Halloween Scary Things! Woooo!

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“Happy Halloween, ladies…”

(That’s a quote from Highlander, as you know.)  In the spirit of the holiday, here’s my list of films and etc. that have absolutely scared the s**t out of me.

TOURIST TRAP
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080040/

This is either A) Stephen King’s favorite movie, or B) the movie that most terrified Stephen King. Either way, I didn’t even know King existed until about 8 years after I rented this seemingly B film after we got our first VCR, one of those monsters that is about the size of a modern day microwave. Why on earth my parents never, once, previewed a rental I made, I’ll never know.  Here is where my terror of all things animated began.  Not cartoons; oh no, we’re talking about ventriliquist dummies, manniquins, stuffed animals…anything that should not be walking and talking yet is somehow Undead.  I still have trouble watching this one.  (Of course I own it; I bought the DVD about two years before I owned a DVD player.)  These days, though, Chuck Conners (!) is more scary than the living manniquins of the movie. He pastes up a supple young lady’s face with plaster, while narrating her own death to her:  “And now the eyes…you’ll never see the sun again…it’s getting hard to breathe…you’ll die of fright long before you run out of air…”

Did I mention I was like, six?  Yeah.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082235/

This is still an awesome movie, so says me and my dad.  This one was made for TV; no gore, not that much violence really, but the ending…I remember watching this with a then-girlfriend one night, and she didn’t make a sound until the second-to-last cutaway, when she leaped into the air screaming, “NO F****** WAY!!!”  I spent about $80 on a hard-to-find copy of this gem for my dad.  Haven’t seen it in awhile; it’d probably still scare me too much at the end.  Gave me nightmares for, oh, a year?  Two?  But again, anything even remotely bespeaking of an animated scarecrow does me in.  (See also “Friday the 13th: The Series” pilot with the china doll and R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps book and TV show, “The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight.”)

TRIOLOGY OF TERROR
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/

The Zuni fetish doll has become a cult favorite, and for good reason.  The first two stories are yawners, largely, but the — wait for it — tiny animated doll that comes to life and terrorizes a lady with a knife…yep, there they are, goosebumps even as I write this.  Part of it was the shrieking sound effects the little doll made when he chased her around the apartment.  Beautiful.

No, seriously: I have goosebumps, right this second.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (Honorable mention)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/

If you know me even a little, you know I have a preoccupation with zombies. In fact, I don’t even watch that many zombie movies because they freak me out.  NotLD deserves a special mention not because the movie itself freaked me out — it didn’t, but it’s a great f’ing movie — but because I used to sleep with the TV on in my room, and one night, I woke up just at the time the newscasters in the movie are talking about the living dead, and steps people should take to remain safe.  I was turned away from the TV and only heard the voice.  And, honest to heck, I didn’t even move.  I just lay there staring at the wall, literally thinking — I am not making this up — I knew it!  Dammit!  I told you people, I KNEW this was gonna happen!  Okay…gotta board up the windows.  Or get to the Suburban and get out of town…

Took about five minutes to realize it was NotLD.  Thanks, George.  That was kinda cool.  (And they are coming, some day, just you wait.)

THE EXORCIST (Honorable Mention)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/

Now, this movie was on TV (!) once when I was little, and I watched it, and it gave me exactly one nightmare, but I was like, 5.  Didn’t think much about it until I was in my 20’s, when I realized I didn’t know what all the hubbub was about, so I rented it.  Watched it in my room.  Watched the special features first (which I do as a way to nullify any potentially scary effects in the movie; now I’ve seen how it was done, so it chills me out).

Then I started the movie.  About ten minutes in, if that, I felt really weird.  Sorta nauseous.  So I shut off the movie and stood up to choose a different movie, assuming I was getting worked up from the anxiety/panic disorder I had at the time.  My head swam, and I heard a thunk, and I woke up on my floor.

Passed.  The hell.  Out.

It’s the only time in my life that’s ever happened, and it is not fun.  I have no idea if it was the movie or something else, but I will never try to watch that film again.  So I couldn’t tell you if it scared me or not.

WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

I read a lot of Koontz’s early work, and liked it well enough, but Watchers is something special.  The characterization was great, and his tension building up to the first time we see the creature is first rate.  I need to read this one again soon.

