Rish's Ramblings

Beat(en) Poet

2012-02-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hurray, it's the worst day of the year. Even worse than Remember Hitler Fondly Day (observed). But I'll try not to let it get to me.

If you've listened to one episode of my show in particular, you'll know I'm no fan of poetry. I have written my share of poems in the past, but they've nearly always been inspired by some unrequited infatuation thing that either ended badly or never started at all.

I guess that's left a bad taste for poetry in my mouth. We don't do poems on our show, and truth be told, I've never done a poem for anybody else's show. Until now.

Graeme Dunlop over at Cast of Wonders asked me to read/perform a short poem, and I recorded it this week (twice, since the settings were off the first time). I'm so unfamiliar with poetry that Big Anklevich had to tell me how to read the meter, where to pause, and correct me when I kept doing it wrong (and my guess is, I still did it wrong, but he just threw his mental hands in the air).

Even so, I was reminded of being in Ms. Collins's class, which would've been Sixth Grade, and everyone being assigned to read/recite a poem in front of the class. I thought about it, and presented "The Earl-King," a creepy ode to terrors of the night that I hope caused unrest in at least one of my fellow students.

For gits and shiggles, I present that poem here (a recording I did a year or two back, with the good old craptastic microphone). Enjoy?

Babysitter of the Year: The Next Generation

2012-02-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

My sister had an appointment this morning, so I was taking care of her kids, and while I was putting some socks on, I heard my older nephew (4) say, "Ewww!" The sound was coming from the bathroom, so I entered to investigate. My younger nephew (1) was standing beside the toilet, and he . . . was dipping his pacifier in the toilet water, then putting it in his mouth. And repeating the motion.

I'm not sure if I'll say anything about this. Good thing my sister doesn't read my blog.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2012-02-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

I was listening to the radio yesterday, and switching through the channels, I hit upon that "I'm on the edge of glory..." song, that I imagine y'all are already familiar with. Well, it was the first time I'd heard it, and I thought, "Wow, finally a Kelly Clarkson song I can really get behind." I listened through to the end, totally digging it, when to my horror, the soulless robot voice at the end of the song said, "eDgE oF gLOrY, lAdY gAGa."

I finally know how those serial killers who black out and then wake up with bloody rolling pins and the bodies of children in their hands feel. And it's not all that great.

2012-02-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

A friend o' mine had (yet another) child today. And my cousin sent me this cartoon today. So here:

The Letterman Show at 30

2012-02-02T02:17:00.000-08:00

Dang, today marked the thirtieth anniversary of "The Late Show with David Letterman." Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until a) the show was over, and b) two o'clock in the morning. I really would like to go on and on about how much Dave's show thrilled me as a boy, and how much Dave himself has inspired me throughout my life . . . but I'm kind of unprepared, and haven't thought of anything to say.

Guess it'll have to wait till Letterman dies. Sorry.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

I saw a bus stop poster for the 3-D re-release of STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE the other day. They've been pushing it quite a bit around here, hoping to make the kind of money LION KING's reissue did (or better yet, the 1997 reissue of STAR WARS).

Everybody's seen that flick, and I've made it more than clear what I think about the frickin' Prequels, and yet, seeing that poster, the first thing that went through my head was: "Wow, I think I'll go see that. I really liked that movie."

Sigh.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2012-01-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I made a little business transaction with a stranger in a parking lot (no, not THAT kind of business transaction, but one much lamer), and I had to pay in cash (ditto). So, I scraped together all my money and had to borrow the rest, and met the guy in the designated area. I handed him the money, and took my purchase to my car.

When I turned around, he was standing next to me. "Hey," he said, "there's something wrong with a couple of the bills."

Immediately, I knew what he was talking about and sort of laughed it off, "Yeah, I've had those for a long time."

But he wouldn't laugh along. "Look at these twenties," he said, showing me the three pre-2000 bills with the smaller circles and less color. "The backs don't match either."

True enough, he turned them over and they didn't have the same art on the back that the new bills do. America has been changing the design on their currency little by little, making them more complicated and harder to counterfeit, and when the new twenties first hit, I remember people saying they looked like Monopoly money. I guess it's been long enough this guy got used to the new ones, but I'd never heard somebody think the old ones looked fake before.

For a minute there, I actually thought the guy was going to refuse to take them, which would've been a headache. But then, maybe I deserve a headache, for trying to use currency from the bloody 20th Century. Sad old man.

Rish "Monkeybags" Outfield

American Horror Story

2012-01-13T23:55:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, my Irish friend John said something that has stuck with me ever since. He said, "I would probably kill myself, except I really want to see what happens next."

It was an odd thing to say, and I never really knew if he was joking around when he said it (I suspect not), but it came to mind again and again. During dark moments, I have thought of his words, and wondered about what I'd miss out on if I wasn't around. And thusfar, dammit, I'm still here.

One thing I would've missed out on was 2011's "American Horror Story," an honest-to-Hitchcock Horror series on cable's FX Network. Created by the men behind FOX's equally horrific "Glee," it was a haunted house series about a dysfunctional, nearly-broken family, and what happens when the two mix. And it was, honest-to-Punky-Brewster, unlike any show I've ever seen.

And I bloody loved it. I watched it with my friend Jeff, lagging behind the actual airdates, and while I know I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than he did (sometimes I got the impression he flat-out loathed it), he kept on watching it with me until we reached the end just this week.

I guess he felt he owed me after THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX.

But regardless, I really dug the show, and admired the skillful way they kept the family members from realizing the house was haunted, and introduced some really surprising twists, and some truly wonderful black humor.

Oh, and the show was legitimately scary. Something I quite appreciated.

I'm glad I didn't miss it, even if my friend feels differently.

Rish "You're All Gonna Die In There" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

2012-01-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

The other day, I took my niece to the library to check out a couple books. While we were there, I spied a five dollar bill on the floor by the DVDs and Books On Tape. "Hey, free money," I said to her, "Looks like we can go ice skating for free."

She just looked at the money, then said, "I'd better not."

"Why not?" I asked, trying to figure out her reluctance.

"It's not mine," she said.

"It is now, congratulations," said I.

Still, she did not move. "I don't want to get in trouble."

"You won't," I said, then, "Pick up the money."

She finally did, and said, "Well, shouldn't we turn it in? In case someone is looking for it?"

"If it was a wallet, or car keys, or a kidney or something, sure," I said, "but not for cash. There's no way to identify it, and nobody's going to ask if somebody turned in a five dollar bill."

She pocketed the money, but I could tell she still had reservations about it. We tried to go ice skating, but they close early on Thursdays, apparently (either that or it's a conspiracy to keep me from exercising).

I forgot all about it until the other night, where my sister mentioned that she had chastised her daughter for picking up the money. She has an Adrian Monk-like obsession with germs, so I assumed that was her reasoning. "What, because it had been on the floor? Or just because money is dirty?"

"For taking money that didn't belong to her," my sister said.

"It didn't belong to anyone," I said, "it was dropped on the floor."

"Well, she should have turned it in, or left it there."

I argued with her for a moment about the unlikelihood that someone would even consider going to the Lost and Found for cash, and probably didn't even know it was gone, but in her mind, it was dishonest of me to tell her kid the money was hers if she found it.

I guess she never heard that ancient teaching of the Buddha, the one that ends with "losers weepers."

Rish "You Owe Me Five Dollars" Outfield

Tradition, actually

2011-12-24T23:43:00.000-08:00

My buddy Jeff has two traditions he follows every Christmas. One is that he and his wife go somewhere on Christmas Eve (or Christmas Eve-Eve) and buy each other a little gift. His other tradition is, after the presents have been wrapped and placed under the tree for the next morning, to watch LOVE, ACTUALLY with his wife together.

They do it every year, and I envy the hell out of it. There's only a handful of movies I love as much as I do LOVE, ACTUALLY, but not having a wife (or anything remotely close to one), my viewings of the movie are always solo.*

Jeff just emailed me to mention that they finished the flick--it was as good as ever--and he's now on to bed. So I figured I ought to at least TRY to watch it, now that I've wrapped my own presents for tomorrow.

I love something new about the flick every time I watch it, and laugh at a new line I never noticed the other times through ("He now spends all his time up in his room." "There's nothing unusual about that. My horrid son Bernard stays in his room all the time. Thank goodness."). I'm a pretty tough sell when it comes to movies (at least more so than everybody except my dad and Big Anklevich), but they've really got me with this one.

It would be nice to develop a couple new traditions--preferably non-solo ones--but this is one I don't mind repeating from last year.

Happy holiday.

Rish Billy Mack Outfield

*Which might be a good thing; after all, how attractive can a man be to a woman when he consistantly bawls throughout what is universally-recognized as a Romantic-Comedy? I believe they even address it in the flick, when Emma Thompson says, "No one's ever going to shag you if you cry all the time."

Santa Baby Jesus

2011-12-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

The local Eighties radio station keeps playing this promo that sort of creeps me out. It goes, "Ho, ho, ho, kids! This is Santa Claus here, reminding you in this holiday season to remember the Baby Jesus. The Baby Jesus taught us to love one another as we love ourselves, and thinking of him will help us all to have a merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho!"

I find this radio ad both vexing and extremely annoying. Look, I know that Christmas is a religious holiday, and that religious folks get upset that it has been secularized. But isn't Santa kind of the anti-Jesus? The representation of all the commercial and non-denominational aspects of the holiday? Isn't Santa Claus Jesus's Lex Luthor or Doctor Octopus? Or at least the equivalent of Toyman or the Shocker.

It may not be Israel and Palestine (as I have previously asserted), but that one holiday icon should be used to invoke the name of another holiday icon just seemed wrong to me. Despite whole church and state thing, it would be one thing if the station's general manager got on the air and told people to keep in mind that it's Jesus's birthday, and He's the reason behind all the hoopla. But to have Santa do it (or, more accurately, somebody pretending to be Santa) and telling KIDS to keep in mind that the season is about the Baby Jesus . . . well, I just have a problem with that.

Years ago, I knew a woman who would constantly pray to the Baby Jesus. And that just plain bothered me. Maybe it's all nonsense, or maybe it's just the thought that counts, but if Jesus was really the Son of God and lived like the stories say, then He sure as hell isn't a baby anymore. Right?

Or is Baby Jesus a different entity altogether, like Superboy and Superman are (at least according to the lawyers DC Comics employs so they don't have to pay royalties on "Smallville")?

Regardless, Fake Santa telling us what Baby Jesus taught is just false all-around. The Baby Jesus didn't teach us anything. He was a baby. Oh, going by all the carols and pop songs, He was an extraordinarily well-behaved baby . . . but He wasn't giving devotionals, self-help seminars, and lecturing at community colleges. Not even on carpentry.

I know it's a little thing, and wouldn't have merited being mentioned (still doesn't), but I heard the promo again and again on the radio, and figured I should say something, just to get it off my chest.

We can just move on now.

Rish

P.S. "Hey kids, this is Artoo Deetoo. I know you're all excited about THE PHANTOM MENACE getting re-released in cinemas in a few weeks, but let me remind you that Spider-man turns fifty years old in 2012, so this really should be his year. And remember that Spider-man taught us, 'You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.' Have a happy new year."

R.I.P. Joe Simon

2011-12-15T23:22:00.003-08:00

Captain America co-creator Joe Simon died today. He made it to ninety-eight, and lived to see a really solid film made from his most famous creation. In recent years, I've really grown to love Cap, and I hope Joe got to interact with some of the millions of people like me over the years.
Thanks, Joe.

Rish "Bucky" Outfield

Water Torture

2011-12-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you have a Del Taco where you live (probably not in the UK or Australia, right?), but we have 'em all over around here. It's delicious, cheap food, and my cousin and I eat there pretty much every Tuesday night. Also, the restaurant in L.A. I probably went to the most was the Del Taco on Washington and Motor (technically Culver City, I suppose). Like most fast food franchises, their drinks are unforgivably overpriced, but you can always get a complimentary water, to save a couple bucks.

Of course, those restaurants make a killing on soda, and some Del Tacos have an ingenious way to get you to buy drinks anyway. For example, the aforementioned L.A. location had water that tasted like it came right out of the septic tank, and that worked well for them.

Today, I took my nephew to our local Del Taco, and they had an even cleverer way of getting us to buy drinks. I got a drink for me and a water for him, but then found that no water was coming out of the dispenser. I asked the girl behind the counter, and she said, "Oh yeah, that's broken."

Touche, Del Taco. Touche.

Rish "Del Chalupa" Outfield

The World's Most Helpful Employee

2011-11-27T18:01:00.000-08:00

I went to Target today, and they had their yearly $7.99 sale on DC Universe Classics figures (normally they are $15.99). Unfortunately, the local store hasn't gotten a single new figure in in months, perhaps not since last year's holidays. What they have on the shelf are figures I've returned (or others have returned), and not a single one that's worth $7.99, let alone $15.99. But I'd discussed this so many times with my cousin that I'd planned on stripping the shelves if they ever went on sale again, in hopes that the store would order some new ones.

Unfortunately, they had three of probably the most worthless figure in their entire series, Cyclotron (it's probably more worthless than the much more-prominent Captain Cold, since he at least comes with a Build-A-Figure piece), and I was torn between buying ALL the figures, and buying all of them except for him. And an employee of the toy department just happened to come by, so I asked him.

"These are on sale," I said. "Should I buy all of them, or is leaving only three enough so that the store will order more?"

"It doesn't work that way," he said, smugly . . . then didn't explain how it did work.

"Okay, how does it work?" I asked.

"The warehouse sends us more when they have more. It doesn't matter if we have them on the shelf or not."

"Oh. But this store hasn't gotten a new figure since 2010. Since they're on sale, will you be getting some new ones in?"

"There's no way of knowing that," he said.

"Can't the manager or somebody order another box?" I asked.

"Nope. The computer keeps track of those things."

This frustrated me, since I was now getting visions of the HAL-9000, and that shitty Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS movie. "Alright, isn't there anything I can do to ensure your store gets some more in?"

"Well, you could buy all the ones on the shelf, if you want," he said.

Sigh.

short story unsale

2011-11-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

I got an acceptance letter about one of my stories a few weeks (months?) ago, and was excited that a) someone other than me liked it and b) I'd get to hear somebody produce it for audio. It's a tale I'm quite proud of, and might have been the first story I wrote with a pair of girl protagonists (rather than my typical male ones).

But life is what happens when you're . . . a loser, I guess. So I got an email from the editor who, sadly, can no longer do the story (or any story, it would seem), due to matters beyond her control. That was disappointing to me, mostly because I now won't get to hear how someone interprets and performs the story, but also because it's a rejection in a way.

It ain't world-ending or anything, but it's a bit of a bummer. Of course, a real writer would have already sent it out there to another publisher, in the time it's taken me to write this. Sigh.

Parenting

2011-11-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

"The Charter" reading over at Strangely Literal

2011-11-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

A while back, I auditioned for a part in a "Firefly" audio drama, and while I didn't get the part I wanted, I got a part. But before the fun could begin, each of the new cast members were sent a short story to record, as a secondary audition, I assumed. Mine was called "The Charter," a very short story set (sort of) in the "Firefly" universe.

Well, I was going through my files today, looking for stuff to delete, and was reminded of it, so I did a search, and I found my reading as part of the "Strangely Literal" podcast, which is a fan fiction publisher of stories set in the Joss Whedon-verse(s).

It's a crossover with a very popular Nineties sitcom, and the story is pretty amusing really, so I figured I'd mention it here. If you like that sort of thing, check it out over at strangelyliteral.com. Tell 'em Badger sent you!

R. "You're killing Independent Rish" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-11-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

I was in the grocery store today, and a toddler (maybe three, but probably two) had a t-shirt on that read, "I have the biggest dick in my family."

With Some Nameless Dread

2011-10-25T02:41:00.000-07:00

Was it Poe or Lovecraft who liked to use the phrase "it filled me with some nameless dread?" I always found that to be a nebulous, old-fashioned, almost nonsensical turn of phrase. But late tonight, I was leaving my friend's house to go home, I understood exactly what the crazy dead bastage meant.

You see, a few minutes earlier, my buddy's wife woke up to the sound of a pair of cats fighting or yowling or communing with the unholy spirits of darkness--whatever it is cats do--worried that her cat might be participating. He told her it wasn't, but I had heard nothing.

It was time for me to go home, and I went out onto the front porch. Then I heard it. The sound was bloodcurdling. It sounded like somebody dying. It sounded like the devil having a baby. It was an echoing, horrible, feminine, inhuman sound (sure, it was inhuman because it wasn't made by humans, but why would it be feminine?). It was the most awful sound I can readily imagine, and I've heard more than one song by Ke$ha.

"Jeez, that sounds like an old woman wailing in pain," I said, laughing, as my friend bid me farewell.

But once I was alone, and it came again, I was no longer laughing. The hairs on my arms and taint stood right up, and for the first time in I don't know how many years, I was almost overcome with the urge to run. Run in the direction that ghastly sound was not coming from. There was no logic to it, but I was simply, and most unjustifiably terrified.

I quickly got into my car, and fought the urge to scream at the prospect of something grabbing hold of me before I could close the door, or worse, something leaping onto the windshield to get at me. How that's worse I don't know. I guess because I'd see its face then.

Anyway, it was such a strange and childhoodesque experience, I thought I'd share it here. Seems like that might've been a mistake.

Rish "The Fonz" Outfield

Guest spot on "Star Trek: Outpost"

2011-10-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I haven't mentioned this before, but I recently did a three episode arc over at Giant Gnome Productions' "Star Trek: Outpost" audio drama series. The storyline is called "The Melnoran Solution," written by Tony Raymond and Daniel McIntosh.

I've done a couple of Trek fan productions, with varying levels of success. This particular series is very dialogue-heavy (as would be expected in audio), and this series of episodes are heavy on politics, diplomacy, and protocol. Audio drama is really hard to write and pull off well. I don't really know the series, except that it is very popular, award-winning, and each episode is massive, around an hour ten.

I play the part of Kar'rl Droonga, in pretty much a more formal version of my own voice. He's a Betazoid emissary that's been living among an alien civilization without (most of) them knowing he is not one of them (kind of like that episode of "Next Gen" where the natives worship The Picard as a god and Lilith Sternin-Crane always wanted to have sex with an alien, unless that's two different episodes). But all is not as it appears to be, and my character takes a bit of a turn in his later appearances.

