Stories Worth Your Time

Stories Worth your Time

The agent hunt continues. I’ll be signing copies of the 2013 Saints and Sinners fiction anthology in New Orleans on May 23^rd at the Hotel Monteleone. (It’ll be on Amazon afterward. Check out my story, “Mountainview”, about a gay middle school student and his bully finding common ground amid disaster.)

I got my first yes on JESSE RULES. Unfortunately, it was from a fundamentalist publisher, who definitely didn’t understand that it’s a book about a gay teen who turns into a homicidal megalomaniac because he refuses to be honest with himself. Maybe they thought I was saying all queer kids kill. Sigh.

Anyway, moving on.

That’s all on the business front. Here’s something new.

Stories (books-movies-video games) worth your time:

We Need to Talk About Kevin – The film and the book are equally enthralling. Here is a mother wrestling with the age old question, ‘to breed or not to breed?’. She has lived the thrilling life of a traveler, and met and married a man she loves. Now she’s stuck with a big, fat, angsty, ‘What next?’

            Babies are supposed to be next. But at seven billion people on the planet and counting, we have a choice in that matter now. People can say no to breeding and do other things with their time. (Although what to do with one’s childless time may be the scariest question of all.) We can even self-assess, come to the conclusion that we would be terrible parents, and choose not to breed accordingly.

            But somehow, this educated woman of the world gets pulled into motherhood. Her desire to “turn the page” as she calls it, combined with passive-aggressive pressure from her husband, leads her to have a son, Kevin.

            From the start, Kevin can tell he isn’t wanted. And everyone is going to pay for it.

            I love this novel for tackling taboo head-on. I also have selfish reasons. The novel was a critical and commercial hit, proving you can disturb and entertain an audience at the same time. This is what I’m going to do with Jesse.

Prometheus – Some folks didn’t get what Entertainment Weekly called the “heavy, heavy, heaviosity” of this movie. Plus it’s a prequel, and let’s face it, most of those are derivative shit.

            Not this one. By being a “sort of prequel”, it maintained the mystery that most prequels lack. You had an idea of what was going to happen but not how, and that kept it fresh. The basic idea is a hundred years in the future, two scientists hypothesize that they’ve found the planet where our creators came from. “The Company” from the “Alien” movies funds an expedition, though their motives are, predictably, as pure as an interstellar Goldman Sachs. This results in a monster movie with a philosophical backbone. Not a lot of those in captivity.

            Besides being an FX extravaganza, it also sports stellar performances from Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, and awesomeness incarnate, Michael Fassenbender. (He’s been in X-men and Inglorious Basterds. The prosecution rests.)

Bioshock (Game Series) – I’m jealous of this tagline: Shooting game with psychic abilities set in libertarian dystopia under the sea. How cool is the concept alone?

The first game features my favorite plot twist since Samus Aran turned out to be a woman at the end of the first Metroid. One of the people guiding your character through the combat zone dystopia of Rapture turns out not to have your best interests at heart. He’s hypnotized you to obey whenever he uses the word “kindly” to “ask” you to do something for him. It turns the gamer’s perception on its head, and it motivates you for the latter half of the game, where you are driven to find and kill your former puppet master.

            By the time you hear the line, “A slave chooses, a man obeys,” you’ll be hooked enough to check out the latest installment, Bioshock Infinite.

Killing Them Softly – Ever rent a movie on a whim with no expectations, and then find yourself pleasantly surprised? That’s how I felt with this one. It had Brad Pitt and enough Sopranos alumni to draw me in, but I wasn’t expecting much but another faded copy of “Goodfellas”.

            It was a lot better than that for a few reasons. It starts predictably, with mafia guys ripping one another off, eventually calling in Brad Pitt’s character to settle things down with a series of executions. Pitt likes to “kill them softly”, meaning from a distance, so there’s no begging, no emotions, no intimacy. He’s a killer with a conscience, trying to be a killer with none.

            Meanwhile, news of the 2008 deregulation-fueled stock market crash pervades in the background. Brad Pitt screams the movie’s thesis at the end. “This isn’t a country, it’s a business. Now pay me my fucking money.”

