Rish Outcast 225: Newfound Fame 4

Rish finishes his novella "Newfound Fame," and talks about the movie IT FOLLOWS.  Again.

To download the file, Right-Click HERE.

To support me on Patreon, Left-Click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Newfound Blame" Moretto.

6/30 & 7/1

 6/30

Another month is over.  

I watched a couple of DVDs from the library at the cabin this trip.  The first was THE MAN FROM UNCLE, which was a vastly underperforming Guy Richie movie from a few years back that I thought was pretty excellent when I saw it in the theater (yeah, it actually played in the theater).  To my surprise, it was even better the second time, and I will unequivocally list it as my favorite Guy Richie flick.

My cousin Ryan had told me that the CRUELLA movie was enjoyable, so I picked it up.  There were parts that were good, sure, and I liked that it took place in, what was it, 1974?  Also, I've never considered 101 DALMATIONS a masterpiece of cinema, so that helps.  And it didn't make me wish that I was dead, and that the Disney empire would burn to the ground like MALEFICENT did, so there's that.

I also watched CHAPPAQUIDICK, about the car accident in 1969 that seemingly undid Ted Kennedy's political career (except that he served in the Senate for, like, forty years after that).  It was pretty unpleasant, but was meant to be.

They say that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.  Well, I just heard that Paramount has made a prequel to ROSEMARY'S BABY . . . and for a moment, I was excited about it.  Let's see if I still have that Picard facepalm image . . .

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

7/1

Today, it was ninety-eight degrees outside.  There's no point to me saying this--I'm not complaining, just commenting.

I came back to the library today.  If I can write 300 words, I will consider it a success.

I'm sure I got double that.  I was writing the crucial scene of finally understanding what the voice is whispering, and I ended up writing a whole bit I had not intended, and was still going strong when they announced that it was time for all good monkeys' tails to fall off, had I lost mine yet?

I went home and had a good long chat with Big Anklevich, who gets off work around the same time I leave the library*.  Then my nephew (14) asked me if we could watch the Adam Sandler movie THE HUSTLE tonight (I'd been telling him we should watch it for weeks now, but there's always one of his parents around, and I didn't want to get in trouble, since the movie's rated R). 

But I needn't have bothered.  His mom was in the room, doing something on her laptop, and told us we could watch it, and told the eleven year old he could too, so we did.  

HUSTLE tells the story of a basketball recruiter (played by Adam Sandler) who, at whatever age Adam Sandler's supposed to be, pins all his hopes and family's future on a Spanish amateur player that he brings to Philadelphia for a shot at the NBA.  I enjoyed it quite a bit, despite not being a sports guy.  

My nephew, however, impressed the hell out of me by constantly telling me who all the players were (whether they were playing themselves or not), even if they're only shown for a second or two.  I don't know how he did it, except to say that if there was a movie like this that took place at a Star Trek or Star Wars convention, I guess I could name every "celebrity" cameo that there was.  Still, they're not going to make a movie that takes place at one of these cons, though I'd enjoy writing one about a murder investigation at a Sci-Fi convention, and the suspects are all ex-cast members of a classic genre show.**

Writing or Exercise: Writing

*Okay, that's a lie.  I ALWAYS call him when he's still working on the show, sometimes right up against the wire.  The poor bastage.  But the fault isn't solely mine: he could refuse to answer, right?

**Spoiler: It was Walter Koenig that did it.  And of course you know why.

6/27 to 6/29

 6/27

On Saturday, a new toy store opened in the mall, and I went over there to check it out.  It was very small.  So small, that I stood outside with my fellow neckbeards, waiting for my turn to go in.  I saw an older man sitting at a table a ways off, and realized it was George A. Romero, the famous Horror director.  

Of course, it might have been my mistake, since I ran into the zombie filmmaker at the Beverly Center mall one afternoon in 2004, so all bearded old dudes look like Romero to me.  Also, I could be wrong because George Romero died in 2017.

