Duty Calls

It’s a new post, and it’ll be brief.

Not too long ago, I announced that real-life was intruding, and that it was affecting prodution of any fun-time stuff. That was all true, and it continues to be: my father, who has cancer, has only had an extension added to his lifespan. His cancer is incurable, inoperable, and it looks like he has several months left at the longest.

You can understand, hopefully, that this is a devastating time of my life. Duty calls, and the fun can wait.

There will be continued work on my writing, I haven’t shelved it forever (and on rare occasions, if I’m feeling “up” enough, I’ll even pick up the quill to scribble here and there). Once things get back to a semblance of normalcy for me, I’m planning on some streamlining. In the meantime, I want to thank anyone who is interested in my writing enough to check in with me. It will come, there’ll just be another delay. Believe me, I wish it wasn’t this way.

Take care, and make sure you let those close to you know how much they mean to you.

Don

Happy Thanksgiving… and My Newest Pulp Video

Just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy turkey-day! Don’t eat too much, and be very thankful for what you have…

And now: Operator #5.

“-punk”d

I first became aware of cyberpunk in my sophomore year of high school with “Neuromancer” (William Gibson’s own “Citizen Kane”), and I immediately took to it. This was 1990-91, and at that time it was the most subversive and electric thing I’d ever experienced. This was the future, I felt. It was grim and ugly but full of interesting premises.

Who knew that it would lead to videos of monkeys sniffing their butts and millions of little twerps texting each other using awful grammar?

But I digress…

Soon after I discovered cyberpunk, Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote “The Difference Engine”, which would introduce the world to steampunk. This was cool too: an extension of the Jules Verne-H.G. Wells interest I had when younger (and continue to have).

After that, I heard about splatterpunk… I’m not a fan.

Then, a few years ago, when reading about steampunk online, I discovered that the “-punks” were everywhere.

Biopunk, clockpunk, elfpunk, bronzepunk, atomicpunk… even something called stonepunk, which immediately calls to my mind “The Flintstones”. Who knew the modern stone-age family was the bleeding-edge of science-fiction?

I was ok with the first few, but now it’s getting out of hand.

AND… now they’ve gone too far by touching my beloved pulp with dieselpunk.

Now before I launch into a geektastic rant, let me go on record as saying that anything that brings the pulp-era back is a good thing in my book. It was a dark time for the human race, and yet the adventures were somehow brimming with optimism. Even in issues of The Shadow, Operator 5, and The Spider magazines (the darkest of the pulps), we were given the hope that good would triumph over all evil. Quite frankly, we need that kind of dreams-come-true optimism now.

But dieselpunk? Why? Why anything-punk?

I dunno… it seems like there’s too much genrefication these days. I’ve got mixed feelings about it: on one hand, there’s all these unique styles of sci-fi out there now, rife with new ideas. On the other hand, they’re instantly labeled and packaged, and with the most unwieldy titles. It’s almost as though we need to name something as soon as it comes along, to give it instant familiarity and assuage the fear of the new.

Then again, that’s modern society for you… consumerpunk all the way.

“Dammit, I wanna trick-or-treat too!”

For some reason, the whole world seems to be having Halloween fun tonight but me. Kids are trick-or-treating, adults are going to costume parties, teenage “devil worshippers” are up to all sorts of mischief (lock up your cats tonight, people!). So what am I doing? Stuck at work, listening to callers rant about magazines (and in the background? Trick-or-treating sounds!). My job is full of the holiday spirit: cardboard scarecrows and little bags of bat-shaped pretzels. Whee!

(But I’m not bitter.)

Happy Hallowe’en!!

Happy Anniversary, Orson!

It’s the 70th anniversary of the famous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. Find it, listen to it, and recall a more innocent, simple era when radio could sway a nation into believing martians had invaded. Even today, it sounds impressive…

New video: Zorro

Not my best work, but hey… at least I’m making videos again.

Apart from the super-heroic sounds, the silence is deafening…

Hello again. Remember me?

Been away awhile, but still been here. Got tired of letting you folks hang, so today I decided “Dammit, I’m going to post something, no matter how long it takes to write it at work.

A lot of things happened suddenly, leading to the radio-silence here. Stepped-up intensity at work and in college led to not being able to spend as much time giving to the internet, only able to take. Add to that the previously-mentioned health problems of my father (who I’ve only recently have begun to know, really) and the increased hours at work (my wife lost her job), and I haven’t had the energy for the creative stuff. My pulp-hero video series on YouTube is on hiatus, the typing of my Challenger Storm novel is going slllloooooowwww… I know that the good stuff will come back soon, but not until things stabilize. I’m tired… really friggin’ tired. At the end of the day right now, I really only have the energy to point and click right now… and that’s where City of Heroes and City of Villains come in.

Still here

Just wanted to let anyone who was wondering know: I’m still here, still working on the book, still making videos, etc. Real-life has intruded it’s ugly nose into my affairs: college courses and work training have demanded a lot of time lately, and to top it all off my dad has been diagnosed with serious throat-cancer. A lot on my plate, and not as much time to eat it as I’d like.

On the bright side: the training is coming to an end, college is breaking for 2 weeks soon, and my dad is getting surgery on the 4th, so hopefully I’ll be back in the saddle soon.

Thanks for tuning in and supporting me.

Almost home…

As promised earlier, here’s a book update:

It’s almost done. Maybe even over the weekend.

Now, being done doesn’t necessarily mean being DONE, ok? The way I’ve had to write is this: write it out on paper in long-hand, then type it into the computer, editing and proofing as I go. Then, of course, comes the fun part: submissions. However, I do have a few interested parties waiting…

Anyway, for the purpose of this posting, “done” is being finished with the hardest part for me, the actual writing. On paper.

Stay tuned, folks… and thanks for your continued interest in my project. I hope it turns out good for you.

New video: G8 & His Battle Aces

While you’re waiting on a book update (I promise one very soon), have a gander at the latest hero-pulp essay from my MARDL channel on YouTube.