Rebooting the American Dream – You may not know Tom Hartmann, but you should. In this book, he does what no politician has had the courage to do in my lifetime – he identifies the main problems our country faces and proposes solutions. (Some, like worker cooperatives, deserve at least a closer look.) This is the best case I’ve read for tax-and-spend liberalism as an alternative to don’t-tax-still-spend conservatism of the Cheney-Wolfowitz crowd and Lord of the Flies libertarianism of Ron and Rand Paul.

            He makes a lot of valid points. Globalization was never voted on. It was forced on the majority of humanity by the international rich. Trustbusting the media could lead to true diversity of opinions on the public airwaves. There is such a thing as “the commons”, things that we all own like our national infrastructure. The profit motive does not bring out the best in people, particularly when it comes to prisons and health care. A constitutional amendment could solve our largest problem: Government has to be larger than the largest corporation; otherwise you get corporate government, which is what we’ve had since Reagan. It hasn’t worked out well if you weren’t already rich when E.T. came out in theaters.

            I know some folks fancy themselves “apolitical”. I don’t buy it. I think most people care but they don’t know what to do. Start small. E-mail your Senators and Representatives. Sign an online petition here and there. Go to one protest a year for something you believe in. This book could fire you up to do it. Even if you’re conservative, it could fire you up to go shout on the other side of the picket line. Either way, it starts a conversation long overdue.

So that’s me finding stories to love, while I chase my author dream. Feel free to comment about a story that moved you, book, film, Youtube kitty clip, whatever. As long as it made you think and feel.

-James Russell

Sniper of the 99%

When I fall in love with a character, I always want to share. Right now, as I hunt for an agent and edit "Rise of the Paramancers" (both frustrating slogs) one of my escapes is telling the story of Evil Eye, the sniper of the 99%.

He's a veteran of an unnecessary foreign war (intervention, adventure, choose your euphemism), one designed to relocate the public wealth of the American taxpayer into the private pockets of military contractors. A war designed to never end. Meanwhile, back home, new privatization initiatives lead to cuts in health care for veterans. They especially nickel and dime on mental health care, which is what Evil Eye needs. He tries to obtain care through every proper channel before concluding that there is no difference between the evil men he was trained to kill and the evil men who deny his right to health. The C.E.O. slaughter begins.

Having finished his "origin story" I'm now working on the next chapter in his life. What will happen to this man of the people once he catches a whiff of fame? What will happen when he has to face an inconvenient fact? These men he's killing are bastards, but they have families, and each shot produces a widow and some fatherless children.

I hope readers will find the character enjoyable on multiple levels. He's easy to root for and yet he isn't 100% right. He's flawed but fighting.

Here's a sneak preview of the first section of the first "Evil Eye" story. Enjoy.

Evil Eye

They blame it on my P.T.S.D. The rebels and the ones who call themselves patriots. It’s condescending either way. Offensive, really. My mind is whole, even if my brain is muddled. It was my I.Q. that made them want to train me for their sniper squad in the first place. The dumb guys, they just throw them in infantry. Meat for the war machine.

I read this one reporter who said I never came home from the war. He’s right. But he didn’t have to have that tone. I’m a soldier. Soldiers hate being pitied. I’m not pitiful. I’m pitiless. When they call me that, I’m proud.

I never came home from the war. War means fighting. I fight everyday now, just like I did overseas. They call it, “losing time”. I lose time. Then I fight to keep my head focused on where I am, and what I have to do.

I have to stop. This isn’t about me. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. This was never about me. This was always about J.J.

Back in the war J.J. and I were the pride of our sniper squad. We were always lying on our bellies on some rocky hill, in some bombed-out building. There was sand and searing wind. We blazed days and froze nights. It was a country that started with Ira- or ended in –stan. We can call it Ira-stan. Let’s not pretend you care.

I was the spotter. We studied our marks for weeks. We learned their routines. Our wives sent us diapers and baby wipes from home. We asked for them. We lied and said they were donations, to help us win the hearts and minds of the locals. The truth is, if we were studying a mark, we never took our eyes off them. If our targets were active, or it felt like we should be watching, we shit our diapers, right where we were laying. Then we took turns changing, treated ourselves to some baby wipes.