It surprised me, since hadn't known where it all was going, and I wondered if I should have played the part differently, having been tipped off as to motivations and destinations. It must be a bit like playing a part on a TV show with no idea what is to come, only to find out your character is a murderer, or a spy, or a love interest, or is killed, as soon as you get the next script.

It was one of the more difficult productions I've worked on, and required a hell of a lot more time than I'm used to. But the show is high-quality and professional, with original score, sound effects, and a full cast of better-than-average actors, so I guess it's worth it in the end.

Wait a minute, check it out yourself, and you can be the judge.
Part I
Part II
Part III

Rish "Red Shirt" Outfield

Not far from the truth

2011-10-13T01:26:00.001-07:00

At least, not according to my mother.

Best Commercial of 2011

2011-10-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

Last year, there was a cellphone commercial that nearly made me cry. It was trying to speak to people about why having a phone was important, but it ended up speaking me to be about the human condition. My friend Jeff is as opinionated and even more cynical than I am, and when that ad came on during an episode of "Fringe," I just knew that he'd bad-mouth it. He hates both cellphones AND commercials, so I knew it was bound to earn his wrath . . . but he didn't. He said, "Man, this is a great commercial! It almost makes me want to buy one of their phones."

And from that moment on, we were best friends.*

This week, I was at his house, watching the pilot episode of "Terra Nova," which I knew he only watched because I wanted to see it and probably stifled a groan through the whole thing. At one point, a Playstation commercial came on. Only we didn't know it was a Playstation commercial. Heck, I'd be blown away if ANYBODY knew it was a Playstation commercial. Eff those guys. Right up their A's.

But once I'd gone home, Jeff looked up the commercial (which ended midway through without having told us what it was about), and sent it to me. And I was floored.
Still am.

I'm not a gamer. I don't have a Wii or X-360 or Pi-Bot-93 or PS4. I did have two X-Boxes in Los Angeles, both of them stolen within three months of each other (by the same guy, who with any luck is being sodomized by a Rubik's Cube as we speak), thereby preventing me from truly appreciating video games in the 21st century. But this commercial makes me wish I were part of that culture. It makes me think I need a Playstation. It makes me wish I were Michael. It makes me want to be a better man.

Rish "To Michael" Outfield

*Give or take twenty years.

Son of the Year

2011-09-30T23:07:00.001-07:00

I said "bullshit" to my mother today for the first time.

For some reason, my mom has a giant phobia/problem with profanity. Always has. You know you've made her as furious as she can possibly be if she ever resorts to it. To this point, I've managed to never use it around her (except for saying "bastardized" when talking about Spanish, and muttering "oh shit" when we crashed our car in 2004 or so). But today, I guess I got pushed too far, or she made me as furious as I can possibly be, I don't know.

Nobody under Thor's green earth can make me madder than my mom and dad. And they have some kind of speed-dial shortcut to getting me there faster than anybody else does. I went for a drive, worked on the show, ate a microwave burrito, went to the library, listened to an audiobook, took my nephew out to look for worms in the backyard, and talked to Big on the phone for half an hour . . . and I'm still mad.

Life is weird.

Stupid Thing of the Week II: Solar-powered Boogaloo

2011-09-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

I've got something of a love-hate relationship with the town library. We didn't have a library in the village where I grew up (there was something called the Bookmobile, that would come to the elementary school every other week or so, and not only could students check out books from the small bus, but everyday townsfolk could too), and in Los Angeles, it was just so much of a bloody hassle to go the libraries there (I went a couple of times, but it just made more sense to get my books at used bookstores, or buy them new and resell them when I was finished).

Lately, though, I've been grabbing as many books as I can, as well as audiobooks, and kiddie stuff for my nephew or niece. Unfortunately, they've got something called late fees, for when a book is overdue, and many of the books on CD are so in demand that, if I return an overdue one, they won't let me re-check it out. So, I keep them until I finish, and pay the fees.

But I was surprised today to get an email from them saying I owed $19.80 in late fees, and I couldn't check out or renew anything until it was paid. I'd made a trip to the library just this pass Saturday to return three books, because my late fees were over seven dollars. But I couldn't figure out how my fees could have more than doubled in three days (one of which was a Sunday, and probably should count fee-wise, right?).

My nephew likes to go to the library with me, so I brought him along, and he wanted to take a whole stack of books, but first, I told him, I had to get to the bottom of this late fees thing. I stood in the line, and the boy stood beside me, and I explained the situation and my puzzlement. The late fees are ten cents per day, so unless I checked out, what, thirty books, all overdue, the huge late fee made no sense.

The woman told me that one of the books I had returned had been damaged, a nature book about the life cycle of frogs (which I'd checked out for the three year old, not me). "Damaged?" I asked, not really getting it. "I just brought that back on Saturday." The woman told me that they'd only just noticed it was damaged, and that I had to pay for it because it was ruined from water damage.

Well, I suppose that sort of thing is possible, but I told her that if I had to pay for the book, I might as well get to have the book, and she agreed. She went to get it, and I didn't remember getting it wet or putting it anywhere it might have gotten wet, and wondered if, in the last three days, something else might have happened to it.

She brought it out, and sure enough, there were water spots on the lower third of every page. But it was a big book for kids, and it was far from ruined. "Well, I'll buy it, I guess," I grumbled, "But it's not that badly damaged, and I honestly didn't get it wet." The woman looked at me, and at the book, and decided that she agreed, and said she could waive the fee. That was a relief, and I said as much, as well as, "I can't imagine how it could have gotten water on it, since I brought it here in my car just the other day." The woman typed something, and a child's voice beside me said, "I dropped it in the sprinklers." "What?" said I. My nephew said, "The sprinkler was on and I dropped it in on accident."

Unfortunately, the woman was still sitting there, and she heard him say that too. Sigh.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-09-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend, I went out of town with my siblings (two sisters and a brother), as well as brother-in-law, cousin, and . . . friend of my cousin to a hotel and casino, like we did for New Year's. My sister had her birthday on Saturday, and that was the present she wanted.

It was a lot of fun, and we didn't stay very long (the whole trip lasted about twenty-four hours), so it didn't wear out its welcome, although my allergies went absolutely crazy on me, and I have yet to recover.

My sister took us to the Craps tables and we played that for a while, trying to figure it out (I'd never played before), and she ended up winning the most money out of us all (my brother lost the most money, which is sad since he's usually the lucky one and can't lose it all even if he wants to*), but I played Roulette for a while last night, and won back all the money I'd blown on Blackjack and Draw Poker, and then some.

Unfortunately, I hit a curb driving back this afternoon and blew out my two passenger side tires, which ate up all my winnings plus a great deal more. Sigh.

So, that's probably the best candidate for Stupid Thing of the Week, that I would win a little, but lose a lot with my lousy driving, but instead, I wanted to bring up an amusing experience we had at the Blackjack table. There were three or four different dealers, and though we didn't play long, they kept switching out/getting relieved by the next one. And each of these dealers was a little more uptight about rules or casino etiquette than the other. I'm not really experienced (or at least out of practice), so I didn't know you couldn't touch your cards with both hands, or put your drink on the table, or let your girlfriend touch your cards. But really minor things like placing your bet right on the word "Nugget" rather than above it or next to it, or scraping your cards to signal you'd like another instead of saying "Gimmee another" or "I'll take one more" were absolutely hammered into us with various levels of rigidity.

The worst of the dealers in this regard was a middle-aged Asian woman, who ran the table until I lost all my money, and sourly said things like "I no tell you how to play" when I'd ask, "Should I stay on a fifteen?" Math is not my strong suit, and she had little patience with me trying to figure out what Four plus Ace plus Three plus Seven was. Watching her try to explain how insurance worked confused me much worse than never hearing the term would have, and all of us evidently infuriated her when we laid our cards next to our chips instead of under them, or put them face up instead of face down (which didn't matter anyway since our turn was over).

At one point, a trio (perhaps quartet) of drunken twenty-somethings sat down at the table next to us, and they drew her ire more than we ever had. A loud, inebriated dude kept breaking her rules or not understanding her broken English, and she berated him and all of us for his behavior. "You no hate me, you hate game! If you hate game, you go and play other game!"

I thought he was a bit of a tool, especially when my brother told him how the side bet for a suited pair worked, and he snarled, "Are you trying to tell me what to do with my money?" But there was nothing he could do that didn't upset the dealer. She didn't want to pay him for having the matched pair because he didn't show her immediately, he was wasting time by not announcing he had busted the second it happened, and there's apparently a law against raising your cards a foot off the table to show your buddies.

"I no making the rules. All Blackjack like this," she said when he got frustrated.
She told him to watch his language, when he was disappointed she'd gotten a goddamn twenty, and when she got 21 and took all our money, he used that most ubiquitous of English words.
"No F-word!" she said loud enough for the other tables to hear. "You get mad if you want, you no say F-word at my table!"

The dude's blonde girlfriend looked at the dealer and said, "What about the C-word?"

The dealer said, "I no know bout that one."

To which, the dude said, "As in, you are a c**t."

I thought that was dang funny, but the little group of inebriates all got up and took off then, leaving just me and my brother playing.

In the end, since I lost every single one of my chips, I realize, they were the smart ones.

Rish "No Q-Word" Outfield

*That's no exaggeration. The last time we went to Vegas, my brother didn't want to have to stand in line at the Cashier, so he kept putting all of his winnings on Black or Red (or Odd or Even) on the Roulette table, just hoping to double it or lose it all . . . and the crazy bastard just kept winning. He'd do it again, and win again. Finally, my sister grabbed him and said, "I'LL stand in the Cashier's line, just don't throw away all that money!"

Babysitter of the Year: The New Batch

2011-09-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

My sister's second-born child turned one today.

Yesterday, I was babysitting both of her kids, and the older one (as usual) wanted to play with the turtles. He loves the turtles like I love Cherry Coke, Indiana Jones, and feeling sorry for myself. In the kitchen, I watched the boy try to juggle a large and a small one in front of the toddler, who kept reaching for them.

At one point, I said, "Quit hogging them, give one to your brother." So, for some reason, he handed the larger turtle over to the baby, and for some reason, the child immediately put the turtle in his mouth. Well, nature fought back, and the poor boy began screaming as the turtle clamped its jaws down on the 364 day old's lip. I had to pull it off him and see if I could offer him comfort until his mother came back.

There were tears and there was blood, and yeah, he shrieked for a minute or so, but it was nothing compared to how he screams at night, each and every night, as if he just returned from a Japanese ghost movie marathon.

I had to explain why my sister's son looked like Joaquin Phoenix for his birthday pictures today, but what's worse, when I was carrying him around the house today, I took him over to the turtle tank . . . and he immediately reached for one. Sigh.

Non-buyer's Remorse

2011-09-19T10:35:00.001-07:00

Human nature is weird. About six months ago, Sideshow Collectibles announced a statue of Spike from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," coming later in the year. It was a large one, and if you ordered it off the Sideshow website, you'd get a swap-out vampire head for it. Spike was pretty much my favorite character on that show, and I wanted to pre-order the statue.
But I didn't. It wasn't cheap, and I had already pre-ordered another statue from them, so I didn't jump on it immediately. But I had plenty of time to gather up the cash.

At Comic-Con, I saw the Spike statue, and it was bigger than I would've guessed. Instead of making me think that was more bang for my buck, it made me worried that I would have no place to put it, and would have trouble shipping it to somebody if I decided to sell it. And was it really that cool in person? Wouldn't I mostly likely keep it in its box (because I had no place to display it anyway), and stick it in a closet someplace, like I have most of my statues? Wouldn't it be better not to spend the money than buy something and then have it collect dust in a closet that's already full to overflowing?

It became available to pre-order, and I had a window with it in there open on my internet every day since it became available. I'd look at it and weigh whether I wanted to buy it or not. I was buying another one, after all, and it would look lonely without another one beside it. The statue was cool, no question. But what if my financial situation continues unimproved, and I rue the day I spent so much cash on something like that, when I need it for food or crystal meth or child prostitutes or something.

The weeks became months, and I decided, around August, that it would be wiser not to buy it. It's just another THING that I really want, practically have to have, until I buy it and get it home, and wish I hadn't. I assume other people are like that, and it's not just me, but like Big pointed out in that one episode of our show, I am a freak, and nobody's like me.

So, I didn't buy it. I did keep the window open, though, just to keep the possibility out there, in case I, I don't know, stumbled across a suitcase full of cash in the rare occasion I leave my room. And yesterday, the item's availability on there went from "Pre-Order" to "Sold Out."

Damn, I thought. I really wanted to buy that.

Rish "Secret Shopper" Outfield

What's the opposite of a Master of the Macabre?

2011-09-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

I keep meaning to mention it on the show, but over at the Horror Addicts website, they had a contest somewhat-recently, and I entered it. It was called "the Masters of the Macabre." The fun of the contest (and I hesitate to put "fun" in quotation marks, though I did consider it) is that only after you volunteered to participate did they tell you the exact specifications of the contest. Plus, everybody's specs were different. Basically, every contestant was given a phobia, a location, and an activity, and a story was to be written about it. It's quite clever, actually, though I could see a writer saddled with diarrheaphobia/Cleveland/wedding rehearsal throwing his hands in the air in frustration.

Regardless, my trio of requisites were: Entomophobia (fear of insects), hang glider, luau. It wasn't hard to come up with a story featuring those three things, but coming up with a GOOD story . . . well, that remains to be seen.Because I'm feeling melancholy today, I wonder if I really am much of a writer, and if not, if losing a contest or three is the best use of my time. I'm a person that's made a lot of mistakes (as opposed to the myriad perfect folks out there, I know), and because of my sunny personality, I dwell on those mistakes a lot.

Regardless, the webmaster and show host, Emerian Rich, has done a bang-up job with the contest, and you can check out my entry at this link. There are other contestants, who recorded their stories, and posted them here. Apparently, you can vote for your favorite. Enjoy?

Rish

Star Wars Changes

2011-09-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

As y'all know, George Lucas* has implemented even more changes to the Star Wars Trilogy for the new Blue-Ray releases. This makes, what, the fourth wave of changes?

There's no point in complaining about it. That's being done all over the internet by people much younger than me (see, it's their turn. My generation wasted our breath on it long ago, and the ones who care about such things are already converted. And George ain't gonna be swayed. Not ever.

But in looking over some of the new changes, I don't find any as egregious as the 1997 Emperor scream, the 2002 digital addition of Dakota Fanning as one of the Bounty Hunters, or the 2004 replacement of Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen, and there's actually one that makes the film trilogy better.

The scene is a slight alteration to the scene in the first film where the Death Star destroys Princess Leia's home planet of Alderaan. It always bothered me that the world, home of the birthplace of the Rebel Alliance, would put up absolutely no resistance when attacked. In this new enhancement, we see that Leia was lying about her home having no weapons, and it makes the Empire seem a bit more quick on their feet than before.

Nicely done, Lucasfilm.

Rish Outfield

*Or is it Lucas, do you think? Or just a bunch of over-eager ILM employees looking for something to do?)

Rish Outfield, Screenwriter

2011-08-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

Not long ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about my writing career. I guess I should've put "career" in quotes, but let's not be mean, okay? He is an entertainment lawyer and film executive in Los Angeles now, and our dreams had been, ever since I met him, to go to Hollywood and make movies. I would write, and he would direct. Or produce. Or something.

Well, I moved out out there, a few years back, and accomplished very little in that arena. Then I moved away, my eyes forever glued to the rear-view mirror. I still want to be a screenwriter, but a few years ago, I stopped writing scripts and started to focus on short stories. My reasoning (and everybody who knows me has heard this a dozen times) is that a short story, when finished, is a completely WHOLE thing, a work of art in itself. A screenplay, however, is still unfinished, even when you finish it, because it's just a blueprint for a movie, an outline for a greater whole. And I was tired of writing scripts (that I thought were really good), only to have nothing to show for it afterward. It's not easy to hand a script to your uncle, when he asks for something of mine to read, and have him get enjoyment out of it.

Actually, I did do a bit of screenwriting professionally a couple of years back, but that was work-for-hire stuff, other people's ideas, and not what I'd call enjoyable, writing for fun. Stories are fun.

And I haven't really minded no longer being a screenwriter. I've focused on my podcast and on writing short stories, and I'm as creatively satisfied as I've ever been. Except that every once in a while, I'll have an idea, and I know it'll only work as a movie (or a short film, or at least an audio production). Most of the time when that happens, I shrug and say, "This one is for the Rish Outfield of an alternate universe, who still lives in L.A., works in the film business, and spends thousands on coke and hookers every month."

And then, I had this conversation with my friend. He was probably trying to give me a peptalk, or express disappointment in my life choices, or even just a backhanded compliment, but he told me, basically, that I was really talented, and might have made it as a screenwriter, but had given up. "Don't worry," he said, "Not everybody has what it takes to make it out here in L.A.. The film business takes a certain kind of person, with the kind of persistence you just don't have."

Well, that really bothered me. To be told that I could've been a real cop and I blew it was no divine revelation, but the truth hurts, as they say, and his words ate at me for the next few days. I thought about one of those Alternate Reality Rish ideas I'd had a few years back, and how I told it to Big and convinced myself--if not him--that it was a totally great idea for a movie, but it's a shame I don't do screenwriting anymore.

But why not? How hard would it be to write it down and type it up and send it to Ian and say, "See? I'm half the loser you think I am! And maybe half the writer you think I am too, but at least I wrote something!" And so, I did.

For the last couple of months, whenever I write, instead of stories, it's been this screenplay. And because that's what I studied in school, and virtually NOBODY I know also writes scripts and hence cannot criticize my work, it was way easier than I remember it being. And today, the 20th of August, I finished it.

I don't know if it's good or not. Big and I will have to talk in a future episode about taking a good idea and turning it into something mediocre, and that may well be what I've done. But at least I finished it. At least I still had it in me. And that makes me feel, if not good, at least that I'm not ready for the glue factory just yet.

So there.