(And what’s up with the dropped “R”, Dean? You will always have an R to me, my friend.)

ZOMBIE: A NOVEL by Joyce Carol Oates

Not a novel about an actual undead zombie, but rather about a serial killer…from his point of view. Not scary, per se, but POV is everything when you read a seemingly insignificant line like, “I bought an icepick today.”  (Think about it.)  Oates is far too prolific for me to have read all her works, but I’ve never been disappointed when I do read her.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE AT TOWER PLAZA, 1988
Freshman year.  All I really remember is that the Thomas Mall haunted house attraction was lame, and everyone knew it, but the Tower Plaza one was supposed to be WAY scary.  I remember screaming a lot and trying to joke my through the whole event, to mixed results.  But I got a girlfriend out of it, so.  And the one at Thomas Mall really was lame.

On the way to a weekend camp to volunteer as a dishwasher, circa 1991
Everything was fine that night till we hit the deserted dirt road winding through the evergreen trees up north, the darkness pierced only by our headlights.  That’s when my “Good Buddy Joel” started whispering behind me: Che-che-che…ah-ah-ah, that notorious old Friday the 13th chanted bastardization of “Jason-kill” that we all know and love.  I coulda effing killed him myself for that one.  Jerk.

Conclusion: Confessions of a reformed horror buff.

I really did grow up on this stuff.  All the worst B-movies (Demons; Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-a-rama; the entire Friday the 13th ouvre until about chapter 7; etc.)  And I still enjoy my R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike books.  Raised myself on Stephen King through grade, junior, and high school.  So horror and I are well acquainted.

Well, we were.

These days, I just can’t stomach it anymore.  You couldn’t pay me to watch Hostel or Saw…12? 13? Whatever.  I couldn’t handle Devil’s Rejects even a little, though I tried.  Maybe it’s a natural function of growing the hell up.  Next week I’m watching B movies with some of my best friends and giving them our usual MST3K-ing.  That’s still fun.

But I don’t have a taste for the horrific that I used to.

Maybe it’s just that real life got in the way, and I prefer my escapes to be a little more tame now. Maybe after watching real-life footage of an explosion in Iraq that damn near killed one of my best friends, blowing stuff up and fighting monsters doesn’t have the same appeal.

But these old films, the old books and TV shows (World Beyond; Twilight Zone; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; old time radio dramas like Escape, X Minus One, Suspense, all those) I still love.  I can handle them.  The trend toward torture porn just makes me queasy.  If that’s your cup o’ blood, more power to ya, but I have to say, once you see those images, you can’t get rid of them.  They are in there for life.  How they could possibly be beneficial to you later on in life is beyond me.  That’s all I’m sayin’.

But when the zombies come, bet your chainsaw I’ll be ready.  That’s probably why I’m currently revising a novel about them.  (Sidebar: I did like Zombieland a lot, though.  Probably because it was about the people, not the zombies.)

Braaaaaaaains!!!

Have a safe and happy Halloween, and if you’re in town, come see Halloween LIT at Changing Hands!

“He had his youth t’spend, y’see.”

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This is a line from my all-time favorite, bestest-ever vampire story, One For The Road, by a little known author named Stephen King.  Seriously, if you like vampires and haven’t read this one, do it.  No romance, no sparkles, no petite cheerleaders.  Just scary freakin’ vamps. 

But that’s not the point of my discussion today.  It’s just an apt header.

We had many “eras” during my tenure at Is What It Is Theatre, but only two real “heydays.”  One was during 1999.  We had a great string of awesome plays.  The other heyday was between 2001-2004ish. 

In the ’99 heyday, in the course of production, it was normal to:

1. Construct a set in my backyard.

2. Tear down the set and a stage to move it to our performance venue.

3. Build the stage.

4. Build the set.

5. Do three shows over the course of a weekend.

6. Tear down the set.

7. Tear down the stage.

8. Transport it all back to my house.

9. Repeat steps 3 through 8 for the following week of performances.

Sometimes we only had to pile the platforms and flats in one corner, or outside the room, but either way, we were still building/tearing down/rebuilding not just a full set, but the stage beneath it as well.  That includes setting up all the lights, costumes, and props.  If you’ve ever been in a play and done a light hang, you know how much work that is all by itself.