We were talking about our marks. Omar. I liked to name them. J.J. hated that. He said they’re harder to kill if you name them. I said every man should have a name. We had that argument choreographed. Like the one I used to have with my wife when she wasted tooth paste.

Snipers and spotters. It’s like a marriage.

He was southern, J.J. I’m from Pennsylvania. He first joined the Marines after 9/11 ‘cause he “wanted to kill moose-lambs”. That’s how he said it.

It was weird. We argued over everything. We argued for years. The crippling idiocy or stalwart leadership of George W. Bush. Keynesian economics vs. that trickle-down Milton Friedman bullshit he was into. Later, we argued about whether or not Obama was really a moose-lamb from Kenyer.

But my reason for signing up wasn’t that different from his. I’m a liberal. I’m even against the death penalty. I think our justice system is too corrupt to trust with life and death. Strange belief for a sniper? I study my targets personally. We research for months before a trigger gets pulled. Then we take our own shot.

I know. I said I was a spotter. I’m getting there.

I was trying to say my reason for joining the Marines. I’m a liberal but 9/11 made me see evil. It made me see some men are unrepentant killers. It made me see that some men will spend their lives doing nothing but inflicting agony on others, if they’re permitted. Humanitarians argue it’s always wrong to kill, and I half admire their unwillingness to compromise. Maybe I’m just too practical. Some men need killing. Their deaths raise the quality of life for every human being who survives them.

Addition by subtraction.

On that point, me and J.J. were in total agreement. When our political arguments got too heated and somebody’s feelings were getting hurt, that’s what we came back to. “Addition by subtracshin,” J.J. said. “Ah like it.”

“You know what this means,” I told him. “We have to become unrepentant killers ourselves.”

“Paradox,” J.J. said. “My daddy used to say growin’ up meant dealin’ with paradox. Fuck it. We’re right and they’re wrong. Ain’t no paradox here.”

J.J. didn’t like the idea we had any thing in common with the enemy. And he hated that I named the guard Omar. He didn’t want me to name them at all. It made them harder to shoot he said. And I said every man should have a name. It was choreographed. I might’ve said this before.

“Then yer shootin’,” he said. I tried to think of a good reason to disagree.

When I think about it now, I lose time. But I couldn’t have lost time that night. My head was still whole back then.

Somehow, some way I don’t remember, my binoculars wind up around J.J.’s neck, and one of my eyes stares into his scope.

Omar smokes at sundown. He’s a pacer too. He smokes and paces. But tonight he’s pacing and smoking in a new language. Frantic. Tonight Omar is frantic.

Why?

Omar guards a small bunker in a world of shifting sands. Intel says he’s with the new Al Qaeda, “The Lord’s Wrath”. Based on the amount of electronic data flying in and out of this place, the location is important to them. So we watch it. We watch and wait, just like Omar.

“Squirrelly t’night ain’t he?” J.J. says. I take my eye out of the scope and look at him. So that’s what I look like with binoculars jammed against my face. I look back into the scope. The door behind Omar opens.

The man who emerges is Omar’s superior, I decide. We first saw him last week. He has a neater beard. His black shoes gleam in the sun. His hair is always washed and gelled back. Omar puts out his cigarette when this man approaches. Usually. Not tonight. Tonight Omar’s superior asks for Omar’s cigarette. He lights his own with it. They converse. They have a skittish laugh together.

“Mohammad looks nervous too,” I say.

“Stop fuckin’ naming ‘em,” J.J. reminds. In my scope, Mohammad points and shouts. They trample their cigarettes, burying the butts in the sand.

“Check it out,” J.J. says. “East ridge.”

I adjust my body, keeping my face buried in the scope.

No flags. There are no flags on the truck that appears on the horizon. There aren’t many cars in this country, nor roads to drive them on. When you see a truck, it usually has state flags displayed somewhere. That’s supposed to tell our drone operators, “You can blow me up, but the diplomatic incident won’t be worth the paperwork.”

“No flags,” I say. “Just an unmarked Range Rover, remarkable in how unremarkable it’s made to look.”