Rish Outfield, Screenwriter

P.S. Of course, it's totally possible that he was trying TO motivate me, and I went out and did exactly what he hoped I'd do. If so, he's the kind of clever person we need making decisions on movies, rather than all the committees and politicians and pencil-pushers out there.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-08-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Last year, I established some sort of precedent by taking my niece to an amusement park the Thursday before school started. We had a good time, and all this summer, she kept asking if we'd do it again. I didn't really want to, since I'd taken her to movies and plays really recently, but she wanted it to be some kind of tradition, and you know how weak-willed I am.

So, we went, the Thursday before school starts, and drove all the way up there (more than an hour's drive), and enjoyed ourselves, even though it was in the upper nineties and sunny the whole darn day. As the day ended, and we were passing signs that said, "This ride closes at 9:45," she asked me what time it was, and in pulling out my phone to answer, I realized I didn't have my keys.

Oh no, I'd lost my keys on one of the rides.

We stayed in the line while my mind scrambled for a solution. Did I lose my keys recently, or early on? Wouldn't I have worried about my keys on the ride that went upside-down? Did I even have my keys coming into the park?

I decided I must have left them in the door of the trunk when I opened it to get sunscreen, and either they were still there, or somebody had spied them and recognized the opportunity for a free joyride in front of them. Either way, I was too worried to stick out that line and get on another ride. We made our way all the way through the park, and across the parking lot, where, whew!, my car was still parked there. No keys, though.

I had a spare key, but it was at home, sitting by the door on a spare key ring, doing me a fat lot of good now. Why hadn't I gotten one of those magnetic keyholders to stick under the frame somewhere, so it would drop off when I hit a bump and be gone when I really needed it?

The car doors were unlocked, and I began to suspect that the reason for that was that I'd closed the keys in the trunk, and thus been unable to lock the car. Pretty fortunate, really. Because my trunk won't open except for with a key, I thought I was screwed, but when I put the back seat down, I saw a little crawlspace there into the trunk. I gave my niece my phone to use as a flashlight, and she went spelunking until she found the keys.

I was relieved. It would've been mighty headachey to have to call my mom or sister and have them get my spare key and then drive sixty miles to meet us just so we could also drive home. As a reward, I took my niece back into the park to go on one more ride (she chose the one we'd been in the line for last anyway), and then out to get horribly overpriced ice cream at Dairy Queen.

Still worth it, though.

As Long As You Will Always Be My Biggest Fan

2011-08-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Jani Lane, the lead singer for Eighties hair band Warrant, just died. Dude was only forty-seven.
I wrote this entry up once already, but lost it when the program crashed. And I considered not even bothering a second time.

See, I wasn't a huge fan of Warrant growing up. I never had one of their albums, or owned a Warrant t-shirt, or saw them in concert, or had my way with a babe whilst listening to "Cherry Pie."

Heck, I didn't even GET that "Cherry Pie" song, except that some of my classmates seemed to really like it, and give it significance far beyond my ken.

But I did write a screenplay once in which the main female character hears her first bit of human music . . . and that song was "Heaven" by Warrant. And while everybody around her dismisses the song as sappy, hollow, trite crap from an era of excess and kitsch, she thinks it's simply wonderful.

So I had to say something. I loved that song when I was a lad. And I love it now. And Jami Lane wrote and performed it. So I tip my hat to him and his untimely death.

No matter what your friends say.

Rish "Better Than Winger" Outfield

Annual SDCC "Name That Celebrity" Game

2011-07-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

It's that time again, kids, time to try and figure out who I was taking a picture of at the San Diego Comic-Con. You see, for some reason, two-thirds of the photos I take at panels do not come out. My sister got me a new digital camera for Harrison Ford's birthday, but it somehow takes even crappier pictures than my old camera. Lucky thing I took both, huh?

Sadly, my memory was full, so I deleted hundreds of bad panelists, costumers, and display to make room, not thinking they'd come in handy for this game. So, here are fourteen bad pics for your wooing peasure. Good luck!

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
I probably ought to offer up my camera to the "winner," but a bunch of mostly-crappy pictures is better than none at all. :)

Parsec-Nominated Rish Outfield (Redux)

2011-07-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

I could've called this post "A Nice Surprise" also. I got an email today, from a podcast I lent my voice to, expressing disappointment that his show didn't get nominated for a Parsec Award (the speculative fiction podcasting awards), and he included all the shows that did, for some reason.

And the Dunesteef was on there. Thrice.

We're nominated for Best Speculative Fiction Audio Drama (Short Form) for our production of "A Place So Foreign" by Cory Doctorow (which Big produced), and for "This Must Be The Place" by Elliot Bangs (produced by Bryan Lincoln). There were many readers, musicians, and voice actors*, without whom the episodes couldn't have happened. And the most credit, of course, has to go the generous writers, who created two entertaining and unique time travel stories (both with the word "place" in the title), and lent them to us for practically nothing. Kudos.

I am worried about being nominated in an "Audio Drama" category, since that's not really what we do on our show, but they classified anything with two or fewer readers simply as "Story," and anything with three or more readers as "Audio Drama." Somebody somewhere will probably pitch a fit, but until the powers over at the Parsecs create a "Fullcast Reading" category, that's where we find ourselves.

Our other nomination was for Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast. That's kind of amazing, since it's a recognition of our whole body of work, and it's greatly appreciated.

I said last year--and still mean it--that it's an honor just to be nominated, but we do work awfully hard on our show**, and it's nice that somebody noticed.

Still be nice to have groupies, though.

Rish "Big-Head" Outfield

*Including my niece, who wouldn't say "hell" when a story called for it, so I had her say "shell" and trimmed the "sh" when she wasn't looking. Tee hee.

**But not enough to get a show out every week, sadly.

A Nice Surprise

2011-07-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

It was brought to my attention (by a fan . . . if it's believable that I have fans) that one of my little 100 word stories was produced by the Drabblecast this week. The story is "Mommy Issues," and while I was thrilled to have Norm Sherman read it, it was a bit puzzling too.

See, I sent in that particular story (or "drabble," as they're known, at least in places heavily influenced by Monty Python) to the Drabblecast many moons ago . . . and got a rejection on it, if I recall. So, I just went ahead and posted it in their forums, which I used to do a lot more than I do now.*

The rule is, any drabble or story posted there is fair game for use in the podcast or by other forum users, so it's not without precedent, but I found it odd. But a good odd. Like pointy bosoms.

Rish Ezekiel Outfield

*We got our own forums less than a week ago, and I've already started feeling guilty for not checking it out in a couple of days.

Really Odd Thing of the Week

2011-07-28T09:59:00.001-07:00

I was at Jeff's yesterday, and he told me he'd taken his children to see CAPTAIN AMERICA, and while they liked it, they all agreed that THOR was better. Their reasoning . . . well, THOR, when you come down to it, was based in reality, but CAP was mostly fantasy. The children were already familiar with the pantheon of Norse gods and "believed" in them, if you will (since the family's cats are named after some of them) . . . but World War II? The Nineteen-Forties? America? These were totally foreign, made-up concepts to the kids.

And they couldn't really happen like THOR could, right?

In Brief

2011-07-23T21:49:00.001-07:00

I'm at Comic-Con right now, hanging around a McDonalds that has free internet access, so I have very little time to blog . . . but I just heard of Amy Winehouse's death, and could I just say one short thing?

Winehouse was twenty-seven, dead of a drug overdose in her London home. Now, I'm no fan of Ms. Winehouse, not caring for her music, and certainly not for her public persona, but could we please not view her death as something glamorous, poetic, tragic, or romantic? Just this one time, let's not look to this incident as an example, or as something to wax all wistful and morose about?

Talented or not, this woman had so many chances to redeem herself, to slam on the brakes, or at least slightly change direction, but she proudly waved her stubborn unwillingness to compromise like a banner. The dinosaurs had their chance, Hammond.

Sometimes, dead is better. For example, over in Gotham City, there's that ultra-rich spoiled womanizing titular head of Wayne Enterprises, basically the male equivalent of Paris Hilton (though better-looking). This guy constantly engages in crazy unsafe behavior, such as skiing, skydiving, hang gliding, reckless driving, and being seen with European supermodels. He has broken bones, been in comas, head wounds, even had a spinal injury, yet he keeps on doing all these idiotic, thrill-seeking things. It's only a matter of time before Mr. Wayne ends up on a slab somewhere, and I hope nobody gasps and says, "The world has tragically lost a true hero today. Let's all strive to be just like him."

That's just my couple pennies; you may go on with your weekend.

Comic-Con Report (in progress)

2011-07-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

7/22/11

So, here I am, sitting where I was a year ago, and doing what I did then. Stability, I suppose. Or pathetic, if you’re the other kind of person.

I ought to take the hours I have waiting for Steven Spielberg’s panel, and write about my experiences in the last day or so, but in the time it took me to walk here, I couldn’t help but come up with an idea for a story, where a kid gets a cellphone and gets a very short message in a stranger’s voice (from no readable number) that says, “Don’t change your phone number. No matter what you do--” Then it’s over. He listens to it, and is pretty sure the voice is familiar, but he doesn’t know who it’s from.

No second call comes . . . for a year. Once again, he wakes up and there’s another message on there for him. This time, it’s twice as long. “Make sure you keep the same number, as long as you can. I’ll call again, but this is the only number I have for you. Chad, this is--” Then it’s over. Again, the voice is familiar (he no longer has last year’s message to compare them), but he can’t place it. The man’s voice sounds older, but concerned, deadly serious.

Chad’s phone breaks, but he does insist on keeping the same number when he gets a new one. But the guy doesn’t call back. For a year.

This time, when Chad wakes up, he realizes it’s about the same time as the guy called last year. Might even be the same day. He checks his messages, sure enough, exactly one year later. This time, the guy talks longer (twice as long as before). “Alright, here I am again. Got your message, so you still have the same number. Keep it. Chad, I’m calling from the future. I don’t have much time, but I want to give you some advice. In 2013, you get invited to go to the Grand Canyon with your friend Nathan. Don’t go. In 2016, a coworker, Annie, offers to split a lottery ticket with you. Do it. In 2012 or so, be careful with--” But the message ends.

He plays it for his friend. The friend says, “How did you do that?” “Do what?” “With your voice.” He realizes that the voice IS familiar. His friend thinks it’s a joke, but Chad doesn’t. Sadly, 2012 is coming right up. He breaks his leg in a motor biking stunt. He wonders why future him didn’t think to warn him about that. Douche. He’s saved the last message, and waits for the year to come around. He stays up, by the phone, but falls asleep at his desk, waiting. He is awakened by the ring, but, confused, knocks the phone off the desk. He scrabbles for it, but misses the call.

A message is left, though, longer this time. “Chad, it’s me calling again. Call me your future advisor, or something. I’ve got things to warn you about, but I wonder if you need me to repeat the last three. They were Grand Canyon, lottery ticket, motor biking. So, let’s see. There’s a girl, named Helena, that you meet in the summer, same summer as Nathan’s trip. She really likes you. Don’t screw it up. Your cousins sell you a car in 2015 or so. It’s a lemon, pass on it. There’s a job you get around the same time, maybe a year before or later, called Omnitek or -trek or -corp or something. They go out of business and you don’t get a couple checks. I’d skip that. You lose your sister’s engagement ring the day before her wedding. Just don’t offer to ke--” Click. That’s the whole message.

His sister is twelve. He has a lot of cousins. He’s a teenager, not looking for work. These didn’t help him. Especially the damn motor biking one. His friend Nathan does invite him to go to the Grand Canyon with him, but he declines. Nothing happens. No disaster, nothing. He missed out on a sweet trip, is all. But the next year, he stays up chugging energy drinks, and when the phone rings, he answers it. “Chad?”

. . .

Rish here again. So, I would’ve been here a while ago (and hence farther up in the line), but my alarm didn’t go off. I was paranoid about it last night, because my uncle said you could use your cellphone to wake yourself up, and I figured I’d try it, but he woke me at five-something the next morning, and I was in the shower when my alarm would have gone off. So last night, I set up the alarm to go off in five minutes. It worked fine, so I set it for one hour. I went to sleep, and sure enough, it woke me, and I got up and got everything ready for the next morning. I set the alarm to wake me . . . and it didn’t go off. I overslept (though not by even an hour), but it pisses me off and vexes me, that the alarm works fine when it doesn’t matter, but doesn’t work when I need it to.

Now I’m sitting outside on their poor excuse for grass (astroturf, by comparison, is much more green and realistic), typing this. I had prepared last night by opening several submitted stories in several windows, so I could be reading them in this line, but when I turned on my computer, the windows all became “Server Not Found.” That doesn’t happen at home; they bring up exactly what you were looking at the last time you shut down, and only needs an internet connection if you refresh the window. So, sorry to you submitters, we won’t be accepting/rejecting your stories soon.

It was about this time last year (perhaps this very weekend) that I first began to call this device “my craptop.” I was so angered last summer, sitting here, typing something, only to have the computer restart (for no apparent reason), that I’ve been saving every minute or so whilst typing this (though it hasn't restarted yet). Also, I remember being really, really frustrated with not being able to get on the internet last year, despite the system saying I was connected. Once I was inside Hall H, it would connect, then disconnect thirty seconds later, with no warning or reason (after all, I was sitting still, not moving even an inch, so how was I losing the signal?), unable to send an email without losing the message.

I still call it my craptop, though.

This is really strange. Even though the idea of Comic-Con is a huge gathering of losers, virgins, and geeks, I’ve seen genuinely attractive girls in the double-digits. There are three within view in this very line. To be honest, I’m usually REALLY suspicious of a pretty girl at a convention like this. The first conventions I went to were little ones in Los Angeles, and I found that the hot women were all paid to be there, and resented the hell out of us overweight/skinny mouth-breathing lower lifeforms. It bummed me out to find that, if one was being nice to you, it was because she wanted you to buy something. Sigh.

But here, there are some cute girls who SEEM to genuinely like Anime, or Batman, or Star Wars, or Phineas and Ferb, or at least “Twilight” and Super Mario.*

This Comic-Con was much more difficult to attend than years previous. I never knew how good I had it, because I came in 2005, did a little work, and was invited back every year since. Except this year. I had no ticket, and as the days neared, I realized I’d have to spent a tremendous amount of money to buy a scalped one. Luckily, I got the potential for some cash on Saturday, and that decided me. I still spent an obscene amount (not that I don’t every year, but this was before I even left), for a ticket, and I sort of shake my head at my own naivete, since I paid a guy to meet with me and give me his pass, trusting that he would go out of his way to meet me, give it to me, and we'd go our separate ways.

But, that’s how it worked out, and I guess I got lucky.

The sun is shining, but it’s not at all hot. In fact, there’s a breeze constantly blowing from the Pacific, that makes it almost cold at night or while driving. Nevertheless, I did get sunburned, from my many miles of walking, but not badly enough to hurt much. The crowds have been thick--as usual--but not nearly as smelly as I remember from years past. Perhaps that will change as the hours become days. The one thing I’ve always hated about this thing has not changed, and that’s the thick crowds of people jammed into the convention hall, barely moving, and then the person in front of you stops, to check their phone, to take a picture, to gawk at a chick dressed as Itchy, Chewbacca’s father. There are many, many things I hate, but that’s up there really high on the list. I hate it so much, it makes me very nearly fill with the uncontrollable urge to kill.

But I digress. If you’ve been to SDCC, you know what I’m talking about.

So, right now, I’m here in the line to Hall H, where the TINTIN panel will soon begin. I don’t give sailor’s moon about the Tintin franchise or characters, but its director, Steven Spielberg, is going to be here, and that’s kind of special. There’s a little kid in line behind me, and I’ve chatted with him a bit. He’s kind of lost and tired, since you’d have to be as a six year old at Comic-Con. He recognized the ship Serenity on my t-shirt and told me he was at the “Castle” panel last year and asked Nathan a question. I vaguely remember a child dressed as Mal Reynolds, and that was him. I told him that he’d be able to tell his grandchildren that he saw Steven Spielberg once, since that’s going to be significant forty years from now.

I think a bit about bringing a kid to something like this, like my niece or my nephew. It SEEMS like it might be fun, but probably wouldn‘t be. I did pick up my nephew a couple of lightsabers to break like he did the last three I bought him. I try to be a good uncle.

So, the line moved MUCH faster than last year’s, and here we are, in Hall H, waiting for the panel. Unfortunately, my craptop still hasn’t found the internet signal yet. That frustrates me, but it serves me right for not spending a thousand dollars on a real laptop.

For a few minutes, I was able to connect, but the presentation started before too long. Luckily, I was able to call up those stories to read in the next little while. The panel I saw was the TINTIN one, and both Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were here. I’m a fan. Until the SPIDER-MAN panel many hours from now, there’s nothing I’m particularly excited by, but I’ll sit for a while and type and watch, because once you leave, you’re done. At least, that’s how it was last year. Perhaps it’s different this time. Yesterday, I walked right into Hall H, with absolutely no line. Of course, nobody cared about the panel that was starting (and it wasn’t advertised). Anyhow, I’m stuck here for a while, and may type a bit more.

The folks next to me are criticizing J.K. Rowling’s writing style. I don’t know how that’s possible, unless you’re talking about “Ron said darkly”s. But ah well, not everybody has to love everything else. I remember having a conversation with someone who loved the Dakota Fanning WAR OF THE WORLDS and the MATRIX sequels, but hated the LORD OF THE RINGS flicks.

‘Course, that guy was something of a nutsack, but ah well.

Saw the FRIGHT NIGHT panel. You know, I’m no fan of 3-D , but what I hate more is when somebody acts like I’m old or no longer “with it” for saying 3-D doesn’t work. It’s not like saying “Twilight is stupid” or “Bruce Campbell is handsome;” in the footage they showed, you could see four headlights when a car turned its lights on. There’s no way you can tell me that I’m wrong in that. There should only be two headlights, sunshine. Go eff yourself.

Chris Sarandon was the moderator for the FN panel, and he REALLY didn’t want to be there. It was like a cheerleader waking up in my bed, folks. He might have been quite ill and on medication, maybe that was it.

So, I used to want to make movies for a living (and just between you and me, I still do). But watching this stuff makes me wonder. They put the writers on some of these panels, and nobody wants to ask them questions or hear what they have to say. Kind of a microcosm for how it actually is with writers, I guess.