This was not easy.  It was long, hot, and laborious, two of which might be fun with your girlfriend (HEY-O!), but not so much when you’re lifting 200 lb. platforms and stacks of lumber.

But it was fun.

There were always people helping out.  All of us were volunteers.  We’d build, we’d laugh, we’d get pizza and Super Big Gulps.  And then we got to do a play together.

Because we had our youth to spend, you see.

I know people a lot older than me who routinely do things like go to Africa and build wells in poverty-stricken villages.  My mom makes quilts for various charities.  I know The Church Ladies who sift through canned goods and donated items to give away to anyone who has need.  You’re never too old to help.

But there’s something about youth…about that time from around 15 to your mid twenties or so… where you have the energy, drive, and passion to really work hard and get some stuff done.

Do so.

I remember my former speech teacher coming back from a trip to Europe with her husband after she’d retired.  When I asked how the trip was, her husband immediately replied, “Go when you’re young.”  I laughed.  He didn’t.  “I’m not kidding,” he said.  “Go now.  Go before it hurts.”

Now, I’m not a big traveler; I was when I was young and had no responsibilities.  But believe me when I tell you you won’t have the same energy when you’re 35 as you do when you’re 15 or 25.  Now is the time to strike.  Now is the time to do all those things you want to do.  It can be traveling, or it can be volunteering, or learning something new outside of a classroom — rock climbing, scuba diving, kayaking, hang gliding, whatever.  Now is the time to help people.  To head up canned food drives, clothing or back to school drives, sling chili at a homeless shelter, read to children or people in retirement homes, recording for the blind…whatever.  Get the hell out there and do it.  You know as well as I do that there will be another super exciting video game console coming out in a year.  Wait for that one.  Hollywood’s not going away, nor its ability to get you movies you want to see.  Wait for them.  You’ve got something that needs doing.  Whatever it is, go get it.

Christopher Chantrill, an author and blogger, says this about you:

When you give young people power, they are going to change things. That is the reason for young people. Not knowing any better, they rashly enter upon careers and marriages, start churches, magazines, think tanks, and foment revolution. … We Americans have experience of this. In 1775 George Washington was an old man of 43 and John Adams was 40. But Thomas Jefferson was 32, James Madison was 24, and Alexander Hamilton was 20. … [Right now] reckless young people are thinking reckless thoughts and planning reckless deeds. Soon enough we’ll know all about them.

You have your youth to spend.  Spend it wisely; spend it recklessly.

…no matter how old or young you think you are.

Looking back, looking ahead

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So the Glendale B&N was sweet.  I got to touch base with old friends and new babies (who were very helpful during the event).  The B&N was beautiful (see photo), and I was thrilled to hang out with some awesome people whom I love a lot.  Thanks to all of you who made it out!

I’ve got some other local (AZ) appearances coming up: Monday night at 630 at Changing Hands teaching a seminar on publishing a YA novel, and a PARTY book discussion on July 18 at 1 pm, also at Changing Hands.  Both events are free, but the seminar requires registration.  I have plans to also be in Las Cruces and Silver City NM in August.  I really should get busy on visiting some other states (I’ve had requests for Florida and NY so far), except for this whole “flying” thing.  Not my cup o’ travel.  That may be changing soon whether I like it or not…

In looking ahead, I have superawesome news that I can’t wait to share, but have to hold back a little longer.  Hopefully, that’ll get worked out by next week.  Meanwhile, I’m dabbling with, at last count:

  • a YA science fiction;
  • a YA supernatural;
  • a MG adventure;
  • and a YA contemporary. 

This does not include the MG contemporary which is out for revisions right now.  Which of these, if any, will stick to the wall, I don’t know.  But then, that’s part of the fun.  Which of these sounds most promising?  Drop me an email or message me on FB.

Also, I start summer school on Tuesday.  That should actually be very cool.

Our Huntington Beach vacation was pretty sweet–I even got my bad self into the wild and wasteful ocean.

So it’s been a pretty laid back yet productive summer so far, and it’s only July. 

Have a good summer, stay safe, and we’ll compare notes later.

See ya!