“Tinted glass,” J.J. observes. “That’s a incognito Lord’s Wrath V.I.P. I fuckin’ guarantee it.”

“You should shoot,” I say. “We could be court-martialed.” J.J. laughs.

“Don’t soak yer panties. Just us out here. You miss, an’ we’ll say I missed. Better yet, just don’t fuckin’ miss. But let’s make sure this ain’t the bread delivery b’fore we get all hot n’ bothered.”

Men with AK-47s emerge from the van, scanning the area. One whistles and makes a whirl in the air with his finger. Another taps twice on the tinted black window. An unarmed man steps out.

I don’t have to name this one. Every sniper in the military knows his face. Every American with a television has seen his videos.

“That’s Amar fuckin’ Atta,” J.J. says. “T’night we burn the bridge ‘tween Al Qaeda and Lord’s Wrath.”

“This is your shot,” I say.

“That’s what it’ll say on the paperwork,” J.J. says. “But back at the nest yer gettin’ the credit.” J.J. was always like that. He never let me be anything but my best.

I can’t believe I’m staring at Amar Atta. He’s so small. His clothes are so plain. He has thin glasses and a thinner beard. He has the vacant expression of a librarian organizing returned books.

This is the man who helped bin Laden plan the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 1998. In the waning days of Al Qaeda, he assembled the men who became the Lord’s Wrath. And then the Chicaco Subway attack – the rush-hour Chlorine bombing just after the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. The messages were clear. We can smuggle through Canada. We can hit your heartland. We can manufacture bio weapons straight out of your bleakest sci-fi nightmares.

We can hit back too, you demented fuck. The mind behind all that ruin is in my crosshairs. And I can make it pulp. There’s just one thing I have to ask J.J. first.

“You think it’ll change anything?”

“Dunno. One thing’s fer sure, he ain’t ever gonna stop killin’ unless you stop him.” Of course, J.J. was right. Time for addition by subtraction.

“How the wind?”

“Very slight, outta the southeast. Correct left just a bit.”

“What are my follows?”

“Git Mohammad if you can. He’s a somebody. Then hit the front tire on that truck. Sun’s still behind us. They’re gonna look our way after the shot. Then Allah’s gonna blind ‘em.”

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

“Just like takin’ his picture,” J.J. reassured. I hated that. They said that in basic. I was blowing a sun roof in a man’s skull. It was pretty fucking far from taking his picture.

Atta barks at Mohammad and Omar. He points toward their buried cigarettes. I correct left. I pull the trigger.

Atta’s head bursts like an overripe melon. Mohammad’s face is covered in sudden gore. He looks up into my scope and squints in the sunlight. I fire my second shot, right through his eye. Omar ducks behind a barrel. Atta’s guards shoot wildly, squinting towards us. I fire my third shot and the truck’s front tire pops. Their truck slouches uselessly forward.

“Fuckin’ eagle eye shootin!” J.J. says, slapping my back. “Let’s get the fuck outta here!” We run into the setting sun as bullets chase our heels.

(end of free preview)
  

Writing Advice Greatest Hits Volume One

I had one of those great teacher moments today. A former student took time out of his day to seek my help on a piece he's writing just because he wants to. As the deluge of testing-induced excrement begins to fall in the next few weeks, I'm clinging to this moment with both hands.

I’m in the middle of searching for an agent this month, so there’s little to report on the career front. This entry is all about good writing advice I’ve received over the years. I thought, why not share? This is my paraphrasing of advice I’ve received, with credit given to the people who’ve influenced me. These are not quotes.

-Give the present tense a try. It gives a sense of immediate vitality to a story. –Jeff Mann

-The plot has to challenge the character. The minute they’re safe and cozy, we’re bored. – John Adamus.

-Before you send in a book for submission, ask yourself if someone bought it at an airport and read it on their flight, would they leave it behind? If the answer is yes, you still have revision to do. That kind of writing is disposable (I’m looking at you, twilight), it isn’t even worth the time to open a suitcase to tuck it in. Great writing haunts the reader. They would never hesitate to take it with them. –Rosalind Buckenberry, twilight bashing by me.