It is starting to really smell here. I guess that is inevitable with this many people in such a small space for so long. I wrote a story about a bunch of men in a prison cell for two months, and honestly, how awful would the smell be? Maybe your nose would no longer detect B.O. and feces and bad breath after that long, like people that grew up on a dairy or an abattoir.

I dislike people as a rule, but I wonder what it would be like to be my friend Jeff, who openly despises people, to be stuck here, jammed in with other folks in an area that would comfortably fit half as many. Did I ever mention the guy I knew who elbowed a child in the face at Comic-Con 2009? Despite there being free pins and bright colors and people dressed as heroes and complimentary attendance for children, the kid was wailing and making a scene. My friend saw this little shit throwing a fit surrounded by hundreds of other uncomfortable, upset, tired, aching, irritated people, and he just threw out his elbow, almost reflexively, to “give the brat something to cry about,” as my dad used to say.**

Comic-Con is not for everybody. Having had to sacrifice money, gas, time, and leisure pretty much every visit here (except for the first time, when I just drove down from Los Angeles), I feel like I’ve demonstrated my . . . I don’t know, worthiness, to be here. And there are folks who have given up a great deal more--like the guys in front of me in the line today who flew here from Australia--just to experience it.

Then there’s the people who drove up from Chula Vista, or rode the trolly in from their place here in San Diego, that complain. It’s like the people I’d meet in L.A. that were from Canada, or Britain, or India, or Venezuela, or Ireland, who thought our country was so lame, or so unfair, or so ugly, or so racist, or so unfriendly, or so political, or so cramped. I’d always think, “Well, go the fuck home, then. Seriously, sir or ma’am, if your home planet of Hoth was so much better, get on the first space cruiser back and start to civically improve those snowfields."

So, the panels I saw today were myriad. TINTIN. 30 MINUTES OR LESS. UNDERWORLD 4. TOTAL RECALL. FRIGHT NIGHT. THE RAVEN. ATTACK THE BLOCK. HAYWIRE. GHOST RIDER 2. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. I guess TINTIN was my favorite, but as it was the first panel, I wonder how much of it was that.

One of the panels had a bunch of young “comedians,” all of whom are successful and have TV shows or movie roles under their belts, not to mention fan followings, and seriously, not a single thing they said was funny. Yet, everything they said got a laugh from the crowd, and I guess that also makes me old, just like the 3-D and the Michael Bay editing. Yet, Bryan Cranston said one very dry thing, that struck me as terribly funny, and he’s a serious actor.

Although, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish busted each others’ bollocks in their panel, and the stuff they said was really funny. So, maybe it’s all relative.

Oh, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN really is a reboot. Sad.

I’m tired now. I guess I no longer care to try and reconnect to the internet for the hundred and eighth, ninth, or tenth times. I need to get a job and buy a better laptop, a better camera, and one of those phone/padd/videogame system/things.

What have I done with my life?

Rish "Prince of Geeks" Outfield

*Let’s talk about this for a minute. I speak the truth, when I say that there’s no such thing as a pretty fangirl. But, I’ve seen lovely, thin, shapely, or actually beautiful girls at this Con--and in this line--who seem to be here by choice, and smiling while standing in the line or taking a photo with the dude dressed as Killer Croc. So, it sounds like I’m wrong. Except that I’m not. It’s like the chupacabra or Nessie . . . they MAY exist, but it’s too hard to verify.
And it’s because of the difference between girls and boys. And the differences in life. A pretty girl has doors open up and venues present themselves to her that are far from reading Fantasy books and dressing as She-Ra for Halloween. Just like, if I had been born good-looking, I never would have focused so much attention on comic books, or "Star Trek," or writing, or anything above the waistline, mister. And it’s not really fair, but that’s the way it is. I once saw a movie--and I’ll not mention the title--but they cast this beautiful actress to play this geeky comic book lover, and it rang falser than me with a big bra on. It bothered me much more than it should have, to hear this girl deliver this comics-fan dialogue, because you could tell she didn’t know what she was saying, but just reading memorized lines, and it, frankly, ruined the whole movie for me. Because it wasn’t real. Surely, you’ve seen that before, whether it’s Denise Richards playing a nuclear scientist, or Sofia Coppola playing a mafia princess, or Megan Fox in any English-speaking role. Life has taught me that these are not genuine performances. So you can say that you look like Paulina Porizkova but you absolutely adore "Robotech Macross," but I will never, ever believe you. Sorry.

**This is not (for once) a criticism of my dad. I cried way too often and easily as a boy, and I’ve noticed it around my niece and nephews, that there is a temptation to provide a reason for them to be crying, if they’re crying anyway. I am quite fond of my nephew, but there are times when he is being loud, or just being bad, or in want of attention, and there is the temptation to spank him, as a sort of way to release the pressure of being around somebody throwing a fit like that. Have YOU ever sucker-punched a strange child at a comic convention?
I know I have.

A Tale of Two Trailers

2011-07-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

So, the other day, my sister and I took my nephew to CARS 2, the flick they all said was the [Asian racial slur] in the armor of Pixar Animation Studio. And yeah, it wasn't the greatest, but was still a hell of a lot better than most of the animated features people tell me are "really, really good." I liked the "Toy Story" short and the spy stuff, especially in the first half hour. My nephew had to be taken to the bathroom no less than three times during the showing, and ran around the seats for another third of it, so I imagine it'll be six months or so before I take him to another flick.

But what I opened up this blog to talk about was the trailers immediately preceding the film. Specifically, two trailers, one for THE MUPPETS and one for WINNIE THE POOH.*

While both do the exact same thing that infuriates me when music groups do it (calling a release that is not their debut album by the band name), I was really surprised by my reactions to the trailers.While THE MUPPETS presentation is mostly about muppety shenanigans, unnecessary CGI, and kicks to the face, stomach, and nuts, it does act as a sort of introduction to the main characters (namely Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, and Animal) to the new generation of kids that may not know them. While it beggars belief that a ten year old wouldn't know who these characters are, there are a mountain of choices for every child's entertainment--most of those far stupider and less wholesome than Jim Henson's quaint crew--and unless a parent makes an active effort to present the Muppets to their child, they're liable to be overlooked in favor of Spongebob Squarepants, iCarly, Dora Explora, The Innuendo Twins Who Cannot Act, Hannah Montana, and Belinda Bunt.

While the trailer's narration is set up to introduce the Muppets to youngsters, Jason Segal and Amy Adams' characters serve as the draw for adult viewers, making at least a token attempt at pointing out that the felt and plastic (and CGI) creatures that surround them are beloved fixtures to audience members in their thirties and forties.

So, it didn't bother me all that much that there was little in the way of recognition factor or call-backs in THE MUPPETS trailer. But the message was clear: this is not your father's Muppet movie. Even though I think the Muppets are pretty cool (though preferring those that live on Sesame Street and pre-Prequels Yoda), I recognized that this film is not meant for me, and doesn't merit my eight dollars and fifty cents (before 3-D).

Hence, it was absolutely jaw-dropping to discover that the trailer for WINNIE THE POOH was entirely designed to get parents and even grandparents to take their kids and go see it, because once upon a time we were children, carefree, guileless, and playful . . . that believed in the 100-Acre Wood, and more importantly, in magic.The 21st Century alt-rock tune by Keane, "Somewhere Only We Know," plays to amazing success** under images of HAND-FUGGIN-DRAWN animation, depicting Pooh Bear, Owl, Piglet, and Eeyore, looking and sounding exactly as they did thirty-odd years ago. Nostalgia overwhelmed me as I beheld these timeless characters (oh, and Tigger as well, I'd sort of blocked him out because I hate him and all he represents) acting as they did at the dawn of time, and indeed, the way they always will, with no need for a Hufflelump or Piglet's overbearing obese wife Sow, or Sloutchy the Mischievous Wallaby or Lumpy or Tigrita or Vaginamonster, or whatever else came in all the years since.

Come back with us, friend, the trailer seemed to be saying, "They're all still the same . . . , and deep down . . . beneath the mortgage worries, stress headaches, and erectile dysfunction . . . so are you!

Oh, and who is their owner, and our guide into the Milne realm? None other than Christopher Mo-Fo Robin, still looking and sounding as he used to, not to be ignominiously replaced by a younger, female version, because real boys don't play with innocent stuffed animals and their imagination, but with guns, video game controllers, and battling robots.

When it was over, I wiped away a tear and shook my head in wonder. You see, I never was a Winnie the Pooh kid. I liked Spider-man and "Gilligan's Island" and stuff with monsters in it, and didn't really relate to Pooh's unapologetic avarice and fatness (nowadays is another story). Maybe it was all too British for me, since I didn't get BEDNOBS & BROOMSTICKS or ARISTOCATS or BATTLE OF THE PLANETS either.*** Neither did I have siblings that adored those characters, or children of my own begging to be read about the honey tree and the blustery day and the all-too-effective suppository.

So the trailer's tugging at my heartstrings was a trick, since I don't have warm nostalgic memories of Milne's creations to fall back on. Even so, that's the movie I would see of the two. And in a world where movie trailers remind me more and more often that I am no longer in their target demographic, it's doubly-surprising to be spoken to in such a way. And nice to be tossed a bone once in a while.

Rish "Little Roo" Outfield

*I also saw the execrable trailer for HAPPY FEET 2, but cannot comment upon it without the foulest of blasphemous profanities.

**And why that song, with absolutely no resonance to a little kid, when they could easily have chosen Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift, or one of the now-dozen Disney Channel sexpots that absolutely cannot sing, but all have album contracts and mini-music videos played during the commercials on that station?

***That was an (admittedly-poor) joke.

A Message For Parents Everywhere

2011-07-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

That's good advice, Marty.

Babysitter of the Year: The Early Days

2011-07-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

It was my sister's anniversary over the weekend, and I volunteered to tend my nephew (the three year old one; it blows my mind to think I now have more than one) on Friday so she could go out to eat with her husband. But I had an appointment later that day, so I had to drop him off with my mom before that time--well before that time, if I knew what was good for me--and planned accordingly. What I didn't plan for was that everything--

"Everything?"

"EVERYTHING!!!!"

--takes an insanely long time when you're dealing with a three year old. His car seat has some kind of Rubik's Cube/MC Escher design, making it impossible to easily install in an automobile, and it takes forever to get him in and out of it*, and he needs to either be carried or placed in the cart of his choosing to get in and out of anyplace. Oh, and when I took him to lunch, he wanted nothing on the menu . . . until I'd ordered something for me, then he wanted me to order some for him. Not so he could eat it, mind you, but so he could smear it all over his clothes, chair, and face.

We were in Target, where I just had enough time to buy an item and get out when he announced that he had to go to the bathroom. Not soon, and not in a minute . . . right now. So we raced (literally running from the back of the store to the front) to the bathroom, so he could go into the handicapped stall and tell me I was not welcome in there whilst he moved his wee bowels, but demanding I come right away when his behind needed wiping.
We got back to the car. To my horror, I not only had missed my window for getting the lad back to his grandmother so I could make my appointment, I had very nearly become late for the appointment itself. So, I raced (not literally this time, though I did exceed the speed limit) back to town, calling my mother and asking her to meet me there, then calling the clinic to tell them I was going to be just a tad late. They told me I had a five minute window and if I wasn't there within those five minutes, my appointment would be given to someone else.

Well, I drove as fast as I dared (in retrospect, I wondered if I mightn't ought to have driven really really fast in an attempt to shave off a few seconds), and pulled into the nearest available spot. I looked at the clock. "Crap," I said, then jumped out of the car and ran (raced, if you will) into the clinic, only to find that I was seven minutes late and indeed, my slot was no longer mine.

I trudged back to the car, where the boy was still strapped into the back seat, probably imagining he had been abandoned to bake in the sun like the babies you hear about in all those awful news stories (usually on FOX). I got back into the driver's seat, and my nephew said, "You said shit."

"What?"

"Why did you sayed shit?"

I realized what he was talking about. "No, I said crap. There's a difference."

"Nuh uh. You sayed shit. What happen?"**

"Nothing," I said. "Looks like I can take you to the pet store now."

While he whooped with delight, I had to admit, while I think I said "crap," I had meant "shit."

Rish Tiberius Outfield

*But they are necessary, apparently. You may remember the last time I drove him around without one, and how I very nearly caused the end of the entire fugging world.

**Look, I realize that I want to kill every mother loving one of you when you (incorrectly) think it's funny to attribute this sort of cutesy child-English to internet cats and now you think my finding it amusing when my nephew does it makes me a hypocrite . . . but it's not the same thing. Not even remotely. You bastard.

Amusement Park Memory

2011-06-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

My buddy Jeff took me to the local (seventy miles away) amusement park today, since he has an odd number in his family and (wisely) thought it would be easier if an even number was going. We had a lot of fun and I was very happy to have been his plus-one for the day.

There's a ride called the Tidal Wave there that's like a pendulum, going back and forth and filling ye olde genitals with a not unpleasant falling sensation. I used to be able to ride it endlessly . . . before the dark times, before the Empire. But riding it today, I was reminded of a time not too many years ago when a couple friends of mine and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain together and rode their equivalent ride.

It was Matthew, MacDonald, and me, and we spent the whole day enjoying the rides, the California sun, and the idea of wringing the last drops of joy from our youth. Well, not Matthew, since he was a dozen years younger than MacDonald, but still more mature than both of us.

I was delighted to see a Tidal Wave-esque ride there, and demanded we all get on it. We sat down on the farthest seat to the back, since that's where you get the best bang for your buck as it were, and couldn't help but notice a couple of hot young girls sitting in the opposite row on the other side. These were California teenagers, glamorous, well-to-do, as beautiful as any Iowa teen girl, only more sophisticated.

Sigh.

As the ride began to swing back and forth, my eyes naturally went to the girls, and to my surprise, one of them, a brunette with long brown hair (who I choose to remember as an attainable sixteen year old Phoebe Cates . . . since it's my memory and I can do what I want with it), was looking in our direction. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled.

I know what you're thinking, and go to hell. This is my story, and I can tell it if I want to. Just save me a spot there among the demons and Disco gods, I'll be there in due time.

The teen girl whooped when the ride tells you to whoop, but then looked at me again, grinning a perfect orthodontist's masterpiece of a smile. I looked too. She was actually making eye contact . . . with me, Rish Benjamin Outfield, the only guy not to get some at spring break in Tijuana.

Well, to have a pretty young thing give me a smile was every bit as exhilarating as the park ride (as any park ride, honestly). The whole time, until it ended, she would glance in my direction, sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, and whatever blink-and-you-miss-it pop group playing over the speakers had become the fudgin' Righteous Brothers.

As all things do, the ride came to a stop, and everybody filed off to go their separate ways. I looked for the girl, but she had places to go and other men's hearts to melt. Still, I was grinning like a Smilex victim until my buddy MacDonald said, "Wow, did you see that chick with the brown hair on the other side of the ride? She was totally checking me out!"

Sigh again.

I said it was an amusement part memory, not an amusing one.

Rish "Heartbreaker, Dreammaker, Lovetaker" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-06-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

There's a dip in the road leading up to my street that I imagine is there for water to flow through (though it might be there just to punish people who drive too fast), and it has one of those big yellow signs warning people there is a DIP there.

Well, some brilliant young person took some spray paint this week and wrote "shit" under it (and not altogether well). So, you may take this as a stupid thing because some idiot thought it would be cool to deface a street sign like that, or because I found it kind of amusing. And it's exactly the sort of thing I would've done in my teens.

Or twenties.

Or thirties.

P.S. A couple of days after writing this, I grabbed my camera and tossed it in my car, meaning to take a picture of the offending sign. Well, I forgot about it. But driving home, as I crossed the dip, I remembered only to see that someone had painted over the graffitti. Once again, procrastination kicks me where it hurts.

Happy Fathers Day, folks

2011-06-19T00:09:00.000-07:00

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-06-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

There's a wedding going on in Vegas this weekend, and my whole family is loading into the car(s) together to head over there. I spent some of today hanging out with my nephew, who is now three, and offered to make him some Kool Aid. I made about two ounces for him, and about twenty for myself, but had to get after the boy to make sure he didn't drink it in the living room, where he could spill it on the carpet. My mom doesn't let the kids drink or eat anything near the carpet, and I was trying to follow suite.

A little while later, though, I scooted my chair back so I could stand up and sure enough, I knocked my entire container over . . . onto the carpet. It was red Kool Aid too, which may actually be worse than the purple kind.

Chris Evans on THE AVENGERS

2011-06-08T10:29:00.001-07:00

I saw this little interview snippet and thought, "Hey, here's something I can post on my blog!*" I really hope this movie works. For all our sakes.

Tags: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

The Cap movie hasn't even come out yet, and I'm already getting used to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. I saw Evans as a slacker, surfer, California type, and it was hard for me to get over that. Now, though, I guess I've seen him in the trailers and publicity stills enough that it probably won't be hard to identify him with the character for the next several years.

Of course, Ryan "Captain Awesome" McPartlin from NBC's "Chuck" was my first choice. But maybe he can be Aquaman or something.

Rish "Colonel Mediocre" Outfield

*And I haven't had something to write in a blog post in a long, long time.

It's all for you, Damien

2011-06-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

This is, according to my Dashboard, my 666th blog post.

I WISH I had something significant to post today.

Heck, maybe I could write a drabble and stick it in here. Something appropriate to the occasion.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-05-22T12:10:00.000-07:00

I recently auditioned for a role in an audio drama. I do that from time to time because I like acting, and because I've got a microphone I paid good money for, and why let it go to waste?

I guess I got the part, because the script for the first episode was sent me (not to mention and email that told me I had gotten the part), and my lines were highlighted and a deadline given me to have the lines done.

I recorded those and the guy said, "Wow, thanks! Here's the script to episode two." That's cool. I like it when people are on the ball.*

Before I could record those lines, however, I got a new email that said, "I got a guy to do another character I was going to voice, so now I can do your part. Don't bother sending the lines. Thanks for everything."

Dude, this is so not cool.

