Where I talk about How writers are masters of avoidance, Mitt Romney, Daniel Tosh, and Joe Paterno.

What should I talk about today....


     Well, one that I didn't update a blog entry yesterday but to be honest my brain was just blank all day for some reason. I also know I haven't updated with a game play entry in a while either. That comes down to two thing. 1, I'm looking into how to capture the video from play to maybe start doing a web series of my game play and 2, I just haven't had time to play anything. I'll try my best to do a update on Monday; which would be the first game of my first season playing MLB 10 The Show.
     But I was productive writing wise yesterday as I started planning out my next full length book. I'm approaching this book in ways that I've never done any story before. I'm laying out and planning the book on note cards to try to correct issues I have had in the past with the flow of a book, with making each character unique, and taking readers in interesting directions that aren't compromises on my part.
     What I meant by that last one is that I'm also going to be approaching this book with a firm plan to go head on with my weaknesses as a writer and not go away, or around, or substitute something else to get keep from facing them.
     I think one thing a writer can do after they start to see their weaknesses is find ways of not addressing them. Knowing  is half the battle but it's not all G.I. Joe. I've had times were I would run into a issue I know I have problems with but I would go another route to take it easy on myself. Don't learn a damn thing taking it easy on yourself.
     Maters of avoidance writers so are.


COOL LINKS TO CHECK OUT:
     I watched the first episode of this new web series by Sandeep Parikh and plan to watch more. Issue #1: The Super Force Versus The Bottom Line
     New episode of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. This show grew on me to now I look forward to new episodes. Meeting Bing Lee - Ep: 28
     A blast from the past. I always liked the idea of the Jim Crockett Cup because it paused feuds and stories for a while to just have a tournament of wrestling. The 'American Dream' Dusty Rhodes teams with the 'Russian Nightmare' Nikita Koloff to take on Rick Rude and Manny Fernandez in the Jim Crockett Cup. From 4/11/87
     Courtney Summers guests on the SF Signal Podcast and talks about her new book THIS IS NOT A TEST as well as other subjects. Give it a listen. 


RANTS:
   No Mr. Romney, no one wants free stuff. Nothing is free. You are right there. It's not free because people pay taxes on income, purchases, cars, houses, land, and 800 other things. And there is the biggest not free in all of this and that all of us having loved ones sacrificing their lives to prop up this government. Most people are fine with doing that thinking then the government will be there for them when they need it. What you want is for citizens to dish out their money with no return when they find a need for help in their live. Not how that's going to work. That leads to a charging of the gates in time; which frankly maybe what this country might need. I have a question for everyone- why follow rules of law of a government, why pay taxes, why be non-violent when your government isn't asking for citizens to be part of a two way participation in government but instead asking for serfdom? Romney: NAACP members want ’free stuff’
     People have asked me what I think about the Daniel Tosh issue that's come up. I've always said there isn't a word or a subject that you can't use in any form of art and comedy is art. But I've also always said unless you are a complete dumb fuck idiot then you have to know that using certain subject matter in your art will get you a very certain kind of response. So thinking Daniel Tosh has a brain he had to know going in what would come of this but it wasn't even his talk about rape jokes being funny that was the issues here. By the way he wasn't telling a joke but that's neither here or there, some comedians are conversation comedians. The real issue comes when he was heckled by someone who didn't like what he was saying and his response was,  “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” That's not a joke. That's creating a hostile dangerous environment for this person and that makes him a coward in a high level of cowardice. Everyone talks about the whole "yelling fire in a theater" thing when it comes to censorship. That's what he did right there. He put that person in danger. People claiming any outcry against it is censorship, look up the word. Everyone else has the same right to criticize speech as the person who originally said something they didn't agree with.
Daniel Tosh Jokes About Seeing a Heckler Get Gang Raped
     Another thing people have asked me about today is the report that just came out today about the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky investigation. First don't even bring up football to me. That's bullshit. Talking about wins or loses and legacies of coaches is a insult to the victims in this case. But whenever this comes up people have always brought up Joe Paterno so I'll say something about him. No matter what today's report says what really made me lose respect for him was when asked if he ever talked to Jerry Sandusky about the things that were being said about him Paterno said no, he never brought it up. Never even mention it to someone he considered a friend. To me even if this was going on about my best friend, even if I never for a second thought the things being said could possibly be true, I as a human being talking to another one would ask- why are people saying this? What could be the reasoning them saying these things? Paterno didn't even bring it up to Sandusky. That's so telling to me.