-You don’t have to go out of your way to invent poignant situations for your characters. Your own life is already full of heavy, cinematic moments. Just use what’s already happened to you and repurpose it for your character. –Richard Weems

-Don’t over-tell. Let the characters speak. Give me action and interaction. Let the character play on the page. –Roberta Clipper

-Use one verb. –John Adamus

And one of my all time favs…

-There’s nothing much to writing. You just have to stand at the typewriter and bleed.

–from Ernest Hemingway, it didn’t so end well for him, but his books were downright spiffy

I haven’t broken through as a writer just yet, but this advice has taken me this far. I’ve finished two novels and one short story collection and I have five published short stories. These are the pieces of advice that have gotten me this far. I hope they can help any writer greener than me to progress.

-James Russell

Welcome to Axis

I'm always happy when I feel like I've lived up to one of my own pieces of writing advice. I encourage my students to tell the story that they can't wait to tell, a story with characters you would want to know in real life, set in a place you would want to visit.

Today I "finished" the first draft of "Rise of the Paramancers", and I'm at that stage where I'm totally fucking in love with the little world I made. I'm even looking forward to the thousand re-reads and re-writes to come over the next few months before I try to sell this bitch. I can't wait to write all three sequels.

To celebrate, I thought I'd introduce the world of Axis and the characters in it.

The places:

Axis - The realm of Axis consists of four elemental kingdoms: Gorge (earth), Kragh (fire), Galehall (wind), and Fluvia (water), plus the city of Apex, in the very center. The people of Axis believe it is the master work of Dioro, the Artist and Blessed Brother, a God they worship by creating songs, art, poems, and sculptures. They believe he is dormant, following a war with his sister Zura, the Vandal and Devil Goddess. But before he slumbered, Dioro created...

The Veil - a shield of magical energy protecting Axis from the land of...

Beyond - a barren wasteland where the abominable creations of Zura dwell. No one in this age of Axis has wandered so far into the outskirts of Axis that they've seen the Veil, or Beyond, so many in Axis think of both as mythological. What they don't know is there is a land past Beyond called...

Zaradel - This is the home of the Paramancers. In Axis, each kingdom trains a certain type of sorcerer. In Gorge they practice Geomancy, the art of using the earth in battle. Imagine being able to crush a foe in a great fist of stone, send him flying with a wave in the ground he stands on, or pin him to the ground with an impaling earth hook. A Paramancer, on the other hand, is a sorcerer who can master all four elements. No one in Axis believes they exist, and they won't until one finds a way through the Veil.

The characters:

Karth - 16yo white-haired runt, a struggling apprentice Geomancer, his only friends are other misfits. (I just saw "Perks of Being a Wallflower" last night and people will swear I stole that trio's social dynamic, but I've been writing this for a year.) He is encouraged by his friend and crush Juna, his friend Oro, a mysterious guest student named Argio, and his teacher, Master Damon.

Master Damon - Gorge's greatest Geomancer and best teacher. He has traveled all four kingdoms, a fact that makes him suspicious in the eyes of many Gorgians. (Travel is encouraged in the kingdoms of water and wind but the fire and earth kingdoms are suspicious of wanderlust.) He can also use foreign magic, though he is only a master of Geomancy. He has faith in Karth's "latent abilities", though even Karth doubts Damon's assesment of his skills.

Juna - The only female training to be an earthknight, a form of Geomancy that involves using magic and weapons together. She is often treated with hostility for her refusal to conform to strict Gorgian gender roles. She shares this trait with another friend...

Oro - The only male healer in Gorge. Healers transfer life force from plants, animals, and even newly-dead bodies to save the living. Oro makes many Gorgian knights uncomfortable, because healing someone is known to cause amorous feelings for them. The macho earthknights are terrified of this. Oro is also a "man-lover", something his macho miner father is not likely to handle well.

Argio - Very little is known about this "guest student" except that he is from Galehall. Master Damon brought him back from one of his foreign trips. Argio favors a "thunderstick", a weapon that can fire all four types of magical energy. Argio is quiet, and knows many strains of arcane weapons magic.