I may have to explain that people volunteer to do voices in internet audio dramas for no pay, and with the knowledge that they're just doing someone a favor, for no compensation ever. It's something you do out of friendship (if not fun), and if you've got a podcast/audio drama/fan film/etc., you need to let your voice actors (or artists or producers or slush readers) know you appreciate them.

I'm probably not worthy to cast the first stone, here. I've been editing a story a guy sent us last year, that was actually supposed to hit the air before 2010 was out. I do feel bad that it hasn't been finished yet, but I have hours of work every week for the show, and it's hard to make time beyond that for my own production.

I agonized recently over a part that a guy did for us for that story. I hoped he wouldn't be upset that we didn't use his lines, but they just didn't work for the story as a whole (he did them in a sort of imitation of a famous Al Pacino movie), and he'd already done a different character in the same story. I felt bad, and considered leaving it in, even though it sounded a bit silly. Ultimately, I called Big and asked what he suggested.

He said that the story has to come first, and if it doesn't work, then don't use it, and that the guy'll understand. But I still feel bad about it.

I feel worse now that my work for this other show has been tossed. I don't want somebody to feel as unappreciated as I did when I got that email.

Look, I've got way more free time than ninety percent of non-homeless Americans, and yet I really felt like I'd wasted it with this guy. Of course, there are always extenuating circumstances behind just about everything, and maybe I really did a lackluster job or he found out I despise cats (and cat lovers) and had to make a stand like Zack what's-his-name did when he refused to work on HANGOVER 2 if Mel Gibson was going to be in it.

All I know is that it made me want to treat people better, and let my people (ie the ones who work for my show for free and very few shout-outs, and even fewer sexual perks) know that I'm grateful to them. Even if I don't know their names. And pretend I've never met them when we're standing in an elevator or at a urinal together.

The long metal trough kind. I really hate those.

So, on with the countdown. I could be a better collaborator. I could be a worse one. I recently got an email from someone working on the "Green Lantern" podcast that said she really loved my Sinestro and was sorry to hear I was going to die alone. Maybe I should do the same for my team.

Heck, I'm gonna do that now.

Rish "The Boss From Heck" Outfield

*Although it does make me feel like something of a slacker. Which I am.

Bonesaw is finally ready

2011-05-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

So, Randy "Macho Man" Savage passed away. Sad, I suppose, especially since it was a car accident, which sucks.*

I wasn't a Wrestling fan growing up, and I'll never be one. However, I did work on the first SPIDER-MAN movie in the wrestling scene, where Macho Man was an actor, playing Bone-Saw McGraw. He was an odd and forehead-vein-throbbingly-intense actor. No exaggeration, I watched him do the "Bone-Saw is reeeeeady" line twenty or thirty times, delivering it in an almost painful way every single take. While he and the stuntman went through their moves, he laughed and interacted with the audience, and yes, told everybody to slip into a Slim Jim at least twice.

Also, he was somebody's dad. So I figured I'd say something here.

Rish "The Flying Dutchman" Outfield

*Guess the guy had a heart attack, which caused the accident. He was fifty-eight.

Finally, space is black enough

2011-05-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure I have the words to describe how cool this is.

They should've sent a poet.

Never Was There A Story of More Woe . . .

2011-05-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

People say that fish have a memory of, like, fifteen seconds. Maybe that's just goldfish. Or Dory.

Last week, two fish I'd had for a long, long time died. They were a pair I'd gotten on the same day, and had tripled in size during their stay in my tank. One of them changed colors sometimes, and I never really understood why it did that (or why the other one didn't). But one day, one of the pair went belly-up. I gave it to the turtles (circle of life, Simba), and was a bit disappointed, but having fish has taught me that everything dies, baby, that's a fact. You get used to it.

But the next day . . . I got up and went to feed the fish, and the other fish was also dead. It had (somehow) jumped out of the tank and was dried up and motionless on the floor. After a burial by turtle, I went to the pet shop to buy some replacements. The guy at the store said "Oh, that happens all the time with mated pairs. I don't really know why."

Neither do I.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-05-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

I was at a store today, and I paused to look at the t-shirts. There were several Marvel and DC-related shirts, and it occurred to me that if someone went to school wearing a Green Lantern shirt in 2011, they'd be admired rather than called a fag and tossed in a trashcan. But ah well.

And then, I saw a shirt that gave me pause. It had only words on it, in big blocky letters:

TEXT ME WHEN YOU'RE DONE TALKING.

I smirked when I saw it, and then realized (to my horror) that it was saying the opposite of what I initially thought it said.* It wasn't telling me the shirt's owner would prefer to speak with them face to face, it was telling me to go fuck myself.

I dwelled on this shirt for, oh, I don't know, five minutes maybe. It's a bummer that something like that can exist.

You might think it made me feel old, or out of touch. But no, it made me feel angry. I would probably punch someone in the stomach if they were wearing that shirt, and then say, "Oh, sorry. Guess you better text the police."

Rish "Vex Message" Outfield

*I was reminded of a sign I saw at a Los Angeles costume shop back in '02 or '03 that said, "We would be happy to serve you after you've completed your cellphone call." It struck me as tremendously bold and admirable. Of course, the owners of the shop were later reported, detained, and put into camps.

West Chide Story

2011-05-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I finally had to return the WEST SIDE STORY DVD. I stuck it in the mailbox today, only a quarter of the way watched. And I guess that makes me weak.

It would have been something to watch it through to the end, but it's two and a half hours long, and I knew in the first five minutes it wasn't for me. I might have gone back to it, but it wouldn't have been today. Or tomorrow.

It took me a long time to send the movie back, though. I wanted to be able to cross it off my list and never, ever go back, in the two months I probably have left to live.

Also, I hate it when people tell me that a movie is terrible, but they've never seen it. Or, slightly less irritating, when people saw the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version, but claim to have seen the movie. If you really want to bash something, and not sound like an ignoramus, you have to have watched it/read it/tasted it/fondled it/etc..

But I had a lengthy conversation with Jeff, where he talked about how many books are published every year (in addition to all those previously published), and how you can't read them all, even if you read a book a week for the rest of your life. So, if you only have a limited number of books you can read, why not just read the ones you are interested in or will enjoy, instead of slogging through one that is poorly written or you aren't liking?

He related it to movies, and said that even though GONE WITH THE WIND is the biggest movie of all time, he's never going to see it, because he knows it's not something he would enjoy, and there are many, many, many other movies he could watch in its stead that he has a chance of liking.

And even though one guy said I'd like it (and the critics say it's great, and it won a bunch of Oscars, and it's got a song--I didn't get to--in it that appeals to me), I just had to give up on that one, and walk away. A man's gotta know his limitations.

Rish "Quitters Inc." Outfield

Worst Side Story

2011-05-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

So, a few days have passed. I watched a couple episodes of "Monk" and an entire disc of "The Twilight Zone." But there was that WEST SIDE STORY disc, still sitting there, still rented out, still unfinished, mocking me.

As I predicted, Jeff asked me why I bothered trying to watch WSS. He said I was under no obligation to watch it through, and if I dislike it that much, why not return it and get something I might actually like?

And he's right. I rent movies (for the most part) for entertainment. And if I'm not enjoying the movie, why continue?

Well, I guess I look at it like exercise. Nobody hates exercise more than I do.* I hate exercising a hell of a lot more than I hate being fat. But I'm not thrilled to bursting with being fat either, and every once in a while, I get off my puffy white arse and go for a run. I run for a little while, or I run until my body is heaving and I taste blood and wish I had never been born. Because . . . well, I guess there's no reason for it, really. I'd have to do it every single day to make a dent in my lifestyle. And really, what's it all for, Jimmy?

And people will tell me, "But don't you have a great feeling of accomplishment after you've exercised? A happy sensation of both burn and pride?"

No. Never. I feel that way when I've written a story that I feel doesn't suck. I feel that way when I edit something on the podcast that makes me laugh. I feel that way when I sing along to a song I haven't heard in a long time. I feel that way when I get an idea for a cool script I will never, ever write.

So why do I exercise? I guess it's out of some silly, stupid fantasy that I'll feel better and look better and people will like me and girls will love me, and life will improve. Funny, that.

Watching these movies is, for me at least, pretty much the same thing.

Years ago, I rented a certain mini-series (that will not be named) that literally everyone with a vagina absolutely adores . . . and I hated it. I'm using the word "hate" here. It was interminable, baffling, hypocritical, and made me so angry I can still sometimes call on that ire to upset me or keep me warm all these years later. But I slogged my way through, my brain kicking and screaming, the the eventual end (which was the absolute worst). Why? Because I felt I had to. To be able to talk about it. And maybe because I thought it would get me laid, who knows?

And it didn't. Oh, quite the contrary.

So that's why I haven't returned WEST SIDE yet. Simple insanity.

Rish "Benny and the Jets" Outfield

*And if they do, they're probably in a wheelchair right now, even though their legs work fine.

West Side Chore . . . y

2011-04-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

I remember years ago, when AFI (the American Film Institute) put out its 100 greatest movies of all time list, a friend of mine printed out the list, and pasted it up in his living room, marking off the movies he'd seen, and making an effort to see them all.

Some of the titles on there weren't movies he'd ever see for pleasure, but he thought it would make him . . . something. Cultured? Informed? A better movie-watcher? Able to brag about it at film snob parties?

I don't know, but I actually appreciated the sentiment. Many, many times, (in this era of NetFlix, anyway) I've watched movies that I didn't particularly long to see, because people said they were good, that they were classics, or influential, or something people talked about all the time, and I wanted to be able to say I'd seen them (I did the same thing when everybody was reading the damn Da Vinci Code).

One of those movies, number forty-one on the AFI list, has bothered me for a long time. It's Robert Wise's WEST SIDE STORY, and I'd thought about watching it a few times before. The story is no problem, I like classic films, and Robert Wise is cool. But every time, the assholes snapping their figures to the music at the beginning has chased me away, like a bunch of Universal Monsters torch-wielding villagers. That finger-snapping thing bugs me so much, it's like a physical pain. Right in the taint.

I put WEST SIDE STORY on my NetFlix queue in 2006. It was around that time AFI made a list of the 100 Greatest Movie Musicals, and WSS ended up at number two. I figured I had to see it. Years passed, and every time it got into my top ten, I'd kick it down again, down around number fifty.

Recently, the gorram AFI put out a revised list of 100 greatest movies, and WSS was on it again (this time at 51). I saw it was creeping up my queue again, but this time I let it go. How bad could it be?

I told Jeff I had rented it, and he wanted to know why. I tried to explain it to him. It was like when we had our horror movie website, and there were some movies we knew we would hate (like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or TEXAS CHAINSAW or HUMAN CENTIPEDE or LEPRECHAUN N DA HOOD), but we had to watch them because they were so revered, or infamous, or requested by our handful of readers. Jeff reminded me that shit like that is why there is no longer a horror movie website between us.

The music is just so grating to me, the stuff with the Puerto Rican and . . . what, Aryan gangs feels so sanitized and phony, and the musicalness of it all has made watching the movie an almost impossible ordeal. And I'm a guy who LIKES musicals.

I only made it one song in the first time. Hearing that "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet" song (which was awful), I had to turn it off, and do something else. I got a little work done (shipped a couple packages, answered angry emails re: packages, mowed my mom's lawn), then went to Facebook and posted about my difficulty.

Immediately, several people commented. My buddy Dave back in Los Angeles (who was always cooler than me, not that that's saying anything), said that not only would I love it if I stuck with it, but I'd be crying by the end. So I turned it back on and tried again.

This time I made it to the thirty-seven minute mark. The only part I came even remotely close to liking was the scene with John Astin, but the moment at the dance when they start they're . . . what do you call it . . . tribal dance fighting, I couldn't bear it any longer. I figured I'd leave it till tomorrow, just to see if I might feel differently then.

And I thought I'd blog about it. That way, if I finish the movie (sometime in June), I can be keeping up a play-by-play of how life-changing it all was.

Rish "East Side" Outfield

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

Till all are one.

Why Don't People Go To The Movies Anymore?

2011-04-21T00:25:00.001-07:00

My buddy Jeff and I went to a movie tonight, like we used to do, every darn week.

It was a Wednesday night, in a tiny little one-horse theater, so we figured we'd be able to avoid the stuff that really annoys us about going to the movies. In fact, in the whole theater there were only a double-dating couple on the very back row, and a couple of dudes up front, with us in between.

Unfortunately, four of the five annoying boxes about going to the movies somehow ended up getting checked. The douchebags at the front kept a yelling conversation with the couples in the back (we found out where the loudest guy got his hat, how much it cost, and what sizes it came in), kept a loud running commentary on what was going on in the movie ("Man, he got it right in the nuts!"), sent or received a number of text messages during the show, and talked back to the screen ("Stay in the car, you stupid bitch!"). If we only hadn't been able to get good seats, it would have been a grand slam.

Well, better luck next time, I guess.

Mildly Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-04-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

I had something of a love/hate relationship with the homeless in Los Angeles. I hated them and loved how they . . .

No, I guess it was more of a hate/hate relationship.

So, I saw a homeless guy standing at the edge of a grocery store parking lot yesterday, holding a sign that said "HOMELESS Need Money God Bless." I don't tend to give money to those folks after an encounter with a particularly venomous one in Santa Monica, but I noticed this one like the first Robin Redbreast or haltertop of spring, and felt something akin to my heart warming.

I went into the grocery store, spent more money than I ever have before in my life, then came out with a new set of keys and possibilities. Pulling out of the parking lot, I saw the homeless guy again . . . and he was talking on his cellphone.

Bad form, sir. Bad form.

Fix Flix 33

2011-04-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

Guess what came out on DVD today?

Thumbs Up

2011-04-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

I seem to have gotten some kind of ear infection this week, which has made me irritable and uncomfortable for days. I'm unhappy to not be able to run around and do what I want, and the next episode of our podcast is going to be delayed because of it.

Leave it to Roger Ebert of all people to make me feel better about my situation.

Somewhat Irritating Thing of the Week

2011-04-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my alarm went off (set to the Jack-FM radio station) to the nostalgic beat of Funky Cold Medina. I've never been a huge fan of the song, but I like Tone-Loc's voice, plus, that "olde skool rap" is my favorite kind.

Today, my alarm went off, and . . . what the bunt? . . . it was Funky Cold Medina again. This didn't ruin my day or anything (until I realized it was Monday again, and I stepped in the same gorram puddle), but if a radio station has, onstensibly, hundreds of songs in its catalog . . . why would they possibly play Tone Loc twice in a twenty-four hour period, let alone the same song in the same hour?

Rish "My Threads Are Fresh And I'm Lookin' Def" Outfield

Thank Colbert It's Friday

2011-04-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why I'm posting this here, except that I believe the Abominable Snowman shows up at some point.

Do you think the songwriter owns his own home yet?

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-04-05T13:33:00.001-07:00

My sister came over yesterday, dropping off my nephew. The boy was complaining, and when she got him out of her car, she discovered tiny black ants on him. We got out the car seat, and discovered there was a colony of these ants inside of it. Kind of horrifying if you don't really think about it. My sister had a job interview, so she asked me if I could watch the boy (apparently, she was planning on just leaving him in the carseat while she had her interview, but the ants ruined those plans).

I told her I was about to eat, but sure, I'd watch him, maybe take him to eat with me. "So, you'll just take him without a car seat?" she asked.

"Sure. I've done it before."

"You have?"

"I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."

"Alright," she said, "but you probably ought to put him in the back seat rather than your lap."

Minutes later, we drove away, the three year old on my lap, helping me drive.

And let me interject for a moment. Everybody over twenty has ridden this way before. It's how you bonded with a driver, pretended to maneuver the car, looked forward to the power of adulthood. I once drove from Vista, California to Las Vegas, Nevada on my uncle's lap.* The child loves it, and it's not so bad for the grown-up either. It's not a crime, right?

We went to KFC, which was once called Kentucky Fried Chicken, before urban marketing started pulling in billions, just a mile from where I live. We hopped out and went in to grab us a meal, which my nephew refused to eat and got all over his shirt and pants.

A couple of minutes into the meal, a police officer came into the restaurant, and walked up to me.

"Are you the owner of a beat-to-shit blue Subaru that won't start when it's cold and emits a sickening grey smoke like from the very heart of Mordor itself?"

"Yes," I said, and I supposed I knew what it was about.

"I suppose you know what this is about," he said.

"Him, I'd guess," I said, pointing at my nephew.

"That's right," he said. "We got calls that you were driving with a child on your lap. And reckless driving, so maybe you cut somebody off or didn't signal when you . . ."

"Calls?" I interrupted. "More than one?"

"Yes. They gave us your make and model and someone gave your license plate."

That gave me pause. I'm not thrilled with a cop seeing me driving with a kid and pulling me over, but some stranger calling the police and lying to get the cops after me? That seems a bit excessive. Not to mention if it was more than one stranger.

But who am I to judge? That's their job.

So, from the policeman I got the lecture you probably formulated in your head while you read the above. Children under something like fourteen get their vertebrae snapped like a wet towel if they're not in a car seat and seatbelts become guillotines if you don't vote down gay marriage.

Finally, he said, "Well, I don't want to make a scene in front of the boy, so I'm going to let you off with a warning."

That too gave me pause. What kind of scene was he talking about? Beating me with his nightstick, I would imagine. I wanted to ask him if he was threatening to arrest me, or if he was itching to use his Taser. But I didn't. I was upset that the boy had spread honey and catsup all over himself instead of eating. And I was also upset that some people spell "ketchup" wrong.

But I couldn't just let it go. I told him about the ants.

He made absolutely no comment about that, save to say that I needed to find another way to transport the child back home. Otherwise, it was a fifty dollar ticket for breaking the car seat law (plus whatever fines were imposed for reckless driving, child endangerment, attempted murder, probably kidnapping, vagrancy, etc.).

I told him I would call my sister.

"Good," he said, and then he showed his hand. "Since I didn't actually witness any of your infractions, I can't cite you for them, but we want everybody to be safe. You understand?"

I guessed that I did. He still stood there, waiting. And I honestly think that he was waiting for an apology.

I settled for "Alright."