Skating Phantom

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We went downhilling last night, which, for the uninitiated, amounts to lying on a skateboard and rolling down a paved hill really fast.  I reckon other skaters have other names for it – luge, perhaps, if I spelled that right, or longboarding maybe.  We have always called it downhilling.

(WARNING! Graphic image ahead…)

And now that we are Old and Infirm, we confine our downhilling to this hill on the south side of Camelback Mountain.  All our hills get named.  They get christened after the first person to have a major bail (or whatever the cool kids call it these days).  I, for instance, have a hill on the north side of Camelback named after me: Get-A-Grip.   That’s where I got the rock in my finger.  My all time favorite hill name is Faceplant.  Because that one is true to its name.  Happily, Bishop is still alive and well despite that inauspicious hill name.  Phantom Hill got its name because to date, no one ever really crashed on it.  Crashed bad enough to draw blood, anyway.  That’s one of the requirements I think.

Lately we go whenever A) someone is getting married, or B) we’ve got friends from out of town here to visit (see “A”).  This time around, though, we went strictly for Reason B.  And one of the reasons he was here was to see me at a book signing.  Nor was he the first or only to fly across country in support of PARTY and me.  You can’t fake that s***.  You ask me what motivates me, what my inspiration is, I tell you it’s the guys I’ve known for anywhere from 13 to 23 years now.  (It’s also my wife and their wives, because somehow, our ladies didn’t get the memo that we were a bunch of dumb hoods.  Or maybe they did, and that’s why we love them so much.)

Apart from whistling down a mountain road at 40 mph with your skull about three inches from the blacktop, the best part of downhilling is the chill out time before the next run, sitting on our boards at the top of the hill, seeing the city spread out before us.  We talk about all sorts of stuff in those moments; we argue about who said what to who 20 years ago, that sort of thing.  Even after all these years, there’s something about sitting in the dark, sipping Super Big Gulps, and staring down that dark, curved road ahead wondering if tonight’s the night Phantom gets re-named in your honor. 

“I have good friends there,” our visiting brother says.  He pauses.  “But I wouldn’t sit on a skateboard at the top of a hill with any of them.”

“I never had this in high school,” says our youngest.

“Thirteen years,” another tells him.  “Know how many people we hung out with for that long after we graduated?  Uh, you.”

It was a good night (despite the Large McBigHuge OUCH I got, which I wish I could say happened doing something cool.  Alas, it was stupidity.  But it was worth it).  We’ll go again in November  just before the next man walks down the aisle.  We’ll all be there for that, too.  We got it good, to put it simply.  We made it. 

There’ve been casualties.  Fallouts. Catastrophes and tragedies.  Sure there were.  You know how it goes.

But we still climb that hill with our boards and skate that sucker every so often.  Till one of us breaks a hip or something, anyway.  (And in fairness…we do get driven to the top now by our understanding wives…)

So, I need to get going and clean the living room up a bit for our gathering tonight.  It’ll be a blast.  It always is.  For your viewing pleasure, here’s a look at the only injury of note last night.  It hurts worse than it looks.  Or maybe the other way around.  You be the judge.

See ya!

The *one* time I remove my gloves, this is what happens. Idiot.

The *one* time I remove my gloves, this is what happens. Idiot.

Get your Geek on

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Joy & I met James Marsters - also a masterful storyteller, and wicked cool.

Joy & I met James Marsters – also a masterful storyteller, and wicked cool.

Ya gotta love the geeks, freaks, nerds, and dweebs. 

You just  gotta.  Because if you don’t, they’ll mow you down with their oversized wooden replica swords from Final Fantasy MXXXVVVIII or whatever. 

This is my assessment after two days at my first comic book convention as an author:  These are My People.  These are from whence I came.  I’ve actually grown rather fond of football season, thanks to my wife, but given a choice, I’ll take a good comic book or any other fantastic tale any old day of the week.  (And now so too does my wife.  So we’re even.)

So, I’m more or less a bona fide Joss Whedon disciple, principally because the man can tell a great story.  He also has an eye for exceptional talent – male and female – and he gives them outstanding stories to work with as actors.  I got caught up into Buffy somewhere around season four originally, but what sold me was (SPOILER!…like it’s a secret anymore) when Angelus killed Jenny Calendar in season two.  Still a little shaken by that.  (And not just the murder, but the method and the motive.)  It was a brilliant, risky move.  I wish I took more of them in my own writing. 

