People. Not a Fan Part Deux.

 

Who knew I'd have another blog so soon? Well, didn't realize I'd have another unfortunate story about visiting a theater.

Went to see Immaculate last night with my kid and brother. Theater didn't look too crowded. Nobody in front or behind us as of an hour before the movie, so we went. (I cancel my tickets if it looks like a movie's gonna be too crowded)

When I get to the theater I see that the four seats behind us are taken, but otherwise it's still a relatively empty theater. Here's where the trouble starts.

Grab out popcorn and sodas. Head into the theater...and I see SIX people seated in the row behind us, two of them VERY young kids. Like 5-8 years old. At this R rated horror movie.

The group is either Hispanic or middle eastern. I could have sworn Hispanic, but my brother thought they were middle eastern. They are fucking LOUD.

Now, yeah, it's before the movie but I've had issues with kids in horror flicks. And there are only four seats sold behind me, so clearly something's going on here.

I go narc on them. Yeah, don't care. Used to be "I'm not a narc", but now it's "Fuck anybody who might ruin my flick". I tell the manager that I've had issues with kids, that there's only four seats sold behind me but there's six people and two are very young kids.

He says he'll go see what's up. I hit the bathroom, then come back in to find the manager and another guy arguing with these dudes who are pretending they bought a ticket but clearly didn't. They're pawing at their pockets like "where did my receipt go?"

As if you can't just look at what seats sold on your fucking phone. 

And they're arguing LOUDLY with the manager. Finally, two of them leave with the manager. After a couple of minutes, they come back--apparently having bought tickets. My brother has moved forward one row because "it's too fucking noisy" where we are.

Trailers start. The people behind us keep talking and even YELLING loudly to each other. One of them is playing videos on their phone. After about the fourth trailer, and they're still being loud and watching videos, I sit up and look back.

One of them looks at me and says, "Sorry sorry", but then ANOTHER one looks at me and says, "What's your fucking problem?"

I say, "Are you fucking kidding me? You're not at your fucking house." He said something else, not sure what, so I get up and head back out. I hit the manager again and tell him what's up, and the manager turns to his guy and says "Okay, they're gone."

He gets a bunch of his crew together and we all march in. He tells them they have to go. They don't argue too much--clearly they know they're not getting out of it. But the one dude stops at the end of my aisle and is mouthing off. Then he motions to me like he wants me to come over, and let me tell you, I was out of my fucking seat in lightning time.

I think maybe he misjudged shit, cuz when I got in his short fucking face(he was like 6 inches shorter than me), he got reluctant. I said, "Talk shit to my face, mutherfucker." He just looked at me like he was reconsidering, and then the manager got between us because he saw my brother was getting up and coming over to back me up since there were three of them dudes to my one...but I was still willing to throw fists.

Fuck it. See how this dickhead feels about a fifty year old crippling him. 

They all got kicked out. My adrenaline was going so it took a couple of minutes to calm down, but after that we had an excellent time--no distractions. The movie's not bad, nothing amazing but it's got a pretty cool ending that you don't see too often.

But when theaters wanna know why people aren't going any more, they need to look at stopping OTHER people from ruining the experience. My brother said he's done with this theater--not gonna go any more, and you gotta understand that I pay for everything when we go to the movies.

So he's not willing to go back to this theater for free and get free concessions, THAT'S how bad it's gotten...

(and we have tickets to Godzilla Kong tonight, but I have tix to both theaters cuz I wanted to see which filled up less)

 

 

People. Not a Fan.

 

Couple of weeks ago they blocked off a road adjacent to ours and redid their sidewalks completely. They forced everyone to park on other streets, ie, MY street.

Didn't affect me much since I barely ever go out, so my car stays in the same place.

Then last week they put signs up and down our street that said "ROAD WORK 3/20 - 3/21"--do not park on our street or they'd tow.

So on the 19th, I moved my car into the driveway--I didn't have to go out anywhere until Thursday night. (though the car in the driveway freaked the dogs out...they kept thinking someone was in it)

Wednesday the 20th comes...nothing. All day. It's weird seeing our street with no cars. 

Then Thursday the 21st...nothing. Don't know what the fuck that was about, but it's fucking ridiculous that the county can give you like 2 days notice they're going to tow your car, no details on what they're going to do, and no updates when they don't fucking do them.

Got out to see the new GB movie--you know, who you gonna call? We enjoyed it. The wife even came, it was her first time seeing a Screen X movie. It wasn't as good as the previous movie, but the return to NY was welcome and allowed some cool callbacks.

Saw the Robocop doc on Tubi--holy fuck is that a good documentary. It's like 4 hours long, but totally worth it. You basically wanna hang out with pretty much everyone on the cast/crew other than Verhoeven, and I think even he's mellowed out since back in the day.

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Read a FUCKTON of stories last weekend, got within 30 of being totally caught up. Then this week I got bombed by more since the deadline is imminent.

