (or maybe we also showed up too late for the keys to go in the bowl) that the couples had been divided up so that partners in life were not teammates in the game. By the by, the three of us who were single beat the happy loving couples in that most trivial of games which just seems to indicate that single people must be smarter, right?

A Rose by Any Other Name, my “soon” to be published short story collection is still on the shelf just awaiting its cover photo. As I am actually quite a believer that one can actually often judge a book by its cover, this is a matter of no small consequence. I am ready to order the proof save for that one factor.
In the meanwhile, the video projects are slightly slowed as well so I may start lining up the next book to get pushed out of the nest: my novel “Live Fast! (Die Out of Town)” which is adapted from my own screenplay and movie. I think I am going to plunder my own work and novelize a few more of my scripts; if I can’t sell them as movies perhaps I can sell them as books (and not have to collaborate with people who don’t know what the word means) and then when someone (who? I don’t know) turns around and says that the book would make a good movie, I can “write” the screenplay quickly, right?
Or, I could just have a screenplay going out of business sale…

First – what is ready: I have opened a little store on Café Press and made available for purchase a couple of T-shirts (so far) emblazoned with a couple of my favorite sayings. One of them is an original to me, the other I stole off a bank wall in Hoboken, New Jersey so many, many years ago that the statute of limitations has expired and “LIVE FAST! (Die Out of Town”) is all mine, mine, mine. And now, along with “God is Love* … *Some Restrictions Apply” you can get your own shirt at:
www.cafepress.com/RightorWrong1

As for the short story collection, the Sisyphean push up the hill continues. Amusingly enough, I am back at the very place I was about a year and half or two years ago. The copy is proofed, edited, formatted for print (and now, almost for Kindle, too) and I am just awaiting the cover photograph of the tattoo that has always been the “cover to be.”
I really wanted the shots taken of the ink when it was fresh and at its brightest to serve as the cover. Especially since the cover will be representing Tracy Ray’s work and I’d also like her to be seen in her best light, too. But if that can’t happen by the end of this weekend, I will get a new shot taken and just have it cleaned up in photo-shop or something like that.
I have submitted two of the stories from the collection to Jamye Waxman for her next Sexy Tales night at El Cid, in Hollywood on 1/11/11. And although I would prefer to do a spoken word thing, reading from my book – especially if I can have copies to sell that night – makes practical sense so I am listening; hopefully someone in the audience will as well.

I am also trying to push the years old music video for Darren Gaines & The Key Party’s song “To Begin Again” toward completion before the end of this stupid year. After three years of limbo (two of those years being spent by the original editor sitting on his ass and my master tapes before losing them for another year) it’s about time to just make that as good as it can be and move on.

My tarot card reading last night said the Yankees would make me happy and sign Cliff Lee; it was the first time in twenty years of reading cards that someone asked a sports question.

So, “A Rose by Any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man & a Woman” is this much closer to being available for Kindle. It’s up there, but the formatting needs some major corrections and the covers and author information still need to be added. But it is a big step further along than it’s been and I’d like to thank Alan Turkus for that. Hopefully soon I will be telling you where you can buy it and read it – or at least – tell me that you have…
And it looks like I will be booked to do a second reading at Jamye Waxman’s Sexy Tales at El Cid on 1/11/11. Of course, the smart thing to do would be to read a story from the aforementioned short story collection and try and sell some books. So then, why am I considering of performing the first handful of pages from the book that I had stolen last year? I suppose it’s probably because I am an idiot who likes to shoot himself in the foot?
Maybe I should call my friend Falling James and ask him how it worked out when he insisted on naming his follow-up to the amazing rock n’ roll album, Kill Tunes, “FUCK.” Walmart sold SO many copies with that big black curse-word over a lovely picture of blue sky and clouds.

Jesus Chrysler may drive a Dodge, but apparently Fannie Mae inspectors drive Porsches. After seven-plus months of trying to get code violations and mandatory repairs handled, how is it that the very same week that I decide to stop caring about it and let that shit go, that they finally show up. Really enjoyed the dude standing in my door lying to me and saying he’s called me four times. He offered to show me his phone; I countered with offering to show him my called ID.
“If you don’t like it, burn it down,” – I think that’s a line from a very old Suicide Commandos song; the SC were, to the best of my knowledge, the first punk band from Minneapolis.

I saw the Future this past Saturday night and it came in a pie crust; actually, it came in 31 different pie crusts. Now, I am not saying or even implying that the Grilled Cheese Invitational has jumped the shark, but when the “important” local media covers it, well, the end is nigh.
So, long live the pie—both sweet and savory. Through one of those friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend last minute kind of invitations I wound up at the 4th annual Baked Pie-Off this past weekend. And although there were no green pies in the competition, the invite mentioned the contact buzz and that was 100% true and stuff.
There were more than a 100 people in the Echo Park house convened around a table with the aforementioned 31 different pies. And all the participants were very serious when it came to their baking. I wasn’t actually taking notes although I told people that I was covering the event so you’re not getting a play-by-play account or even a listing of many of the pies. Them’s the breaks.
I do know there was some German pie that required fruit to be soaked in rum for a number of months; I didn’t get any of the pie, but the baker (who had won the 1st Baked Pie-Off) passed me his flask for a sip of the leftover rum that had had the fruit in it. Amazingly smooth and delicious; you missed something there. There was a Moon Pie and a lot that had bacon and peanut butter and the kicker, which won the Sweet category, was a melon and something else ice-box pie.
Don’t tell ‘em I told you, but if you see me at next year’s you owe me a drink.
******************
Last night I delivered the final edited copy of my short story collection, “A Rose by Any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man & a Woman” to a friend at Amazon. With Alan’s help, this book will very soon be available through Amazon and on Kindle--- finally!
The book was written about five years ago and has been completely done and ready for the last three years although there were “valid” excuses for keeping it out of print for some of that time. Alas, I can’t find any more excuses, so the book will be available for purchase soon- maybe even for Xmas.
I will keep you posted.

Well, I sure hope the premiere of “Of Silence” went well…
Yeah.

Yesterday was supposed to be the beginning of the new video project, but somehow the asinine liar who is my rental management company contact saw differently. Gosh, since I am dropping names here, I might as well say what the posters in my window will read once these losers start trying to rent out the vacant units at my bungalow complex.
LYNNE BROWN IS A LIAR/CPS ARE WANNA-BE SLUMLORDS/I WOULDN’T RENT FROM THEM IF I WERE YOU!

Oh, and in other “closure” news, last year’s bullshit project “Kingdom Keepers” and the biggest liar/loser/scumbag Rashit Mousedick (his real name is close enough) are buried and dead. Disney announced their own movie project set in one of the parks and using their own characters and rides is being developed. Throw the dirt on the coffin and I am just very glad that I won’t have to keep checking to see if the afore-mentioned loser is trying to anything with the script I wrote for him.
So, you say you wanna be a Hollywood screenwriter? Maybe it’s time to re-print that piece.

Okay, this time I mean it; this is the last excerpt from “Giving In” that any of us will read before next year. But here you go:

The look in his eyes said all she had to know; he was disappointed in her. Part of her really wanted to let him think whatever the fuck he wanted to think. But…
“I gave him my script,” she said.
He arched an eyebrow. The fucking asshole actually had the cajones to raise one of his bushy, graying eyebrows at her. She should have punched him right in the socket. But…
“And that’s the only thing I gave him,” she huffed.