Anyway — Joy and I had the pleasure of meeting Georges Jeanty at the Phoenix Comicon, and first off, we were just thrilled to meet an artist of his caliber who so well continues the Buffy arc through the Season 8 comics.  We’ve had a poster of his on our living room wall for years.  He’s just awesome.  (So is Jo Chen, who paints most if not all the variant covers; she is wicked incredible.) 

What made us appreciate Georges even more, though, was his emphasis on storytelling.  He gets it.  Big summer blockbusters with Whatshisname and Whatshername, those hottest young stars…they’re fine, they’re entertaining, I don’t begrudge them that.  But to be entertaining and spin a riveting story that sincerely examines our collective human conditions, that’s a whole other thing.  While Georges isn’t the writer of Season 8, it’s his job to make the words come alive.  It’s art, it’s entertainment, and above all, it’s story.

Like so many modern immortal characters — Kirk, Wolverine, Jules, Batman, to name a few personal favorites — those characters in the Buffy universe are, before anything else, human.  Prone to errors in judgement, to mistakes, to making the hard call when the hard call is what’s needed to win the day.  But they’re also heroes, of a sort.  I realize naming Pulp Fiction‘s Jules as a hero might be a stretch, but I think part of what goes into making a hero is that sense of trying to right past wrongs, to strive for redemption.  A good storyteller can take these fallible humans and show us that anything is possible; and not just show us, but make us really believe it.

It’s fiction.  It’s make-believe.  We pay storytellers to lie to us.  And we love it!

I don’t dress up like my favorite characters, I don’t cosplay (whatever that is).  And while I laughed as hard as anyone at Shatner’s notorious “Get a life!” bit on SNL, the reality is these fictions reach us on a very important level.  You want to dress up like an anime character and sing an a’capella version of the Superman theme at full volume (and a spot-on version, I noted, because I’m a geek), be my guest.  Because for as silly as it might look to those championship atheletes* who happened to be walking by at the time (which was hysterical to me), these freaks, dorks, and assorted spazzes — exactly the kids I would’ve hung out with in high school, and in many ways, still do — are on to something.  What some see as ridiculous, I see as high praise.  As the most heartfelt “Thank you” I can imagine anyone bestowing.

They’re saying thank you for getting it right.  For understanding.  I’d consider myself lucky to have that kind of impact someday.

Good storytelling mirrors us.  It’s what people like Jeanty, Whedon, Roddenberry, Stan Lee, and Bob Kane (to name a few) understood best:  We’re all heroes, if we dare to be.

So thank you, Comicon, for reminding me that it’s okay to “be a kid,” to act a little nuts sometimes, and to dream.  That’s a gift.

(* and if a person spends time and money playing fantasy football/baseball/whateverball, while dressing up in his or her favorite team’s costume, then that makes them…?  Well, let’s just say they’re storytellers, too.)

“I hugged my mom.”

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Quick story:

Recently, one of the students in my writing class said that after reading the short story I’d submitted for critique, she gave her mom a hug and told her she loved her.  (The story was about a teenage girl who was trying to work up the courage to talk to her mother about a pretty serious topic in the girl’s life.)

That’s why I do it.  That’s why I write.  I do it because I hope it matters to someone.

If something I’ve written gives you a break from real life, from homework headaches or taxes or your sick grandma or a job loss or whatever…then I figure I’ve done my job.  If something I’ve written motivates you to tell someone you love them, then I figure I’ve done my job.  Man, I love being an author – all the ups and downs and stress and joy.  LOVE it.  It’s what I always wanted to do, going back to middle school.  But what really gets me going is this idea that something I’ve invested so much time and energy into can have a seriously cool impact on someone’s life.

So, yeah.  That’s why I do it. 

Now go hug your mom.

…but half will.