Hune - Another student in Karth's Geomancy class. He is loud and arrogant, though that may be hiding something. His father, Heon, is the Standard Keeper of Gorge, a position of power second only to the king. His father is also the second-best Geomancer in Gorge, though he has lived in Master Damon's shadow most of his life. Hune struggles to live up to his father's expectations, and one time this led to a confrontation with Karth they would both like to forget for different reasons.

King Feor - The King of Gorge commands its army in times of war as its most powerful earthknight. In times of peace he struggles to maintain a good trading relationship with the other three kingdoms and the city of Apex. He is also the highest judge in the land, meaning he must temper justice with mercy. And he must balance the egos of Master Damon and his Standard Keeper, Heon.

Heon - The Standard Keeper of Gorge is trusted with enforcing the Book of Earth, which says Earth is the mightiest of elements. Heon is puritantical in his duties, bringing blasphemers and practitioners of foreign magic to the King for justice.

Zagor - Zaradel was attacked by a swarm of Zura's abominations, and Zagor broke through with a party of a hundred Paramancers, hoping to reach Axis. Though Axis knows nothing of Zaradel, the Paramancers know of Axis. They believe the people there are primitive, but their land is the secret storage place of mighty artifacts of Dioro, from his war with his sister. Zagor's party is wiped out and he is fatally wounded. And that is when he meets...

Zura - A lowly parasite taking the form of a large insect claims to be Zura, the Devil Goddess herself, in the flesh. She claims she can save Zagor's life and, in turn, grant him the power to save Zaradel from the swarm. All she asks in return is that he help her find a tear in the Veil leftover from the war with her brother. Then he must help her destroy Axis. Desperate and dying, he agrees, and they pass through the Veil, into Axis.

And that's where the story begins.

I love this world and the people in it. It isn't shelf-ready yet, but today it's 80,000 words of a complete draft. Members of my writing group have described it as an adult "Last Airbender", which I guess is good, since every traditional publisher seems to want to link a new story to something that already happened. If I had to credit something as being my source material, though, it would have to be "Final Fantasy", where the enemies were the fiends of earth, fire, water, and wind, and each element was weak against one of the others.

One day, I'm going to be at a movie premier, and the words "based on the novel by James Russell" will appear. Might not be until 2035 but it's going to happen. And the world of Axis is dying for a video game adaptation as well, I'm thinking a free-roaming world where the missions follow the plot but the gamer can also wander. Online trios where one gamer is Juna, one is Karth, and one is Oro.

One step at a time. Next up, the hunt for a new literary agent. I'm a teacher. I can't sell a book full time.

Music Video Storytelling/My Fifth Publishing Credit

Happy news this week! My story "Mountainview" is a top ten finalist in the 2013 Saints and Sinners fiction competition. It still has a chance to be top three also, which would mark my first time making money as a writer. The story is about a bullied middle school student who finds common ground with his tormentor on what turns out to be a historic day. It's all about how disaster forces us to have perspective.

I'm still waiting on a number of potential publishers for "Jesse Rules" and "Men in Strange Arrangements". Also waiting on word regarding my Best of the Net 2012 nomination for "The Camp Seminole Wiener Wall".

This month's topic is music videos that tell a story. I use some of these when I'm teaching. Most of the stories are nonverbal, having more to do with the mood of the song than the lyrics. They all have impeccable imagery and plot structure.

Imagine Dragons, "Radioactive"
Dog fighting is atrocious. Muppet fighting is genius. In this video, Lou Diamond Phillips (of all people) plays a sleazy, smoke-ring blowing proprietor of an underground muppet fighting circuit. All goes well until the protagonist girl comes in with a pink teddy bear that annihilates Phillip's horned purple people eater with a pink disco donkey punch. Then the muppets tear Phillips to shreds. Come-uppance works in every form of storytelling.

Foster the People, "Houdini"
They're better known for "Pumped up Kicks", but this is a better video. The band is killed in a light-fixture collapse about seven seconds in. Then the band's sleazy manager calls in a large Asian FX whiz who proceeds to give the band's corpses the anamatronic treatment. The show goes on. My guess is the band was feeling a wee bit exploited by the Hollywood machine. For extra laughs, find the part where the puppeteer has Matt Foster bent over a table, looking VERY exploited.