Where I talk about How writers are masters of avoidance, Mitt Romney, Daniel Tosh, and Joe Paterno.

Where I talk about a Canadian July and reading John Green.

     

     

     I came into this day without any plans, thoughts, or notes for what I wanted to write about in feature for this blog update but one of the things scheduled writing days does for you as a writer is it puts strong hands on your shoulders and shoves you into the seat and threatens your ass if you get up without something to present to the world. Sort of like having a cross dressing Wolverine, cross dressing as a nun, as your teacher.
     I think I want to talk about friendships or just share a story. Maybe just ramble on with some thoughts like in the good old days of the internet were just writing was ok.
     And yes that sentence makes me sound like a old "back in my day" guy.

     I have always been a person who takes the word “friend” very serious. I wont even attempt to say I’ve always been the best friend to have but I never have and will never call many people a friend because that word means so much to me. Not having many friends growing up put that twisted little bit in me.
     Also there is only one person who I've ever called friend, or Soul Friend as I use to phrase it in my more emo days, who I don't still consider a friend and a loved part of my heart, even though they might not feel the same about me now, they are people I still call friend.
     Last night I couldn't sleep because memories where attacking me. Memories of friends who I have lost contact with, friends who I no longer get to talk to; so what I want to do is tell a small little story about one of my friends.
     For the most part I have also always used nicknames when talking to and about friends online so I will do that here also.
     I stopped doing that with Mar because she hated the nickname I gave her {Wave} and because she came with a nickname built in- Mar.
     I may have told this story here before and I might have even used it in a story, though I don’t think it was in anything I’ve published yet, but none of that matters because this is how I remember those events now. This is how the history of those memories effect me now and every detail of every memory will not nor can it ever be completely truth or false.
     A number of years ago I took a bus ride across the country from Virginia to Vancouver in Canada. I say in Canada to stress that before this trip I had no idea there was more than one Vancouver.
     Actually I drove to Tennessee where I caught a bus that would in time take me to Vancouver.
     I could write a book and I think I do have a couple journals full of stories about that bus trip alone but when I finally, after a week, five days, crossed the border into Canada and stopped at a bus station in Vancouver that is were this story begins.
     Maybe one of these days I will tell the stories of the Italian Ambassador who was in Tennessee for some reason and got onto the wrong bus and told him the situation was perfectly happy with him. Or the gang fight in a bus station bathroom that started and finished while I was shitting. Story ideas for later I guess.
     Will stop here for moment to mention that for most of my life I had idealized the notion of travel a long distance on a bus. Why? I don't know but I did find out why people say "idealized" with stuff.
     I got off the bus completely Schrodinger in my brain from the trip. I hadn’t showered in days, I hadn’t sleep in days, I had already had enough with humanity and wanted more than anything else to just have an alien invasion happen and start killing human after human so I wouldn't have to be near people ever again. I thought that was just about the only way I was going to have a good day.
     I walked through the bus stop with no thought of where I was going. The trip had stripped me of any higher reasoning skills that I had developed in my life before stepping onto that bus in Tennessee.
     I was in another country.
     Didn't notice.
     I was walking with a man beside me carrying on a conversation with me in another tongue and he could have been eating my arm as if it was made of ice cream with a spoon.
     I wouldn't have noticed.
     If I had not caught the sight I would see I would probably have walked through the bus station, out into the street, sat down, and let a car hit me. I wasn't zoned out, that would suggest I had any zoney structure left from the journey.
     Sitting at a table just inside the bus station reading a newspaper was my friend July. Head down, eyes down, immersed into whatever she was reading. This wasn't our first meeting in person, we meet as mutual fans of the same television show online, but I was going to be spending a week with her and her boyfriend. She was going to show me around the city and the plan was for talk and talk and talk to build our friendship and that happen and so much more.
     I ended up staying a lot longer than was the original plan but I'm not going to talk about that. Or talk about getting robbed. Or talk about us at the Vancouver Film Festival. So many great memories of Taco Time, Subway, and trips back and forth to McDonalds with the best drive thru worker maybe in history.
     I have this scene to talk about. This moment in this bus station or in that gas station. I'm not always so  linear in my thinking. I still remember only slightly getting out her name and how surprised I was that she was able to hear me. It was like I was giving her the chance to say, "I don't know you, go away." She didn't give in to that urge and gave back a great smile, left her seat and went to hug me. I warned her about my week long bus trip stink but she hugged me anyway.
     Canadians are a very brave people.
     We sat down for a second for me to catch some reality and her tell me what she had planned for me for the day. She told me about her and James Bond, she talked about the Film Festival, and how she was going to be volunteering, but she could get me into a couple writers panels and how we were going to go to a couple movies premieres. She talked and I found zone. I found my place back into the world and it was through the presence of a friend.
     My stay in Vancouver turned out to be one of my biggest life changing moments, even though I went on to have two nervous breakdowns in the years after this, I had went on this trip thinking when I return home I was going to end my life. During those times of losing touch with reality a few things kept me from going over the edge and one of those things was memories of my time with a friend in Vancouver.
     I don't have any sort of contact with July anymore; which is my fault. At one time I considered her my closes friend. The only person that I would talk to with complete honesty but I threw that friendship away by being a coward in so many ways. I hide from life, from my friends, and from responsibilities. I hope she is doing well. I hope her life has been lived with much energy. I honestly do think whether she ever thinks about our friendship but it isn't important to me to know. What's important are those memories and how they helped shape me into the person I am today.
     Maybe over the next few weeks I tell more stories of friendship. They both make me smile and cry so don't try to hold me by this statement.