Every month I record an address for my Patreon supporters (usually the last couple of days of the month, so I can get it edited and posted by the first or second), and every time I try to talk about something interesting that happened to me or is going on in my life (for example, the night I was having a conversation with my brother in Las Vegas, and suddenly, he had a stranger's face, and was just speaking in my brother's voice*).  But I'll be jiggered if I can come up with something today.  I started the recorder, and about a minute later, turned it off again.  There's got to be SOMETHING cool or unusual I can talk about. 

I was actually getting into my writing tonight when they flashed the lights and did the crashing announcement that is like somebody dumping ice-cold water on your scrotum and four in the morning (or similar to it, anyway, it's been a while for me).  I don't do my word count anymore, but I'd say I managed five or six hundred words (and would've managed more, had I not gone online to see which of Crosby Stills & Nash was still alive, then spent ten minutes reading about Stephen Stills's and Graham Nash's solo careers (I honestly didn't know Nash had been with the Hollies before now).  But that's why I go to the cabin on Wednesdays, so I don't have access to Wikipedia.

Writing or Exercise: Writing

6/28

I thought LIGHTYEAR was pretty good.  Not great, but certainly not bad enough to lose Disney fifty or more million dollars.  Mostly, I found it strange that it so underperformed, where other movies (like DOCTOR STRANGE 2, TOP GUN 2, and surely, MINIONS 3 will) overperformed.  But hey, if there was a formula to this, then no films would lose money.  And we'd be on our fourth "John Carter of Mars" installment.

Writing or Exercise: Both (if you count push-ups as Exercise)

6/29

I went out, as I do every time I come here, onto the dam to do my run, and it was a little brighter out, a little warmer, the sun low in the sky but still shining, the air crisp from a rainstorm earlier, and I did my usual jog from one side of the dam to the other.  I've mentioned that the high elevation (in "Hatchling" I believe I used the word "edevation," and wrote that, for some effed-up reason) makes running difficult, as well as my own out-of-shapeness . . . but as I was running, Bill Conti's "Gonna Fly Now" from ROCKY started to play, and wouldn't you know, I suddenly got a burst of purely-psychological energy, and I ran flat-out the last bit of the jog.  And for a second there, I almost felt like I COULD fly.  I guess I'm slowly learning that life is okay.

Oh jeez, I almost forgot.  As I gave it all I had at the end of the run . . . my shorts fell down.  

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

*I didn't talk about that on my blog, for fear that somebody would say that their cousin or uncle had that happen to them, right before he drowned himself in the toilet of a Chevron station two blocks from his house.  See, I'd rather hear that kind of bad news from someone who pays a couple of bucks to know my secrets and hear my stories.

Marshal and I Recap The Star Wars Celebration (Part 1)

Can't get enough Star Wars Celebration talk?  Well, take it from two of us that were there.  Over at the "Delusions of Grandeur" podcast, Marshal Latham and I talk about the first day or so of Celebration 2022.

It's the fourth-best thing to being there.

6/26

Finishing up "Hatchling," I decided it was time to do a new About the Author.  I don't know why, since I did one in 2019, one in 2020, and--you guessed it--one in 2021.  But it doesn't hurt me to record a new one every year.  I just wish I published stuff more often than I do.  Ah well.

I really went all out as far as exercise today.  I hadn't gone to the park with the stairs a single time this year, so I told myself as soon as I'd finished recording a chapter of my audiobook, that I'd drive over there, and do the stairs at least three times.  The sun was shining and it was warm, but I jogged to the stairs and went all the way up . . . then gasped for air a while.  I went back down and did three cycles, and then ran all the way around the park and to the other set of stairs, which I never use (it's right by the road, so people can actually see you doing them).  I went up to the top, gasped a couple of times, then staggered back down them (I wonder how many people stumble and face-plant every year participating in such a stupid activity), and jogged all the way back to my car.  I was drenched in greasy sweat when I sat down, and my face was all red in the mirror, in a way that sexy people never look.