The policeman walked off, and my mind started to reel. Had there really been multiple calls about us? In a ten block stretch, how many cars had we gone by, and how many of those would have seen my attempted vehicular manslaughter? And how many would call the police about it? I even considered that the reason I got such lousy service from the KFC employee (she got my order wrong, and there was no ketchup, let alone catsup, and she had disappeared into the back when I tried to ask for some) was because she was on the phone to the police department regarding the horrible child abuser with the traumatized toddler daring to ask for potatoes instead of coleslaw.

Look, I'll make no judgments, besides the many implicit in this entry. If you like to say that I deserve the moniker of Stupid Thing this week, that's fine.

Drive on, cabbie.

The Notorious Rish Outfield

*I remember it vividly, as I was twenty-nine when it happened.

Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011

2011-03-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

"Now, I have to go make love to my wife, Morgan Fairchild. And, uh, my other wife, uh, the young Elizabeth Taylor."
Tommy Flanagan, pathological liar

Big asked me the other day why I didn't write an obituary on Elizabeth Taylor. I told him it was because I had nothing to say about Elizabeth Taylor. He said, "But you write up a blog post on every celebrity that dies." I said, "No, I don't. Just the ones that made an impact on me." He said, "You're telling me Bea Arthur made an impact on you?"

It was something to think about. And then Big reminded me of something I said to him once (or maybe thrice) about Liz Taylor, around the time that Britney Spears got really fat. And I changed my mind.
So, Elizabeth Taylor died. Of congestive heart failure. News reports were calling her the last of the great Hollywood movie stars, but sadly, when I mentioned it at the clinic that day, nobody there knew who she was. She was seventy-nine.

Well, as a kid, Liz Taylor was the only actress I ever remember my dad saying was beautiful. I remember being in front of the TV in the living room, and they said it was Taylor's birthday on Entertainment Tonight or something, and my dad made this comment. I said, "Who? That fat old lady who gets married all the time?"

He said, "Son, you have no idea how pretty she was when she was young. She was beautiful!"

I just couldn't believe it.

"And not like any of the homely women you get so excited about today," he said, much more typically. "No, she was the best-looking woman in the world."

Well, this totally blew my mind. My dad NEVER talked about women, except to criticize them, and here he was acting like he had a crush on the fat divorce lady.

I told Big this story when we were working together, and Britney Spears gave an interview where she said, "I'm a mother now. That's my focus, not being all sexy and stuff."

I said, "Years from now, our kids--your real kids and my imaginary ones--will see Britney Spears on the late night talk shows, or the programs featuring has-been celebrities, and they'd wonder why she's on there. 'Why is that fat old woman famous, Daddy?' And you'll say, 'Son, once upon a time, she was the sexiest girl in America. Maybe the world. She'd coo and the knees of males would quiver, she's pout and tears would come to your old man's eyes. She'd bend over and boys would start growing chest hair, she'd claim to be a virgin and guys would fill their Fruit of the Looms.' The child would never believe you, just like I never believed my dad, even if you said, 'Son, it was Britney's "Oops I Did It Again" video I was thinking of the night you were conceived.'"

So, no, I don't really have anything to say about Elizabeth Taylor's passing, except to say that I was once thin, and seventy-nine doesn't seem that old to me anymore.

Rish "Butterfield 666" Outfield

P.S. Britney Spears has since tired of her children and tried to get back into shape and on magazine covers again. But it just isn't the same.

Thank Bossk it's Friday

2011-03-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

So I heard that song "Friday" by Rebecca Black for the first time today. Time Magazine apparently called it a trainwreck, and Yahoo! called it the worst pop song ever made. The singer's a thirteen year old girl, singing about what she knows, and she's a hell of a lot more genuine than Ke$ha.

Here's the video, which has . . . wait for it . . . nearly sixty million views as of today.

Okay, her voice is pretty annoying, and I can understand some of the resentment people are feeling toward it (apparently, it's shooting up the I-Tunes charts, and has already eclipsed the Beatles in global influence), but honestly, the only difference between this song and one by Ke$ha is . . . you can't get chlamydia from listening to "Friday."

Ben Stiller's Right, Kids

2011-03-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd be saying those words.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-03-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

I went to A&W today to partake of their super-cheap Country Fried Steak meal. The girl behind the counter asked if I wanted to get a drink with it for a dollar more (as she does everytime I go in, like a good little droid), and of course I said yes.

But then, I went to the soda machine and tried to get a Pepsi . . . but nothing came out but brown water. The Wild Cherry Pepsi was foamy brown water. The Mountain Dew was . . . well, I can't even imagine, since I don't drink it, could've been--gasp!--regular Mountain Dew. Their world famous root beer wasn't working either.

I went to the counter and said, "This machine seems not to be working." "I know," the girl said, "We called somebody to come fix it later today." I asked if she could get me some Pepsi from the drive-thru drink machine, and she said, "No, they're all out right now."

So I sat down and ate my meal dry, but filled up the cup with ice, and filled when I got home.

It was only then that I realized that she charged me for a drink, knowing the machine was broken, and that--more importantly--I could have asked for my money back on that drink. But didn't.

So, where does the stupidity lie?

What Do I Know?

2011-03-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

In going to a karaoke bar more times in the past couple of months than I had in the rest of my life, I've heard a lot of good performances . . . and a lot of bad ones. I remember the last time I went, wincing through a performance of Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," thinking that if the guy only stopped and listened to what key the song was in, and matched it, instead of barrelling on with his own off-tune rendition, it would be far less painful for everybody. But when the number (mercifully) ended, the audience clapped, and nobody else seemed to have noticed the desecration of John Francis Bongiovi, Jr., I started to wonder if I was the only one who suffered through it.

What if it sounded fine to everybody else? What if I'm only musically talented in my mind?

The other day, at Jeff's house, his daughter (who is at that lovely know-it-all-stage, constantly telling me it's "Wingardium Leviosa, not Levio-SA") told me that some animated characters on the television were green, not yellow as I had referred to them. Her mother also told me I was wrong, and that, just like construction equipment on every building lot in America, the creatures were green. Well, I expected Jeff to get my back, but he sided with the girls, claiming that women have less colorblindness than men, and that I was as foolish as ever. I wonder why he'd have me as a friend all these years.

It did get me thinking, though: what if summertime lawns, and treetops, and bullfrogs, and the Hulk, and limes, and Polaris's snatch, and crayons marked Green really are yellow, and I've been wrong all this time?*

A thought I don't like to dwell upon.

And today, I was outside raking the lawn, listening to a fiction podcast--one of those that have hundreds of times more listeners than my own and hence must be much better--and found the story to be anticlimactic, unsatisfying, and ultimately pointless, and realized that this was the fourth or fifth one on that particular show I had listened to in the short three months of this new year that I felt that way about, and yet every one of those stories had made it through slushpiles, received praise, and every one of those authors were paid more money than I am for my work, and I started to wonder . . .

What if I have no idea what makes up a good story? What if I've been wrong all this time, and a story doesn't need enjoyable dialogue . . . or a sense of character . . . or a good first and last line . . . or a climactic action toward the end . . . or even a point to them being told? What if everything I know is wrong? Black is white, up is down, and short is long?

It's chilling to think about, really.

Rish "Is That Even My Name?" Outfield

*Of course, I asked my mother when the commercial came on a couple of days later, and she said they were yellow too.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-03-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

I was at a poker game at my brother's house last night. I lost, as usual.

But what's making me type this is that one of the player had brought their kid over, and he was boredly running around while the rest of us played, and at one point, went out to the car to get something. When he came back, he seemed overly timid, and his mother asked him what was wrong. Turns out he had locked the keys in the car.

So, my brother-in-law called the local police and asked them to come over and get the door opened. As penance, the boy had to keep watch by the window for them to arrive, while the rest of us played our game.

I told the boy to signal us when the cops arrived by saying, "You guys, I smell bacon." A couple people laughed at that (even though it wasn't all that funny, but ah well), and the game continued. I don't know why I continue to go to these poker games when I always lose, but I guess I'm dumb that way.

An hour or so later, the doorbell rang, and the boy answered it. Two cops stood on the doorstep.

I kid you nod, he turned and shouted, "Hey everybody, I smell bacon!"

This, folks, is why mother nature has decreed that I shall not have children.

Rish "Role Model" Outfield

The Voice of my Muse

2011-03-03T00:50:00.000-08:00

I was in a foul mood today. As I am most days. I got in the car and headed to my friend Jeff's house, upset about work, upset about my social life, upset about my computer being so damn slow it nearly causes me to curl into fetal position.

I always have an audio book loaded on the CD player in my car, for when I drive to Big's or to Jeff's, but most of the time, I just want to listen to the radio, sing along to some song that I love, and let someone more musically talented than me lift my spirits.

But today, there was no fixing my mood. I grabbed my mp3 player and shouted bitter, defeated words into it as I sometimes use it as a little audio journal. And that didn't really help much either, except to put into words exactly how I was feeling.

But then I wondered what the very first audio journal entry I had on there was. So I turned it on and listened to myself talk, a me from the past, recording a message for the future. It was the first week of October, and I needed to come up with a scary story for my annual contest with myself. I had no ideas, so I brainstormed for a few minutes, coming up with scenarios of "wouldn't it be scary if . . ." or "I'd like to write a story where . . ." and the like.

And then, I seemed to have hit on something. "No, wait. I've got it," I said, and began to talk through a short story. I meandered and backtracked and changed my mind and rephrased, but I went from beginning to end on the story, even spelling out what the last sentence would be, and man, this was pretty good, inspired work.

And what was strange was, I had absolutely no memory of recording this. I didn't know where the story was going to go, and I couldn't remember coming up with it, and I certainly never wrote it down (not for that particular OSSE or ever), but because it was me thinking it up, it was totally down my alley and to my own personal taste. It was as if I had stumbled upon a story that was written specifically for me, by somebody who knew exactly what I'd like.

And wow, did it brighten my mood. If I had been going home instead of to Jeff's, I'd have gotten on the old, slower-than-melting-glaciers computer, and written it up.

The funny thing is, I never listen to those old audio journals. They just sit on my mp3 players until the memory gets wiped, or I transfer them onto my computer hard drive, where they are promptly forgotten. I have fifty or more of them, and who knows how many story synopses or plot threads might be on there, just waiting for somebody to discover them?

There's a hopeful thought. Thanks, me.

Rish "The Schizo" Outfield

The Dumps

2011-02-19T17:47:00.000-08:00

Feelin' a little gloomy today. Okay, a lot gloomy. I'm good with impressions, quick with a movie reference, not a bad typist, but if there's one thing I do best of all . . . it's feel sorry for myself.

It's raining outside, and it was still turn-on-bedroom-light dark at noon today, so maybe that's got something to do with it. Loneliness can lay claim on the rest. Had a funny conversation with a girl yesterday, and I look back on my worthless, wasted past with the regret of a good Country song.

Ho hum. I wonder what other people do when they're depressed?

There's the bottle, sure. A lot of folks go there. And sad, pain-expressing music is nice too.

Popped in "Creep" and sang along. It makes me feel like I'm not alone in my misery. Thanks, Mr. Radiohead.

Maybe doing something productive would brighten me up. So I worked a bit on the next episode. I got to the end and felt emptier than ever.

I also did some running on the treadmill. I figured feeling like I was going to die would help me appreciate being alive. Nope. If anything, it reminded me that I'm fat and will pass into death unmourned and unloved.

Lastly, I'm thinking I'll try to do a little writing. I think a real writer would just pour himself into his work, and try and find an outlet for his depression in the fantasy world and characters he had created. Let one of them feel what he feels, let another character try and understand it, let a third character appear and change it all. Might be nice.

Well, the night will pass and tomorrow I gotta do it all again. Maybe with snow, it'll all seem different.

Rish "Mister Brightstide" Outfield

Happy Worst Day of the Year

2011-02-14T14:00:00.000-08:00

I hate this day, more than all the others. I mentioned that at dinner yesterday, and my uncle's young, blonde, eternal cheerleader of a wife said, "Really? I just love Valentine's Day." It was all I could do not to shriek at her, "Of COURSE you do! That's like a white guy telling a black guy that he just adores Aryan International Pride Week and all that comes with it!" But ah well.

In the meantime, please enjoy this:

Happy day-before-the-worst-day-of-the-year, kids!

2011-02-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

In honor of tomorrow . . .

Lucky Number
By Rish Tiberius Outfield

Big and I were at Del Taco again, and the cashier gave him a hearty smile. "That'll be order number 69," she said, handing him his receipt.

He walked by me, raising his eyebrows. "My lucky number, wouldn't you say?" he boasted.

"Coincidence," I said, stepping up to the register. I gave my order and even made a little joke about the Half-pound Bean and Cheese Burrito, but she didn't smile at me like she had my friend. Too bad. She was kind of pretty. Maybe Big's number hadn't been a coincidence.

"That'll be order number 41," she told me.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-02-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

Big and I went to Walmart on Monday, and I bought a couple of Star Wars action figures. What can I say, I'm an overgrown fat kid. As we brought them to the register, the woman there said, "Oh, are you a Star Wars fan? Which do you like better, the new ones or the old ones?" I told her, and she said, "Oh, not me. I much prefer the new ones."

I couldn't quite grasp that. As I told Big later, I've never met a single person over the age of twelve that likes the Prequels as much as the Original Trilogy, let alone more. "I don't understand," I said. "You like the Prequels more than the old ones?"

"Lots more."

"Why?"

"The old movies are so boring. I can't watch the second one without falling asleep."

"The second one?" I gasped. "You mean THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK?"

"Right. Plus, the new ones make so much more sense."

I blinked. "Wait. The PREQUELS make more sense?"

"A lot more."

"Then what's the deal with Sypho Dias?"

She paused and said, "Thanks for coming in. Have a nice night."

Upcoming Audio Drama Work

2011-01-31T00:34:00.000-08:00

I do a lot of voicework on the internet. Only one paid gig so far (thanks, Abbie), but plenty to keep me busy, and probably more if I want it.

For example, there were auditions held, a month or so ago, for an audio drama based on the the greatest television show ever, Joss Whedon's "Firefly." I leapt at the chance to try out, sending in three auditions in a single weekend, and felt really good about them. It took the folks a while to sort through them, and the verdict came in this afternoon. While I didn't get the part I really wanted, I am happy to be a part of the/a "Firefly" audio drama.

The funny thing is, I got that email from the folks behind that production today, and before I even clicked on it, I typed the above. A week or a month ago, I would've told you, "Oh yeah, that part is totally mine. I was born to play it, and they'd be idiots to cast somebody else." But when I saw the You've Been Cast email tonight, I just had a feeling that I fell short of my primary goal, but should be proud to have any part at all.

And I am. I enjoy acting, and just about every aspect of the making of entertainment. Fudge, I was proud to be an extra in a lot of the shows and movies I worked on (there was that Tara Reid movie, though, where I was a bit embarrassed even to visit the set of, but I shan't mention that here). I will continue to do my best, and take any part that is offered to me.

Perhaps I can get the part of Dracula on the "Buffy" podcast.

FixFlix 31

2011-01-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-01-26T09:45:00.001-08:00

My cousin and I were in the toy section of Walmart today, and there was a Transformer there called Darkstream.

"Darkstream," seriously?

Dying is easy . . .

2011-01-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

In MY FAVORITE YEAR, Peter O'Toole famously said that dying is easy, it's comedy that's hard.*

I've really been trying to write steadily in this new year, both for myself, and for the podcast. It was sort of a resolution thing, and sort of a "Love Me, Daddy!" cry for attention. I do what I can to make each episode of our show interesting, from sound clips and adding echo or effects, to running gags and Barbie commercials. I've written up a couple of little sketches and comedic bits for upcoming episodes, and after transcribing one the other day, I looked over the full script and wondered, "Is this funny? Are people going to like this? Is this even worth recording?"

That spiraled into questions of "Am I funny?" and "Do I have a grasp on what other people find amusing?" And that spiraled into more absinthe abuse.

The first question is difficult to answer. After all, everybody thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor (as WHEN HARRY MET SALLY taught me). But as to whether other people laugh at what I say (or write), or whether I can identify what's funny to others . . . well, there's probably a definitive answer to that.

The other day I had an idea for a story in which a character (almost wholly based on me) is forced to do a stand-up comedy routine for a group of bored despots, knowing that if he fails to amuse them, they will have him killed. It felt like a brilliant story idea to me (still does), and the writing went smoothly . . . until.

Once the Me character gets up there and begins trying to make the rulers laugh, I realized that what I wrote absolutely HAD to be funny, or I was dead. I thought I had a good strategy for what the character would say, and how that would go over, but as I wrote it, it didn't seem very funny to me. I didn't know exactly how the story would end (though I figured I'd have to survive, since it's written in first person), but if the stuff he's saying isn't even funny to the writer, well, chances are he's dead meat.

Quite literally, in this story's case.

But that storypoint bothered me just as much as introspection usually does. What if I'm not as funny as I think I am? For the story to work, the nervousness the Me character feels makes him start to babble, and whatever comes out of his mouth has to be both hilarious and seem effortless for the story to work. Even if I kill him at the end, I want that section to be genuinely funny. And right now, it just isn't.

I'm not sure what I'll do (normally, it would be to abandon the project, but I'm not feeling normal today), but I'll continue to think about it, and see if I can't shoehorn some amusing one-liners and banter with him and his flesh-hungry audience in. At the very least, I've already found my title.

Rish "Soiling Oneself is Easy" Outfield

*Apparently, he was quoting a famous vaudevillian, but who actually said it (Edmund Gwenn, George Bernard Shaw, Donald Wolfit, Edmund Kean), is disputable.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2011-01-14T00:52:00.000-08:00

The Golden Globes are being held this weekend, and not only is TOY STORY 3 not nominated for Best Picture . . . ALICE IN WONDERLAND is.

"Then the Emperor has already won."
Obi-Wan Kenobi

FixFlix 30

2011-01-11T00:40:00.000-08:00

January 2nd, 2011

2011-01-03T00:38:00.000-08:00

I realized something looking at my siblings today that I’d never noticed before: we’re all fat. Except for my brother, who isn’t. Okay, maybe that means nothing.

Sorry, on with the countdown.

In the hotel room, we scooted the two beds together so that five people could sleep on them, but my brother and I volunteered to sleep on the floor. We may be more alike than I realized, because despite me announcing that whoever slept on the floor the first night should get to sleep on the bed the second, we both ended up in the exact same place the next night.