Then today an big author who I emailed back in January and never heard from--he emails me today, says he and some girl would love to do a story but he can't make the Apr 1 deadline. How about May 1st? 

That's not out of bounds for me--I built in a lot of wiggle room, and we'll be working on editing all the other stories anyway and finalizing the open subs we'll be taking.

Haven't heard from either artist yet on the covers. Not all that surprising, as I didn't give them a hard deadline. Probably should have, but I want them to take their time.

 

 

 

Memory Like A Dream

 

The pictures above came across my timeline in one of the fantasy art groups I follow. It's funny, because way back in the day this comic book came out that had incredible fucking art--like, staggeringly good. Not just the covers either, the interior was phenomenal.

It was called Aria by a dude name Jay Anacleto, and we sold a boatload of them. Problem with it was, each issue got later and later, and eventually I think it just went away after putting out maybe four issues in like 2 years.

So it's funny that both of the pics above are by that artist. Dude's still an amazing artist.

Anyway, got out to see a flick I'd never heard of--something I've been doing more of recently. I look to see what's at the theater and stumble across listings for flicks I've never heard of. This time I saw two: Snack Shack(no idea about any of the creators) and a flick called Knox Goes Away, starring and directed by Michael Keaton.

The shack one had a higher RT score, and it was in a slightly bigger theater, so we decided to go see that one. Only three other seats had sold, so it looked safe.

Was a pretty entertaining movie. Runs a little long, but we all enjoyed it. Set in 1991, it's a fairly light-hearted look at some kids trying to make some cash and navigate teen life.

But oddly it reminded me of a memory I've thought about on occasion. This is a very weird one, folks, and some days I sort of think maybe it was a dream.

I'm not positive of how old I was, but I'm pretty sure it was elementary school so I was probably 9 or 10. There was a cute girl a lot of the boys liked--and I don't remember her name or how I even got involved, because I wasn't very popular in elementary school.

A bunch of boys would go over her house on the weekends and we'd goof off. I think we played some games like whiffle ball or Red Rover or something even stupider.

I felt like a cool kid, I remember that. It seemed to be this exclusive club, but the girl was the Queen. Whatever she said went, and us puppy dogs followed her around and did what she wanted. Just about the only time I can remember me following a crowd.

All of those memories are hazy and dreamlike. The part that's a little clearer was that one day the girl's parents weren't around like they usually were. I don't know how the subject was broached or whether there was any leadup, but at some point this little girl got all of us together and told us that if we wanted to stay part of the club, we'd have to show her our dicks.

I don't remember my response. I was highly ashamed of my little acorn at that point--I still remember catching a glimpse of my dad's junk in the bathroom and thinking how it dwarfed me...so I'm sure I would have said no, or tried to make some excuse.

And then the following week I remember we(my family) took a trip--don't remember where--and when I came back, I was out of the club. I remember that feeling of exclusion, though none of those kids had actually been good friends. 

I'm sure the only reason I remember this at all is the shame of it. Lot of people say love is the strongest emotion, some say it's hate, but I think it's always been shame. Least for me--I tend to remember every time I was shamed. It's probably a large part of what led me to the deep deep hate that drove me to be so angry and murderous as a teen.

Other moments of shame:

Second or third grade: I wrote an anonymous Valentine letter to a girl I had a crush on, and I slipped it into her locker. I watched from down the hallway as she found it, bookended by two friends. They read it and tittered, and looked around and saw me watching.

The girls started laughing, not the good kind of laugh, and I'm sure my cheeks caught fire like they used to. 

Fifth grade: I have always bitten my nails. One time in class I was biting my nails and this teacher suddenly wigs out on me. Says to go wash my hands. I don't remember exactly what was said but she implied(or outright said) that I was picking my nose and eating it--in front of the entire class. Which was horseshit, but massively embarrassing. Her name was Ms. Davis, and I can still see her face in my mind.

I have others, but those are some of the biggies in elementary school.

Ah, memories...how strange.

 

Another No-Relax Weekend

 

 Falling behind as more and more stories get sent in for this antho. So my plans going into the weekend were:

• Read a ton of stories and send rejections/shortlist emails
• Finish my expense spreadsheet for taxes
• Start getting stuff together for the author con coming up in 3 weeks
  

On step one, got through probably another forty stories. They're getting better too, as I had more go into the Consider folder than before. I think we're up to around 40 considers, though there's a few that were put in there just so I don't have to say no to some people before the convention(where I'll see them).

I know.

Anyway, finished my spreadsheet of expenses and it's a little nuts. I spent about $42K last year on expenses, and that doesn't count stuff like mortgage and electric, etc.

That's about $11K for the new windows on our house, the $13K I directly spent on the book, and then all the other various expenses related to video editing, book publishing and promoting, advertising, etc.

That's a fucking hefty number. I've had years where I didn't MAKE that much in a year. Pretty crazy. If I owe a goddamn dime on taxes this year, I'm gonna blow a gasket.