I went to the service station and bought myself the first Slurpee of the year (hopefully not the last, though), and was shocked to find that they're two dollars now. 

However, at the end of the night, when I'd finished with all of my eBay auctions, I put on my shoes and went for a run, despite not having to do any more exercise today.  I'd be proud of myself if my shirt wasn't sticking to my back as I type this.

In other news, Abigail Hilton contacted me tonight to send me the contract to record her next book "Arcove's Bright Side."  It's the longest project I will have done since "Hunter's Unlucky," the first book I did for her (which was so long I was no longer able to use the toilet afterward).  I will keep you posted.

Writing or Exercise: Both

Rish Outcast 224: Newfound Fame 3

Somehow, Ernst Hillerman has drawn the notice of the Brown Depths Monster. Which is not good.

Also not good?  I've decided to split "Newfound Fame" into FOUR episodes instead of three. I blame the curse.

To download the file, Right-Click HERE.

To support Rish over at Patreon, Left-Click HERE.

Logo by Gino "Newfound Shame" Moretto.

6/24 & 6/25

While at the cabin, I opened a dozen or so of my "Hatchling" files and raised the volume.  Today I uploaded ten of them, and every one passed their QC on the first try.  Amazing (or "amazeballs" as my cousin like saying).  The entire audiobook is now at 2 hours and 3 minutes.

I went to the library today, and worked way too little on the washing machine story.  But I take solace in the thought that, if George R.R. Martin wrote as much on his "Winds of Winter" book as I do on mine (whether "Balms & Sears" only, or everything), I'd have finished it years ago.*

Writing or Exercise: Both

6/25

I watched "Columbo" last night instead of doing anything productive.  I had intended to record another chapter (or two) of "But Now I'm Found," but I chose the quick and easy path, as Vader did.  Sorry.

I did get all the "Hatchling" files up on Audible (one was the wrong bandwidth and one was a smidge too quiet).  All I have to do is click the Approve For Sale button, and it's out of my hands forever, thank Buddha.

It occurred to me a day or two ago that one of my goals for 2022 was to put out an Outcast episode for my story "Caller ID," which is the one where the kid gets a call from his adult self every year on the same day.  I had figured to publish it on my birthday, so I could remember to put out another installment every year at the same time . . . but I've done nothing on it in 2022, and now there's only two weeks left.  I really need to get on that in the next week, so I can edit the story one Wednesday and the episode the next.  It's totally doable, if I but try.

As I was heading into the library, I saw a stranger waving right outside the door.  He seemed to be wearing a winter sweater for some reason.  Since he was a stranger, I didn't think he was waving at me, but when I got to the door, it became clear that he had been waving at me, and that he was a homeless guy who wanted a handout.  I told him "Sorry" and went inside.  I thought about him, though, wearing a cardigan in nearly ninety degree heat, and I felt bad for him.  Less than an hour later, when they kicked everybody out, I told myself I'd give the guy a dollar if he was still there, since I was just going to spend it on soda anyway.**

I wrote for about twenty minutes (maybe twenty-five) on "The Washer Whispers."***  It's a fun story.  I've decided the main character is my age, but a grandfather, so I don't know if he qualifies as a Geriatric Protagonist or not. 

You know where this is going, obviously, but yes, when I left the library and looked for the sweatered homeless man . . . he was already dead. 

Writing or Exercise: Both

*I know I talk about this almost endlessly, but I don't understand how he could have had a dozen chapters finished in 2016 (and eleven of those are the ones he released to the public), and still not have it done.  He said he wrote "hundreds of pages" of it during 2020 alone, and yet here we are with no book.  At this point, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that the real George Martin died a decade ago, and there are conspirators keeping it a secret.

**Both Marshal and Big have recently given up soda, so that gives them ridiculously-elevated moral high ground, but I'm here to tell you that soda is up there as one of the great things you can spend your money on, and if I spend a single day of the rest of my life without a soda to drink, then that's a day wasted.