Amusingly, though, at some point during the night, the mattresses began to separate, and my big sister started to fall through the crack in the middle. I don't know if that's funny or not, actually.

My brother did not feel well the next morning, but despite my back complaining about the floor, I felt alright. My cousin is a doctor, so she's used to getting up after no sleep, and proceeded to open the curtains to welcome the rest of us to the morning. Now I know how Dracula feels.

One by one, people got up and showered, and when it was finally my turn, there were no towels left. I still had to take a shower (that's just how I roll, kinda like a normal person's necessary cup o' Joe), and of all the towels thrown in a pile on the floor, I picked the least-wet one.

I assume it was my brother-in-law's towel, because he's bald.

My cousin's friend had relatives in Vegas, so she left us to visit them. Then there were six. My brother was too sick to go out for breakfast, so that left five. We walked out into the chilly Vegas morning, and went to Denny's on the Strip, but it was so busy they were making the customers wait outside before a table became available. There was another restaurant nearby, but you couldn't get in the door because of the crowd, so we decided to go to a food court by the Riviera, despite my cousin claiming their food was "shitty."

I was surprised how far away it all was, since the night before we walked at least that far, and I didn't notice it. That's mornings for you.

My sister and cousin decided to go shopping at a couple of Vegas-only stores, and that left just three of us. So, my brother-in-law, my sister, and I got in the car and drove over to the Treasure Island to see how people at the more upscale hotels lived and shopped. We basically walked outside and through casinos, sightseeing and talking.

There was a Sony store in the Forum Shoppes, and I got to try out one of those 3-D televisions people used to talk about. It sort of worked, the way that 3-D option on Excitebike used to sort of work for the Nintendo. We also went into one of those signed memorabilia stores and looked at the signed items. They had a REVENGE OF THE JEDI poster signed by a bunch of the stars (including Harrison Ford) for two thousand dollars. If I had made the correct life choices, I suppose I could buy something like that.

The three of us must've been having a good time because we started talking about coming back for St. Patrick's Day, another popular Vegas weekend. Thank Joss my sister didn't want to come back for Valentine's Day--ick--but my guess is, that's an even bigger Vegas weekend than St. Patrick's.

My family has relatives in Vegas (my mom's mother lived there until she died a few years back, and I used to visit her or my uncles pretty much my whole life), so a few calls were made and a bunch of us got together at a Mexican restaurant just a mile or so from our hotel. The food was good, and not very expensive, but my cousin bought everybody something called apple shots, and they ended up being over a hundred dollars. Yikes.

Distressingly, we discovered several incorrect items on the huge bill that came to the table at the end of dinner. My guess is, they figured with a group that big, we wouldn't notice a few "extra" items. The bastards even charged us for hot sauce and guacamole.

There was a bit of bickering at dinner, and my two sisters are on shaky friendship ground to begin with, but no knife or broken bottle fights broke out, so I guess we did okay. One of the cousins who came to dinner with us agreed to come back to the Sahara for gambling, but the others all had to work or ____.

We spent some of the evening in the karaoke section, and it wasn't just me that got up and sang this time. My brother-in-law sang "I'm Too Sexy" and the girls (well, three of them) got up and sang "I Like Big Butts" (or whatever the real Sir Mix-a-Lot title is). One thing I really liked about the way they did karaoke there was that once you had gotten up and sang, your name was in the rotation for the rest of the night, so you could put in a song title for your next turn or just go gamble and come back and sing when you'd lost your money. I did a Men At Work song, a Manfred Mann song, and a Journey song (but that pretty much wiped out my voice for the rest of the night), but the others decided not to get up again.
My brother didn't get up at all. He much preferred winning money at pretty much whatever game he chose to play. I don't get that, but hey, karma may be repaying him for childhood good deeds. Most of the others joined the Roulette table and wasted unbelievable amounts of money putting chips on various spaces, knowing that they only had to get one of them right to win it all back. I bored easily watching them (and didn't feel like joining in), but I did play some Blackjack with my brother when I wasn't singing along with whoever's turn it was to karaoke.

Midnight came, and their idea to do another countdown and hug and make out with Asian dealers never really came to fruition. I know a lot of dudes hit on the girls, though, so it came as no surprise that my brother-in-law was the first one to retire, followed by my sister, then my brother and me.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I didn't do a great deal of gambling on the trip. Partly because I prefer to watch others gamble (I was always that way as a kid with video games too), and partly because I had lost nearly all the money I'd set aside for playing the games.

Toward the end of the night, I decided to drag my sister before she went up to the room to watch me play my last twenty dollars on the game that I thought was the most fun of all the ones we played, which was virtual Texas Hold’em with a dubiously hot CG dealer. I guess I should've been paying more attention, because I accidentally hit the wrong button and put ten dollars on the Trips space. The Trips space/square is a side bet hoping you get a special win, like a Straight or a Three of a Kind or a Full House (or Family Matters or Perfect Strangers, while we‘re at it). In addition to the normal Ante and betting, you have the option of putting money on that space, but I NEVER put more than two dollars on it, and had just put ten there.

Well, I figured I could fix that, so I pushed the button again, and now I had twenty dollars on the space (despite having only two in the real bet). I had no more money, so I pushed the button again, hoping it would reset, but it didn’t, my twenty dollars was on there permanently. So, I played my hand . . . And ended up getting a Straight. Which was lucky, but the big-breasted, unreal dealer got a higher Straight, and I lost.

The neat thing was, however, that that only mattered for the eight bucks I had riding on the game; I still had a Straight, and win or lose, the Trips still paid me off, and suddenly I went from having nine dollars left to having $149 left. By accident.
Well, I’m not one to press my luck (which may be why I remain dateless on this, the most romantic weekend of the year), so I cashed out and left the table. Probably never to return.

I ran over to my brother, still playing Blackjack (he hung out there so long, he knew all the dealer's names and national origins), to tell him the tale. He congratulated me, but he was making more than that with every winning hand now. Still, that was a cool way to actually win a little money, by pressing the wrong button. I’m sure worse things have happened (and if I had had one more dollar in the machine, it would have bet thirty dollars instead of twenty).

I sat with my brother for a couple more hands (he had to go to the bathroom, and told me to watch his chips, so I sat down to guard them, and the dealer said, "You no touch chip! You no gamble!" Which I initially found insulting, like I was going to steal from my own brother, but I figured was just her looking out for him), but he started to lose again while I was there, so he cashed out (with almost a thousand dollars, men and boys), and went up to the room.

I told the three remaining girls goodnight (my Vegas cousin had long since gone home) at around three-thirty, and went back to the room to sit down and blog a little. An hour or so later, I got in my sleeping bag and was almost asleep when the three girls barged in and decided to continue the party until five-thirty. My brother, bless his soul, managed to sleep through it.

Morning came not long after, and I tried to snooze while everybody showered and ran their hair dryers and packed up. We checked out of the room and started the voyage back to our normal lives. I only managed to drive four hours or so before I started drifting, so I switched places with my brother-in-law and slept the rest of the hours home.

So, it's a new year. I'm supposed to make a couple of resolutions, aren't I? That's everybody's tradition, and I'm a sucker for tradition.

The trouble is, I don't want to make any resolutions. I hate setting myself up to fail, and certainly hate introspection (which amounts to the same thing), but the point is just to examine what can go better, and what to focus on.

I joined a Facebook group consisting of writers who are vowing to write twenty-five stories in 2011, which amounts to 25 stories in 52 weeks. When you put it that way, a story every other week seems like nothing, and I've committed to doing it, but we'll see how motivated I am.

More than just writing, though, I really need to submit my work more often, but saying it means nothing.

The Vegas trip was a lot of fun. True, I did get a bit annoyed with the three girls (all of whom are way too old to be called "girls"), especially when they stumbled in at five this morning laughing and shrieking and kept it up until one passed out. I shouldn't cast stones, though; I was told today that I sing in my sleep.

Rish "The Cooler" Outfield

January 1st, 2011

2011-01-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

“People get really drunk in Las Vegas,
They get wasted out of their mind;
People get really drunk in Las Vegas,
And that’s where I’ll be spending my time.”
Size 14

There was a lot of gambling and drinking last night. Immediately, the difference between my brother's luck and my own became apparent. Within the first five minutes, I had lost twenty dollars on the slots . . . and he won five hundred dollars. It was the first machine he played (a Wheel of Fortune slot machine that several of us played throughout the weekend, though never to the extent that he did at the very beginning). My brother-in-law won a couple hundred dollars too, but lost it in the end. My sister, cousin, cousin’s friend, and little sister all won various times.

My brother was the big winner, though, at pretty much every machine or table he went to, and at press time is up over eight hundred dollars. I think the highest I ever got was playing a virtual Texas Hold’em, where I won $160.00 before losing it all in the end. That was my favorite game of the trip, and the best time I had was when we each put twenty dollars into it and played for more than an hour (all of us were up over a hundred at one point), before finally going broke.

So, we went walking, sightseeing, out to eat twice (Chinese and Mexican), drinking, and gambling. Man, my brother is good at gambling, whether it’s slot machines, Blackjack, Roulette, or Texas Hold’em. I’d say the other, what, six of us all together didn’t win as much money as did my brother. And as far as losing money, we all lost more than he did too (myself included). But I’m so much bad luck at the tables (and slots, and craps and virtual Deal or No Deal) that I could play William H. Macy in THE COOLER 2. Sometimes I would just have to walk away or stop watching my sister or brother play and they would win, or they’d lose until I turned my attentions elsewhere.

I dislike the filthy air of Vegas casinos. There's always the reek of cigarettes and cigars, and back in the days where you won coins instead of paper vouchers, there was always a grey film on your hands (and arse) from playing the machines. I asked my sister (who dislikes smoking at least as much as I do) why they don't have a non-smoking gambling area, or a whole smoke-free casino. Sure enough, during our drive to the Treasure Island the next afternoon, we saw a billboard for a hotel that had a cigarette-less area.

All of us were sharing a room, and that was interesting, since it probably was intended for three, maybe four people. The rooms at the Sahara (or at least the one we were in) were kind of a wreck. But my sister figures that people come here for a cheap place to crash at the very end of the night when they’re done gambling/partying, and spend so little time awake in the room that it doesn’t matter to them.

My sister and her friends annoy the hell out of me when they’re drinking. But they annoy the hell out of me when they’re sober too. They’re just annoying. And loud.

I'm not really a drinker, so the idea that waitresses will bring you free drinks if you are sitting at a machine is pretty awesome to me. And in case you're as ignorant as me, you can order stuff like water and Pepsi too . . . and it's all free! Kind of like that band said, "The liquor's always free, as long as you pretend that you're gambling."

Unfortunately, my brother pointed out the down side to that, when he ordered a beer, and played while he waited for it. When the waitress finally came, almost a half hour later, he had lost over a hundred dollars on the machine. "Most expensive beer in history," he told me. Dang.

To my delight, along with many ways to gamble, the Sahara also had a karaoke room on the casino floor. This really handsome Patrick Swayze clone was the DJ, and tried to maintain a lot of fun for everybody in that section whether they were singing or not. There was a fat black guy first up in the rotation, and though his singing was pretty bad, he was just so bloody jolly that I never groaned when he got up again and again. Apparently, he is a regular, and shows up three or four nights a week, between nine and two, singing multiple songs despite his almost Miley Cyrusian inability to sing.

I got up and sang one song, and wanted to do it more, but it was New Year's Eve, and we were all planning on going outside to do the countdown and watch the fireworks. My cousin had told me that people tend to just go crazy on the Strip for New Years, throwing themselves at whoever is nearby, and debauching with the best of them. She told me that her friend (and attractive female friend) went the year before and vowed to make out with ten guys before the night was through. And apparently, she doubled that.*

That appealed to me, and I was hoping we'd go outside at 10:30 or 11:00 or so, and get in on the fun. Unfortunately, the three girls (my sister not so much) took over ninety minutes to get ready for the night (despite having been dressed and gambling with us throughout the afternoon), and by the time we finally went downstairs to ring in the new year, it was half-past eleven.

The Sahara waitresses were handing out noisemakers and partyhats, and all of us got one. They may look silly, and in this photo I look stupid, but I was a little disappointed when everybody in our group got a hat but me, and was relieved when another waitress came along and gave me one.

I was itching for everyone to go outside, since there were gonna be fireworks and the aforementioned debauchery. But (and I'm sure I mentioned this yesterday), it was insanely cold in Vegas that night, at around thirty-four degrees, and nobody particularly wanted to go for a mile-long hike in it.

The crowd outside was really sparse compared to my brother-in-law's description of the last time he was there, fully to blame on the cold, but there were still thousands of people heading South down Las Vegas Boulevard, which had been shut down to traffic for the night. People were tooting their horns, laughing, and drinking, but I saw no making out, let alone participated in it.

We had only been outside for ten minutes or so before the fireworks started, and I was bummed out that the huge crowd wasn't even counting down to midnight. Guess we were just too late. Several of the big casinos had fireworks going off at the same time, and though I tried to take a couple pictures of it, they didn't much come out.

Maybe I spoke too soon. That one of the Stratosphere looks pretty good.

Because it was so chilly, the crowd started to disperse as soon as the fireworks stopped, and we trudged back to the Sahara. I guess I expected something more along the lines of the Santa Monica Boulevard Halloween parade I went to several times in L.A.. Only with less exposed scrotum.

Ah well.

Some of the others were disappointed too, and suggested we do a countdown of our own the next night at midnight. That seemed fine with me, and we continued the festivities inside the casino, pretty much doing what we were doing before the hoopla.

Rish "Mister Anti-climax" Outfield

*Jeez, just imagine what it must like to be attractive. Seriously. I cannot fathom an experience like that, as I can't muster up an orgy in even my sexual fantasies.

December 31st, 2010

2010-12-31T23:52:00.000-08:00

So, it’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m now in Las Vegas. My brother-in-law is in the tremendous line to check into our shared room here at the Sahara, and luckily, we have a bench of couches to hang out on until he gets through the endless line. After that, I’m not sure what we’ll do. Check into our room, then watch my brother and -in-law scope out the Blackjack and Texas Hold’em tables. I don’t have much money to burn on something like that, especially since I’m not a lucky gambler, but it will be fun to see how much they win. Look, if they can enjoy watching me sing karaoke (and it’s possible that they don’t), then I can enjoy watching them win money.

So, who knows how long I have to sit here, entertaining myself? I’m sure I can come up with something to say (maybe even write a story idea), but I don’t know how much I want to. Life is funny. Last week, I had a job, I had (at least the prospect of) some kind of romance, and my car seemed at least capable of getting me where I wanted to go. But I haven’t driven it since Sunday, and it has a little more trouble starting every time I try.

My Uncle John has been trying to help me find a new (used) car, and we did look at one yesterday (I think it was a Nissan Sentra, but I can no longer remember). It seemed nice, and was certainly cheap. The owner had her driver’s license taken away, and couldn’t make the payments on it, so she was trying to unload it for what she still owed. John seemed much more interested in her than in her car last night, but since it was dark and the roads were terrible, so we didn’t see it in favorable circumstances, at least not enough to know if there were problems with it, or if it was the icy, crappy road. We didn't make a decision on whether to buy it or not, and it was so cold that I couldn't think anyway.

I'll talk to him on that when I get back, but my sister had come up with the idea to go to Vegas for New Year's a week or so back, and I told her if I wasn't working, I'd definitely go. Well, even though I was previously scheduled, I'm not working, so I was happy to come along with her and my brother-in-law. She invited my brother, and then we were four. And my other sister was invited but bowed out, only to change her mind at the last minute, and bring along our cousin (who brought along a friend of hers). So, our original group of three is now a group of seven, but somebody somewhere said that was a lucky number, so we'll see.

Because this was such a last-minute thing, we didn't have a lot of choice when it came to hotels, and every place in town skyrockets their rates for a holiday weekend like this. But we decided that we could get a room at the Stratosphere and split it between us, thus being able to afford it. And when my sister was checking on prices, she saw that the Sahara was even cheaper than the Stratosphere (and a block or so apart), so we picked that one instead.

I had been taught that the temperature usually rises when it snows, and have been under that misconception for decades, apparently, because even though it was eighteen degrees out, snow started to fall (at an angle, since there was a chilly wind blowing it into our faces and windshield). The roads were insanely snowy and icy (there was a twenty or thirty mile stretch where the hick county hadn't appeared to plow the roads since the Bronze Age, and I had to creep along with tight fists on the wheel driving in the trail made by the big trucks that had gone before. Once we reached a section where people had actually plowed and salted the road, however, I was able to drive a decent speed again. My sister went to sleep, and I had the first-ever real conversation with my brother-in-law as we talked about movies and which actors were overpaid or underrated. I wouldn't have ever guessed we could talk for hours like that, but it was a nice surprise.

Despite the snow and cold, we somehow survived to arrive in Nevada, where the weather is only marginally better. They're shutting down several of the freeway exits for tonight's festivities, which slowed traffic substantially, but by the time my sister gets here in my cousin's car, it'll probably take forever just to get to the hotel.

So, now we are in our room, a small, Strip-facing room with two double beds and hard, iron-burned carpet floors, and a television the size of a TV dinner. I brought a sleeping back, and we're talking about pushing the two beds together to make one gigantic colossal bed, but my brother and I will probably volunteer to sleep on the floor if there's no room.

The Sahara was built in 1952, and while that makes it historical, it's also a real dump. There's no ice machine on our floor, the elevator in the parking garage doesn't work, the outlets are strange in that if you plug something into one it falls out on its own, and the Pepsi machine just ate my sister's two dollars. Even so, now that there's seven of us, it will be cheap enough I can gamble and eat and let my hair down without worrying that I'm being irresponsible.

Our room overlooks the Strip, though our view is blocked by the buildings next to us, and we found that the windows actually open out (we’re on the fourteenth floor, plenty high to jump from), but don’t entirely close, and the amazing thing is that Vegas is actually really cold right now, around thirty-eight degrees. My cousin told me it's the coldest New Year's Eve on record, in a place I always automatically imagine as swelteringly hot.