AWOLNATION, "Not Your Fault"
They're best known for "Sail", either the alien-abduction video or that one where the two hipster chicks spray each other with a hose. (30 million views, I loathemire those bitches.) This video is better because claymation. Plus...no, just 'cause claymation. It references the creepy classic Rudolph Yeti. Also, there's dancing aliens and a machine-gun wielding merman. It works perfectly with the apologetic, yet kind of controlling tone of the song.

Disturbed, "Land of Confusion"
The Genesis original is a classic (muppets again!), but this Todd McFarlane cartoon dwarfs it in scope. He summarizes the entire class struggle of the globalization years in less than five minutes. When the hooded hero Falcon-punches the monopoly man at the end, you'll want to cheer with righteous indignation. That, or you're a corporate douche no soul.

Don Henly, "The Boys of Summer"
I read somewhere that this video is in a museum. It deserves that kind of reverence. Despite being filmed in 1984, the story holds up. There has never been a song that better captured regret, and the video works as a perfect companion piece. When Henley sings "Don't look back, you can never look back," and the characters do exactly that, you know you've seen perfect cooperation between song, sentiment, and video. It's like the old Gatsby line about how we're "boats borne back against the current" distilled into a two second shot.

The first three videos are also very recent, so the art form isn't dead just yet. MTV may be Snookified but Youtube is keeping music videos alive and well. 

80s Sci-fi: It Kinda Came True

Hard to believe it's 2013. As an 80s kid, I remember thinking of this year as one of those impossible future numbers. I pictured hover boards and Schwarzenegger's uber-yellow Running Man jump suit and that dude from Omni Consumer Products in Robocop sneering, "We practically are the military."

Did any of those films have a black president? The first ones I can recall are Zeus in "Fifth Element" and Morgan Freeman (who else, bitches?) in that comet movie that summer there were two comet movies.

So for this week, let's go over some key predictions of 80's Sci-fi.

The Running Man
I mean the book, not the craptastic Schwarzenegger flick. (See the original "Total Recall" for Ahnald with a brain.) The Stephen King story features some damn disturbing predictions. In the book, the poor are without hope (almost there...) so they sign up for a reality television show where they can win a bagillion dollars if they survive a month as a fugitive. Trouble is, everyone else wins money for helping the fascist police find and kill you. Like Boss Tweed used to say, "You can always hire half the poor to kill the other half."

If that isn't disturbing enough, the Running Man is gut shot on a plane at the end. Realizing he's dying, he crashes the plane into the corporate tower of the station that runs the show. This was more than a decade before 9/11.

Back to the Future II
Lewis Black said of our time, "No flying cars, SCREWED AGAIN!" This totally applies to hover boards.

This movie did get one thing right. Remember Marty McFly getting downsized via Skype? The only thing they got wrong there = the Chinese own us, not the Japanese.

Robocop
It's scary how well the first two movies have held up. The effects look like shit now, but the Reagan-era fear of our cold corporate future has proven very well founded.

We don't have the kind of cyborg technology this film predicted, but we certainly have the problems. Urban decay. The militarization of the police. Drones. And the worst - the rise of the military-industrial complex. The line I referenced earlier deserves some context. The second in command of Omni Consumer Products (think Goldman Sachs but less evil) needs his thug henchman to kill Robocop. Henchman complains that he'll need access to military hardware. Corporate douche sneers, "We practically are the military."

Of all the shit I've seen go wrong in my lifetime, from radical de-unionization to the war on education to the Citizen's United decision (which essentially made corporations our shadow government), the scariest thing is the idea of a corporation with its own merc military. Google K.B.R. or Blackwater if you need a good scare.

There is some good news. We aren't there yet. Obama may be a centrist (he's not a black Nazi, teabaggers, that would be an oxymoron, like literate redneck) but he can be pressured to the left. There are organizations like Move to Amend dedicated to giving governing power back to our elected government. We aren't in Robocop Detroit or Running Man Los Angeles.

At least, not yet.