***I might have to change that.  Marshal Latham mentioned the other day that he thinks "Newfound Fame" should've been titled "The Curse of the Brown Depths," and he may be right.  All I know is I've never thought "Newfound Fame" was a perfect title, even though I like thestory quite a bit (support me on Patreon, and the final episode is already available there).

Rish Performs "Man-size In Marble" on Tales of Terror

You know me, right?  You know that, if somebody asked, I'd do a story reading for them for free, as long as they gave me time to get it done, of course.  But recently, Tales of Terror contacted me to perform "Man-size In Marble," a short story I'd never heard before.*  And when I looked it up, and found that it was written by Edith Nesbit, well, between you and me . . . I would've paid them to narrate it.

A year or so ago, I had no idea who E. Nesbit was.  And then I got to reading her short stories, and now, well, I'm so much a fan that I am considering putting out a collection of my readings of her stories, in case anybody's interested, even if it profits me nothing.  Because wow, these stories really, really speak to me.  The most recent one I recorded, "From the Dead," was so good and so accessible, that I was able to go from beginning to end, not ever having read it before, with a grand performance that's probably my best audio work (at least as short stories go).

Check it out HERE.

*Of course, the story they sent me was the wrong one, so I had to track down "Man-size In Marble" myself, so as to make their deadline.

6/22 & 6/23 Blog

6/22

Even though I stayed up really late last night, I woke before my alarm this morning, and though I didn't want to get out of bed, I remembered that I had all the audio edited for my book "Hatchling," but had never uploaded it.  So, I thought I'd at least start the process.  By the time my alarm went off, I had three chapters uploaded--three acceptable chapters, I mean, after uploading approximately fifteen of them.  When I go to the cabin this afternoon, I'll maybe open up all my files and increase the volume on every one, which will help (but surely a few will still fail their QC and I'll have to make them even louder).

To my horror, even though today is the second-longest day of the year, it started getting dark around seven o'clock.  Not sure what's up with that (last night, it was about 9:04 or so).  Somehow, it was in the fifties when I drove up to the dam and did my run, and there were a bunch of people on the lake, fishing and hanging out with their kids/grandkids.  Even so, I did better running the dam this time than the last few, so I'm either getting stronger, or I'm further away from the summer cold thing I had in May.*  I also did some jump-roping when I got home, but I did it on gravel, and that kept jamming up the works.  In a perfect world (not even a perfect one, just a slightly better one), I'd exercise every time I came here, to the point where in October or November, I'd have seen a real improvement in my physique).

I watched GILDA, with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford.  It was really amazingly photographed, and Hayworth is like watching the greatest special effect ever created . . . but I can't really say I understood what was going on throughout, and was left absolutely dissatisfied in the end (Gilda and Johnny, the main characters, are in love, but seem to genuinely hate each other, to the point where Johnny says, "Where could he find another woman like you?  Anywhere.  There's more women in the world than anything else, I'm told.  Except maybe insects."  I'm paraphrasing, but he says it with such utter contempt that I believe he believes it.  Heck, the movie makes us believe it too).  

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

6/23

A new day.  The weather is absolutely perfect, with a constant cool breeze and enough sunlight to fry Lilith the Daughter of Dracula.

I haven't seen a single woodchuck this visit, whereas they were everywhere last week, crawling on the deck, in the grass, pooping and peeing everywhere, and making noises under the stairs.  There were three ground squirrels in the traps my brother had set, one dead and two alive.  I released the live ones--we don't really have a beef with them like we do with the rockchucks, that burrow and gnaw and defecate around the cabin like it's Cinco de Mayo--but it would've been nice to catch a badger.  The weeds have sprouted up so high in the past two weeks that you couldn't see them scurrying around if they were out there.

There was a neat phenomenon as it rained a couple of times when the sun was still shining brightly (the devil's wife had pushed him too far, apparently), even though this is the Rockies and not the Tropics.  I went out on the deck and watched it, and wished someone else could see it too.  But hey, nobody else was around . . . otherwise, I'd have put on pants at some point.