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One of my favorite movies is Teachers with Nick Nolte, Ralph Macchio, a teeny tiny Laura Dern, JoBeth Williams…ah, anyway, a bunch of good actors.  It has one of my favorite set of movie lines ever and is the topic of this evening’s post.  Ralph Macchio’s character has set off the school fire alarm, and the entire high school empties out into the parking lot, thrilled to be out of class, smoking in the parking lot, etc.  Nolte, a teacher, has this exchange with Judd Hirsch, a vice principal (paraphrased):

HIRSCH:  Alex, half those kids won’t come back after the fire alarm.

NOLTE: But half will.  I think they’re worth it.

They are.  They’re all worth it.  Lookit, trust me, there’s a whole lot of teachers and other grown-uppy types out there who were probably certain where my future was, and it sure as hell wasn’t where I ended up (thank God).  I wouldn’t say I was a bad kid, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.  What I do know is this: A small but dedicated group of those grown-uppy types didn’t give up on me.  They were hard sometimes, they lost patience with me, yes, and some of ’em I went out of my way to make miserable.  (Apologies for that, if any of you are out there.) 

But when all was said and done, they said, in effect, “He’s worth it.”  They didn’t have to.  They chose to.  And in about six weeks, my first novel is going to be on the shelves as a result.  I was one of the half that came back.  So were most of my friends.  Where might we be if not for those teachers and leaders who didn’t let us give up on ourselves?  (Not blogging on my author website, for one…)

I can’t take back a lot of the evil, vile crap I did to some of my teachers over the years.  But I can and I will do my best to pick up where they left off.  Fact is, a pretty large percentage of teens only needs one thing: for one adult to stand up, to fight for them, to be there.  Yeah, they’re gonna mess up, make mistakes, pull fire alarms.  That’s what teenagers do.  (And I get to write books about it!) They also care tremendously – about a lot of different things.  They have the time and energy to devote to change things that  a lot of us grown-uppy types don’t.  Or won’t.

This applies equally to adults and teens:  Don’t let anyone ever, ever tell you can’t do something, and don’t ever give up on going after what you want.  Make choices today, even small ones, that will bring you closer to your goals.  Because half the people you know today aren’t coming back after the alarm.  But half will.  The only question is, which group do you belong to?

I think you’re worth it. 

 

a thin scream

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I’ll be honest with ya’ll, it was a rough end to ’09 and ’10 is defining itself as a time in which I’m trying desperately to refill my emotional gas tank, the needle of which hovers over E right now.  But I know one thing.  I know one thing.  I have a reminder of it on every Bauer bag/murse/backpack I’ve carried since about ’93 or ’94.  It’s a crappy yarn-woven bookmark that is useless for that function, so now is merely decoration and a reminder.  It was knitted for me by an older lady I remember only as “Babs” who I met while in intensive day treatment therapy and one lovely evening as an in-patient for a number of psychological problems.

I know one thing that this crappy yarn bookmark reminds me of every time I see it:  I will not ever let myself get so out of control that I need to go back to that hospital.

I’m tired, worn out, stressed, on the virtual brink of being broke; I’ve been a shoulder, a confidante; and I’m out of gas.  But I will never hurt myself again.  Ever.  If I ever thought I was about to, believe me, I wouldn’t hesitate to get the help I needed. But I don’t think that will ever be necessary, because I won’t let it be necessary.  I’ll work it out.  I’ll hit the heavy bag in my garage or scream or cry or play really f’ing loud Social D on my crappy Mexican Fender, but I will not hurt myself.

Nor should you.

Self-injury is not cool, not hip, not wicked-awesome, not anything but a thin bloody scream for help.  Don’t let it get to that point.  This is your only body.  Use it wisely.  Treat it well.  This is your only mind; ditto.  Your only heart; ditto again. I’m not saying ignore any hurt, any stress, any drama.  I’m saying find a good way to deal with it.  Hurting yourself is not going to help, not going to make it go away, and is not something you can take back.  It’s as addictive as any drug.

So please — don’t.  Get help.  A friend, a parent, a teacher, I don’t care, but get it.  You matter to me, and I guarantee you matter to others.

I’m not a licensed anything – not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, or anything else. I’m just a guy who took a mental tumble many years ago and made it back.  So can you.  It does get better.

Hang in there.  Instead of carving Liar, Hopeless, Failure, or anything else into your body, “write love on your arms,” a thousand times if you must.  But don’t give in and don’t give up.

Take care.

~ Tom