We plan on going down now into the casino and seeing what they've got. My brother and -in-law are really itching to do some gambling, so my sister and I will either watch or participate. Around eleven or eleven-fifteen, we plan on walking out on the Strip and watching fireworks and doing the big countdown thing. The cold might make that less pleasant, though, so we can ask if they're counting down inside as well.
I’ve no idea what tonight is going to bring, but it should be interesting, if not a lot of fun, to walk up and down the Strip, watching people drink and dry-hump, smelling people smoke . . . and dry-hump.

I’ll keep you posted. Ish.

Conan, what is best in life?

2010-12-28T23:55:00.000-08:00

FixFlix 29

2010-12-26T16:59:00.000-08:00

Stupid Thing of Christmas Morning

2010-12-25T09:31:00.001-08:00

My niece got a bunch of makeup in her stocking this year, and while everyone else went into the kitchen to work on breakfast, she got out what she thought was lipstick and stuck it on her lips.

Turns out it was nail polish.

Kudos on whomever got a nine year old a makeup kit!

Happy Christmas

2010-12-24T22:37:00.000-08:00

I am knee-deep in melancholy this lonely Christmas Eve. It's odd that it would befall me so, since I've been in better spirits these last few weeks, working a lot of hours at a job I do not loathe that appears I have not yet been tossed out of,* but darned if I wasn't overcome with a bout of peanut-butter-thick unhappiness this afternoon and evening, weighing me down like an overweight conjoined twin.

I'm not entirely sure what brought it on. Perhaps it was the realization that the holiday has arrived, and my situation has not improved. Perhaps it was the anxiousness in my coworkers as they awaited their time to go home so they could be with their families, lovers, or Christmas parties. Perhaps it was that darn Eagles song that I heard (and sang along to) twice today, or that my car refused to start yesterday and this afternoon, or that the sky was grey and overcast even at two p.m.. Or maybe it's because the lass I fancy at work was there today, chatting it up with others, and giving me a rather significant miss.

I did try to engage her in conversation once (I believe one onlooker was quoted as saying, "Oh, the humanity!"), and asked her what time she was off. When she told me, I suggested she come by my desk before she took off, and I'd either declare my undying love for her or wish her a Happy Christmas. Either/or.

Hey, I thought it was charming. But life has certainly taught me that whatever I think is cute, clever, charming, creative, classy, or cool . . . is probably the opposite. To drive home my point, she did wish people plenty of Joyeux Noel, but walked on by me with nary a wave. Sigh.

Could that be it? Am I really thirteen years old again?

Or twenty-two?

Or Thirty?

"Sigh," if I haven't already said it.

Alrighty then, I've two options:
1. Wallow. Wallow like the swine that I wish I had the chesthair and testosterone to be. Turn on the Jeff Buckley and Aimee Mann, and imagine the sweet embrace of a cold and abandoned grave.
or 2. Do something to improve my mood. Something that'll make me smile. Something that'll engage my mind, entertain my kidneys, warm my cockles.

But what?

How about I write up this happy crappy in my blog, and send a couple emails, and wrap some presents, and see if I can't pull out of this barrel-roll before I pull a Jek Porkins on the surface of the Death Star?

Mmmm, STAR WARS. That makes me happy.

What else?

Oh yeah. This has delighted me for years:

Also, every Christmas Eve, my friend Jeff has a tradition of watching his favorite holiday movie. I believe he makes his wife sit through it too, whether she wants to or not. What a great tradition.

So, in honor of him (and it), I bring you this:

Rish "Zuzu's Petals" Outfield

P.S. "What's Christmas but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer? If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"

*Little did I know when typing this, but I'd be laid off (over the phone) two days later.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2010-12-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

So, Big and I got together this week to talk about his trip to Southern California. We started slow, but then really got into the spirit of it, making fun of Californians, his children, our old age, the Disney corporation, Big's girth, his wife's name, mannequins with boob jobs, the ill-conceived update of Disneyland rides, Demi Lovato's recent trip to rehab, my own Disneyland experiences, and joking about the sort of thing you'd never want to hear someone in a Goofy costume say.

It would later prove regrettable that, during the middle of our conversation, I got up to go to the bathroom while Big paused the recording. A moment later, we started back up again, really getting into the swing of things. Man, it was some of our best stuff ever, and Big was actually crying from laughter toward the end (I don't know if that had ever happened before, in all our times doing podcasts). We got to the end of the two hour show, content that we had created something quite magical . . . when Big discovered something truly awful . . .

Unfortunately, the pause button was somehow still on from more than an hour before, when we'd stopped for a break and to look up the name of an obscure Disney character. All of that material was lost.

It was a bummer, and something we've had happen before (though not exactly under those circumstances). Big was really upset about it, and required that we walk three miles in the middle of a chilly December night to cool down. Afterward, we did attempt to recreate that conversation, and recorded another hour or so on the same subject, but it wasn't quite the same, and a lot of the inspiration had faded. Ah well.

Rish "UnPaused" Outfield

Karaoke final

2010-12-18T10:24:00.000-08:00

So, you ever see that one "South Park" episode where Stan coaches a pee week hockey team, and in the end, they accidentally get into a match against the Detroit Red Wings and are annihilated? Well, the final night of the karaoke competition was a lot like that.

People really brought their A-games, wearing costumes, bringing props, using entourages, and going above and beyond the call of doodie.* I guess I complained about it last week, but it wasn't just a friendly night out for singing and imbibing to a lot of the folks, but some kind of heated tournament with real stakes.

I did quite badly on my turn, actually. I didn't really know the song, and it fell apart at the end, and that's a bummer because I'd like to have known I did the absolute best I could do (but the DJ said I couldn't do the song I wanted to since I'd used that in one of the qualifying rounds), even though I hadn't a prayer of winning.

I don't know, I'm a bit sworn off of doing these little contests again for the time being, and will probably only go if it's a pressure-free evening of crooning with inebriated buddies. That's what karaoke was meant to be, anyway.

Rish "Sore Loser" Outfield

*One guy even went so far as to dress in a Lady Gaga costume, complete with pasties over his hairy, hairy nipples. Yeah.

X-mas present

2010-12-15T10:45:00.000-08:00

My mom bugged me the other day that she still had nothing to give me for Christmas (what do you get for the guy who has everything but love, confidence and a future?), and it came to me: a microphone that doesn't sound like I'm recording from a caved-in Chilean mine shaft. Hopefully my voice will be annoying you much more clearly in 2011.

Rish "Static Reverb" Outfield

You Read Any Good Books Lately?

2010-12-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

My generous friend Jeff sent me this link, knowing it was just what I've been looking for. Perhaps it can help you too.

Karaoke Smackdown

2010-12-12T00:23:00.000-08:00

Big and I haven't done much podcasting lately, and the last time we talked, I told him I was bummed out about that, because I've been participating in a multi-tiered karaoke contest the last few weeks, and it would've been fun to give him an update every week on TGMG. Our two listeners could thrill to me describing the events of each night, what I sang, and if I was moving on to the next round.

But ah well, life's the thing that happens to you when you're out of toilet paper. Or something like that.

So, I somehow made it to the final round of this karaoke contest, despite getting sick and losing a lot of my voice last weekend (I figured they took pity on me and gave me points for giving it my all even when raspy. Either that, or I really am that good). The whole shebang was pretty fun, but somewhere in there (probably these last two rounds), it started become less about having a good time and singing a song and more about competition, about defeating the others, about being better-than.

I'm not good with that.

Nerves started to prod at me, I started to feel guilty for not practicing, and even found myself disappointed when it was all over and I wasn't one of the winners.*

It's weird, because I absolutely hate those bleeding hearts that say kids can't play Tag or Kootie or Tic-Tac-Toe because there might be a loser, you shouldn't pick teams 'cause someone might get their feelings hurt, or that it's wrong to keep score during Little League. Those same douchebags probably declare it unconstitutional to block cellphone signals in movie theaters, so the girl sitting next to us during HARRY POTTER wouldn't blind us every minute and a half sending or receiving text messages. Boo hoo.

A contradiction, it would seem, but there was definitely less a spirit of "You go, girl!" going on in the end, and more of a "You stay away from my man, ho."

Maybe that's the way of things, the way of the Force, but I don't know. There were a lot of competitors, and the way the contest was structured, it was difficult to prepare for. For this round, we got to pick our category (Rock, Country, R&B, or Alternative), then we had to draw a number out of a hat on our turn. That number corresponded to a song that we had to then sing, with no practice or preamble. Or do-overs. You know it's rough when you see a fifty-year old dude singing "Little Lies" by Fleetwood Mac, or a smalltown librarian singing "Cum On Feel the Noize." People, however (for the most part), were really supportive, and complimentary of my singing, so that's cool.

One of the actual winners of the night is a guy I've always liked, both in song choices and personality. I and my female companion chatted him up for a moment during the show, when he got there a couple hours into the program (turns out he's an actual musician and arrived late because of a gig with his band). He leaned in and told her, "Hey, you're way cute," then leaned back out and said, "Hey, you two aren't married or together or anything, are you?" It struck me as both a Han Solo smooth and Southern California dickish thing to do, and I'll be honest and admit I was relieved when he went home with the woman who won Second Place at the end of the evening.

Now that it's over, I can't help but scrutinize my own performance on Friday night, and that's another aspect of competition that's just no fun. There's one last round of the finals I'm all worried about, but I can't come up with a song that's a) popular enough and b) one within my singing range to guarantee me a place in the winner's circle. I'll keep thinking about it, though. Wish me luck.

Rish "El Perdedor" Outfield

*You'd think I'd be used to that, huh?

Stupid Thing follow-up

2010-12-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

So, I mentioned the white woman made up to look like a black woman from yesterday, and it vexed me for a little while. I'll be honest, I've never really understood what was so icky about blackface. You see the Al Jolsen stuff from time to time, or Eddie Cantor or Bugs Bunny in the makeup sometimes (I even recall seeing a movie where Shirley Temple wore blackface for a song, but I could be insane), and I understand that it's offensive to African Americans today, but I don't really know why.

Is it because it's perceived as mocking the black man? Is it because those originally in blackface were perpetuating racial stereotypes that aren't acceptable today? Or is it because in those days, blacks weren't allowed to perform, and the white man dressed up in this costume as a way to keep the black man in his place?

Of course, I'm one of those guys who thinks that somebody's intentions are the most important factor in whether people should be offended or not, but race is such an inflammatory issue that it's difficult to tell. I'm white, so I may not be able to understand by design. And it could be that people are okay with it as long as it's not a pitch-skin, huge wig, big red mouth kind of thing, like in the old minstrel shows.

After all, audiences laughed along when Robert Downey Jr. did his character in TROPIC THUNDER, and when Fred Armissen plays Barack Obama on "Saturday Night Live," nobody cries foul.

And when this performer came out last night and started up her song, I expected to hear howls of outrage, or at least snickers of "That ain't cool, man." But there was nothing. People seemed to be into it.

So maybe the problem is mine. Maybe I got offended on somebody else's behalf, that thing I complain about other people doing all the time, with a clenched jaw and fists of both hands. Say it with me, folks: I've become what I most despise.

Rish "Greenface" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

2010-12-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

I've been participating in a karaoke competition the last couple of weeks, singing my lil heart out and (somehow) moving on to the next round. I haven't really felt the need to talk about it in my blog, since it doesn't seem to be the sort of thing people would find interesting.

But yesterday, somebody thought it would be cool to perform a Whitney Houston song . . . in blackface.

Yeah.

Impressive, Most Impressive

2010-11-30T06:11:00.000-08:00

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is the best of the STAR WARS movies. It also made the least amount of money, but that matters not.

The director of EMPIRE, Irvin Kershner, died this week at the age of eighty-seven. He had lung cancer.I went to a convention earlier this year where Kersh was supposed to appear. But he was too ill, and had been hospitalized, in fact, but recorded a greeting for the audience. It seemed pretty apparent he wouldn't be around much longer.

But EMPIRE will be.

You know, George Lucas made it clear, early on in his career, that he neither enjoyed writing nor directing movies, that his joy was in the editing room. So it makes no sense he would've deviated from that for them gorram Prequels. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is the film he had the least amount of influence and impact on (not to say that Lucas shouldn't get credit for the film in the end), and who knows how much of the greatness of that movie should be laid on Kershner's doorstep?

Or Kasdan's? Or Kurtz's?

There's no knowing, but as the man has passed away, let's take this opportunity to thank him for TESB, and how much of an impact it made on our childhoods.

I met Irvin Kershner once, a few years ago, and listened to him speak about the making of the film. There were so many questions and so much he could've talked about that the hour allotted wasn't nearly enough.

After the screening, he had a little autograph session in the lobby. I took this picture when he signed my EMPIRE poster, and was immediately censored by the theater staff. Apparently, it was okay to talk to the man, ask for him to sign something, but not to take his picture. Hmmm.At that convention this year, Kersh expressed his disappointment at not being able to make it out to talk and sign autographs. He offered to sign anything anybody sent him if they didn't mind paying the postage. That struck me as pretty generous, or at least that he was a guy who really appreciated his fans.

You do the same, when you're rich and famous, won't you?

Rish

...and don't call me Shirley

2010-11-28T23:12:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I started up the next disc in my NetFlix queue, the first episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted "Thriller" TV series. The premiere episode was called "The Twisted Image" and it starred Leslie Nielsen as a businessman who is pursued (hounded, really) by an attractive young girl who may have less than honorable intentions toward him. As I watched it, I thought about Nielsen's career, and how he spent so many years as a serious actor, only to have it all change in 1980's AIRPLANE!, and be considered a comedic actor ever since. I wondered how old a man he must be today, then went on with the programme.Well, it didn't really surprise me tonight when I turned on my news reader and found that Leslie Nielsen died today at the age of eighty-four.

While a couple of his recent movies were less than palatable, his role as Frank Drebin in the "Police Squad!" series and films would be enough to endear him to me forever, not to mention CREEPSHOW, AIRPLANE!, FORBIDDEN PLANET, and SCARY MOVIE 3. Heck, I even liked DRACULA DEAD & LOVING IT.
He brought me a lot of laughs, and I hope you feel the same.

Lt. Rish Drebin, Police Squad

Where You Eat

2010-11-26T21:27:00.000-08:00

At work today I met a lovely new employee, cute as the night is long, but with one of those ugly first names that you can't really imagine a pretty girl having (plus, it's the last name of one of my friends, so that's even worse). But I took a shine to her immediately, and even though I know sod-all about women, I interacted with her as much as humanly possible during my endless shift today.

At lunch, we happened to both be in the breakroom at the same time (either by coincidence, or by way of me somehow arranging for my sister to bring me food twenty-five minutes after my scheduled lunch time so that we'd end up in there together), and I chatted her up a bit more, while I could. There were a couple other dudes in there at the same time (including the guy with the atrocious Boston accent, who's she's probably sleeping with as I type this), and I thought all of us were conversing pleasantly and innocuously.

After the new girl got up to go back to work, one of the dudes (not the accented one) put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't shit where you eat, man."

I thought that was pretty funny because:
A) I'd never met this guy before this week,
2) The phrase has always been vulgarly hilarious to me,
and C) Because he picked up on my obviously un-subtle interest.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2010-11-26T21:26:00.000-08:00

Friggin' bastards at Fox announced this week they're going to reboot "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Without Joss Whedon.

Never, sirs. Never.

Stupid Thing of the Week

2010-11-22T10:28:00.000-08:00

So, there's a jagoff at work with the crappiest (and least-convincing) Boston accent, always saying stuff like "Theh ah fahv cahts in the pahking lot" and always having to repeat himself over the walkie-talkie . . . because nobody really speaks like that. Well, we were working the other day and somebody mentioned his name, and I said, "Which one is he? The one with the terrible way of talking?" One of the others said, "No way, his accent is cool!" I said, "That's not an accent, it's an embarrassing speech impediment." And the other two guys said nothing, but were looking past me.

Yep, just like in every single sitcom you've ever seen, he was standing right behind me.

There was an embarrassing moment when I turned and got no clarification of how much he had heard, but I quickly remembered pressing work that needed to be done elsewhere, and slipped away. The rest of the guys probably had a good chuckle about it, though.

But hey, don't feel too bad for Mumbly McRed Sox . . . all the girls at work think the way he speaks is sexy. Ohhhhhh yeah.

Rish "Chandler Bing" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week (sorta)

2010-11-14T01:01:00.001-08:00

So, I went out to the local karaoke bar with my sister and brother-in-law last night. I only got to sing two songs, and it was sort of Country night (it seemed), so I chose "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" as my second song, doing both the Toby Keith and Sting parts.

Nobody cared.

My sister seems to absolutely hate beer (a loathing we share), but her husband drank eight bottles and then shared a full pitcher with a Samoan man, which impressed/intimidated me.* My brother-in-law Dave told me he'd never gotten up and sang before, and that he was going to do so then, but he told my sister to pick a song for him. She did, and he told her not to let him know what it was until it started.

That struck me as incredibly brave. I couldn't do that--as much as I enjoy karaoke, I would be terrified it was a song I didn't know or couldn't sing. I quickly scribbled "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison on a scrap of paper and gave it to the DJ in case Dave was stumped. It was the most protective I'd ever felt toward my sister's husband

Well, when his turn came, Dave got up there, and the music began . . . and sure enough, it was a song he didn't know. So my point is made there. Luckily, his Samoan pal jumped on the other microphone and helped him through it (I suppose all Pacific Islanders know Eagles songs).

But the thing I really wanted to mention was this: at one point, an old woman got up and began crooning a Tammy Wynette song.

A middle-aged woman came up to me and said, "That lady singing is my mother. It would mean a lot to her if you'd get up and dance with me during her song." Well, I figured that was fine, the least I could do as a empirically lonely and self-proclaimed nice guy. We danced our dance (which was a little odd, since there was not another soul out there on the dance floor, plus I dance like a pro wrestler does Shakespeare), and when the song ended, I went back to my table.

One of Dave's buddies came up to me and said, "You just got played, dawg. That ain't her mother, that's just a line she feeds guys to get them to dance with her."

Well played, madam. Well played.

Rish "Ron Got Splinched" Outfield

*What's worst is that he passed out on the couch right after we got home, but STILL got up before me the next morning.