I recorded a story and did an episode about it, watched about half of a movie, read the first two chapters of a book, and then figured it was time to pack up and leave (the rain made it get dark early, though not as early as yesterday, when there was no rain, but it was still dark at seven o'clock [??]).  I have to drive out of the valley, then through the canyon to the town below before I get cellphone service, and when I do, I usually pull over to read the texts my Cousin Ryan has sent me (last week, it was about Tim Sale dying--Ryan is usually the dude to tell me who's died).  Because of the semi-darkness, the deer were out in full on the side of the road, and that always freaks me out (at least they weren't CROSSING the road, though, which is way worse), but I managed to record another podcast anyway.  

All in all, not a bad day at the cabin.

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

*It was one of those things where my sense of smell absolutely disappeared for a couple of days, and only recently has returned (although my sense of taste was never diminished).

Blog 6/21

Today is the longest day of the year.  Not sure why we don't celebrate it here, but we do celebrate other things.  Why don't we observe Siblings Day (April 10th) or First Contact Day (April 5th), but we do celebrate St. Patrick's Day and Arbor Day?

It was the first Tuesday in months I haven't gone to the library (yesterday was a holiday, so they were closed).  But hey, there was a family get-together a few towns over, and I chose to go to that instead.  I should've made myself run around the block, though, like I used to.

Heck, maybe I will.

I did, in fact, go running during the day for the first time this year (the ones at the cabin don't count--they kind of have to be during the day).  I've mentioned before (heck, after blogging daily for seven hundred days, I've mentioned EVERYTHING, from hemorrhoids to having an opera singer for a neighbor) that I'm super self-conscious when I run, and have been heckled a couple of times from teenaged buttholes passing me in their trucks (or truck . . . could it have been the same teens all three times?).  But that has happened at night as well, not to mention the dudes (or dudettes, for you feminist spies out there, I suppose a girl could be a butthole) that were driving in the wrong lane right there where I was running around the corner on two different occasions (same dude?).  But I couldn't go to the library, so I ran, which is better than nothing (though not as good as in 2020 when I would do both every Tuesday) before going to meet my cousin.

As far as that went, "Obi-Wan Kenobi" ended, and the last episode wasn't too bad, but the show is ultimately inconsequential, ultimately kind of pointless.  It's like "Encounter at Ord Mantell" or "Caravan of Courage" to the Star Wars saga as a whole.

Once again, "Strange New Worlds" was excellent.  I honestly don't know how they do it.  Pound for pound, it's the best Star Trek we've ever had.  

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to Marshal Latham (who had watched "Discovery," unlike me), and asked about Spock's relationship with his father and mother (as well as the sister with the terrible name that was the star of the show), and at some point I said, "I wonder if they'd ever mention that Sybok exists."  He doubted it, same as me, and I said, "If it were my show, I'd introduce Sybok, and explore the relationship of the two brothers, and how Spock longs to be the perfect Vulcan, even though his heritage prevents that, and how Sybok longs to be human (or human-like) despite being full-blooded Vulcanian."  To my surprise (and utter delight), in the most recent episode, they teased a future appearance by the erratic and dangerous older brother (Spock calls him his father's illegitimate son).  I totally believe it is possible to redeem that character, and make him into a villain to be feared.

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

I Narrate "What Cats & Dragons Do" on CatsCast

What does it profit a narrator if he should gain a new audience (and performing fee) yet loses his own soul?

Not sure where that quote comes from (think it might have been an old "Peanuts" cartoon), but it certainly applies to my performance of "What Cats (and Dragons) Do" by KT. Bryski over at the CatsCast podcast, a show that runs only stories about cats.  

It's about a sly cat who tricks a big, naive dragon into doing his bidding, and unfortunately, the voice I chose to do for the dragon did a real number on my voice.  But them's the breaks and why they pay me the big buck.

Check it out HERE.

Oh, and I did get to make a reference to Rum Tum Tugger in my author introduction that the poor host was (pretty much) forced to read.  So that's fun.