Check Out These Links:
     More Green brothers videos. Mar makes fun of me because I watch so many things John Green does video wise but still haven't read any of his books. I don't find that strange but she plans to solve that by bringing me several of his book home on CD from the library today. John Green plays FIFA and talks about Euro 2012: The Euro League: The Miracle of Swindon Town #127 and Euro 2012 Part 2: The Miracle of Swindon Town #128 while Hank Green gets real about Evolution: Evolution: It's a Thing - Crash Course Biology #20
     This looks pretty cool.


Rants and screams:
     If your website has different pages almost every paragraph on a piece to show me more ads I don't come back. What really pisses me off is a website piece that's mainly photos and Top Lists and each entry has to be clicked to. Sorry, just a turn off for readers. Or is that just me, Am I the aqiverlint of old internet man on his porch.
     Is this what people mean when they say they tell me they wipe their ass with my writing? I'm always confused because I haven't had much published in print so now I know what they are talking about. Good, now everything is clear.
     Have you ever noticed that the plots for horror movies and stupid romantic comedies are pretty much the same? I never noticed before but do the research.
     I really don't know what to say this makes me so angry. Again it shows how in this country the victim is viewed second in sexual assault cases. Put that with the hero and money worship of college sports and this is a prime example of the dangers that can follow. Just another example of how the very concept of "student athletics" in money sports is such a bullshit concept and the only people who come out clean are the college suits. New Report: Penn State Officials Thought It Was ‘Humane’ Not to Report Sandusky

Where I talk about a Canadian July and reading John Green.