Writing updates:
-just passed 70,000 words on "Rise of the Paramancers"

-submitted "Men in Strange Arrangements" to a new publisher

-waiting on word for "Jesse Rules"

-"Mountainview" is in Saints and Sinners and "The Camp Seminole Weiner Wall" is still up for Best of the Net 2012

Haven't done this in a while so here are my links again:

  

http://www.amazon.com/Saints-Sinners-2012-Fiction-Festival/dp/1608640841

My story is “Divine Hand”, about an expose reporter who goes undercover at a religious conversion camp for gay teens.

And here are my freebies:

“The Camp Seminole Weiner Wall” (A friendship is tested by a sexually cruel camp ritual.)

http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-camp-seminole-wiener-wall/

“Friends and Pyromaniacs” (A young man’s awakening requires a Molotov cocktail.)

http://issue3.thequotablelit.com/fiction/friends-and-pyromaniacs/

“The Gay Bomb” (An undercover agent unleashes the ultimate weapon in the war against Islam – a pheromone bomb that causes gay arousal.)

http://blipmagazine.net/archive-4/winter-2011/15-james-russel/

Announcements for “Best of the Net 2012” Award

http://www.pendulinepress.com/editorial/best-of-the-net-2012-nominees/

And here's the announcement on our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Penduline-Press/184958794884621

Pitches, Bitches

I have new and improved pitches to share with y'all. My good friend John helped me to un-fuck what I was working with.

For the short story collection, now re-re-christened with it's orignal title, "Men in Strange Arrangements":

Dear ______________,

MEN IN STRANGE ARRANGEMENTS is a collection of thirteen fiction short stories about the odd circumstances boys and men have to deal with, and the consequences if they fail.

Tom is a clean-cut honors student – and a pyromaniac. He has an awakening: fire doesn’t destroy – it only converts energy to a new form. He’s eager to share his epiphany with his best friend Bill, even if it takes a Molotov cocktail.

Nick is a bullied middle-school student, eager to fight back, but the best he can do is correct the spelling when his worst tormentor Kyle writes, “Nick M. sucks cok”. Nick is shocked to later find common ground with Kyle, amid a famous catastrophe.

Trey is a college student in the midst of court-appointed anger management counseling, following a bar fight that left a bouncer’s jaw detached. His treatment starts with a writing assignment: talk about your most functional relationship and why it works. For Trey, that means discussing his best friend, Jared, who Trey had to all but drag out of the closet. Trey is surprised when his analysis puts him at odds with the unwritten rules of hetero manhood.

These are tales of men in strange arrangements. The collection is 45,000 words and three of the stories have been previously published. “Divine Hand” was a top ten finalist in the 2012 Saints and Sinners fiction competition and was published in the anthology. “The Camp Seminole Wiener Wall” is a current nominee for Sundress Press’s “Best of the Net 2012” award. Thanks for your time and consideration.

-James Russell    

I feel much better about my publishing prospects in 2013 with a pitch like that. Here's the one for "Jesse Rules".

Dear ____________,

Fifteen-year-old Jesse Amos is going to rule the world. That way he won’t have to worry about what people think anymore – not his grade-crazed mom, not his sex-obsessed peers. Ruling will allow him to focus on what really matters: winning the Holy Cross student council election, getting a Metallica-worthy gig for his grunge cover band, Colostomy Grab Bag, and putting more time in at church, to bury all those awkward feelings he’s been having for Tony, his guitarist.

One problem: his friends and band mates aren’t as easy to control as Samus Aran in “Metroid 3” or Baraka in “Mortal Kombat”. When controlling his feelings proves equally frustrating, Jesse realizes that in order to rule the world, you have to first shock and captivate the masses, and nothing gets attention like murder.

JESSE RULES is an 83,000-word trangressive novel, my debut. Thanks for your time and consideration.

-James Russell

In other news, this blog has passed the thousand-view mark, which Celebutants can fart out in a heartbeat, but for a noob like me, it's something.

In other news, "The Camp Seminole Wiener Wall" is still up for Sundress Press's best of the net 2012 award and "Mountainview" is in the 2013 Saints and Sinners contest. Meanwhile, I just passed the 60,000-word mark on "Rise of the Paramancers", the first Fantasy novel in a four-part series, "War of the Twin Gods".

Happy New Year everyone. My quest to get books on the shelves and e-shelves resumes in 2013.

-J