Third on the list I didn't get too far. I started going through some of the boxes--Ingram ships stuff in garbage boxes that barely protect the stuff. Means I have some "limited" books that I can't sell as limited cuz of the damages or imperfections on the book.

I'm numbering each one that IS ok and putting it in a bag--I'm not planning on taking that much stuff since I don't really even have a table, but a couple of authors want me to bring some books for them, so that's another box I hadn't planned on taking.

Then I'll have a case of those new vintage style paperbacks before I launch them on A-zon after this.

But I wanna move a lot of this stuff to a bigger, sturdier box too.

Then I gotta get that sucker Stewie to get 'em from me since he's being nice enough to cart them down there for me; my car's gonna be smashed with Malfi's and another author's stuff.

Also have to put together some trick r treat bags for the first 30 or so who buy something, and make some signs. (one for the limited that I'm letting them auction, and others for prices on the other stuff)

They have to be easy enough for Malfi to understand since he'll be at the table WAY more than I will...

 

Catch Up Weekend

 

Got out Thursday night to hang with the Malf since we hadn't gotten together for a firepit chat in months--both of our schedules are a nightmare at this point. We went to the restaurant my brother used to work at that I hadn't been to in a while.

Ate some food, had some drinks, went back to the firepit. Most of our chat was about the general horseshit of life and not writing stuff--other than he really has to start working on his new novel. I'm gonna see him again soon cuz he's catching a ride with me to authorcon again, but this time we'll have another author catching a ride with us so not sure how much real talk we'll be able to do.

Finished that video for the auction company and uploaded all four.

Then spent some time doing book antho work. Had to proofread one of the invited author's stories--another good one.

On the bad bad front, that author who turned in a terrible story turned in their second story, and it's nearly as bad. The crazy part is that it's clearly a first draft. There's typos and missing words all over the place. I don't understand how this author is so popular if this is how they write.

I've gotten some advice on where to go from here but none of it's all that helpful. I sort of want to just let this author go--drop them from the TOC, but there's no easy way to do that. The author keeps asking for "honesty" and thanked me for my honesty on the first email but how long do you think that's gonna last when I mention that this story also doesn't cut the mustard?

It's just lazy. They have another three weeks where they could do another pass, make sure it doesn't have any issues, but instead they shoot it to us and the ugly ball is now in our court.

It pisses me the fuck off. Still not sure what I'm going to do about it.

I also read a bunch of open sub stories. Found a couple of considers in there, but most were No's. I guess the way it's going to work is that I'll figure out how many words I've got from all of the invited authors, and then I'll know how many of the Considers can go into the book.

I can tell you that my first two experiences putting out anthologies haven't been particularly great, so the chances of me doing another are dwindling.

Work Weekend Redux

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, somehow my life has turned into 24-7 work. 

This past weekend it turns out they needed me to do some work so everyone else could start testing on Monday. Only problem was that I'd already said I could shoot a video for the auction company on Saturday, and start editing.

Ended up doing both. Pretty frustrating because my editing laptop isn't next to my work laptop. So I'd launch a process on my work laptop that would take an hour or more, then go back to editing the video. Then have to get up, go back to the work laptop and click on it since it logs me out every 10 minutes or so, and to log back in takes like 5 minutes.

Not fun.

And work has become super stressful. I'm having a lot of dreams where I'm working, and then I wake up and am like...shit, gotta go back to work. It's like I didn't even get a break.

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This is weird. So I think I mentioned at one point about my crypto? How it had gone up to like $10K? It went up to $11K and got real close to $12K but just wasn't breaking it. I looked one night and it was like $11,980 but didn't get over the hump.

I checked the next day and it was over $13K. At this point it's now over $14K. More than double what I put in.

I'm sure it'll come back down, then go back up. I'm not sure where my exit plan is. If it got around $50K I'd probably be strongly looking into selling it.

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Saw Dune 2 at the Screen X theater. Pretty impressive. I still don't love it, but it's certainly worth watching. I don't know why everybody's freaking out about the infrared shooting they did--I don't think it's all that distinguishable from just shooting black and white and then pushing the whites so you get some overexposure. 

Also watched Highlander with the kid. Haven't seen that in like 30 years. Still a fun movie but you can see some of it doesn't hold up. The swordfights in particular are pretty weak--you can tell the actors are afraid to swing hard or close to each other in a lot of shots.

But it has some amazing transitions and a lot of cool shots. Not sure if my kid really liked it--he fell asleep at one point.

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I  found out that apparently they're now selling HH at the Walmart online. They want a ludicrous $22.17 for a bare-bones DVD. Like, is it still 1998? I'm not sure there are people willing to spend that kind of money to watch a movie you can see for free on like 30 different platforms...

I ordered one just to see what it all looked like. Looks like they're using a shitty template--I saw another guy's movie that got the same treatment, back cover is laid out exactly the same on his.

(but his movie was selling for like $15, so not sure if the pricing is regional or specific to the movie)