Chip.

I don't remember how I first met Samuel R. Delany, the science fiction writer known as Chip to his friends.  I think my parents had something to do with it.  I know I proselytized endlessly to them about Chip and other writers of SF's New Wave, which was then at its cusp.  And my parents knew another SF writer, Tom Disch (though again, I have no idea how), so I suspect it was through Tom's auspices that Chip came over for dinner one evening.  From that evening forward for the next three years until I moved to Los Angeles, I did everything I could to be at Chip's side, or in his ear via the phone, as much of the time as possible.  I was 14 years old and as thick as a plank, and it is a testimony to Chip's overflowing generosity of spirit that he tolerated me, because good lord I must have been an annoying little twerp.


For the past few months I've been reading Chip's collection of essays, interviews and letters, On Writing -- slowly, slowly, to prolong the experience as much as possible  -- as of course it's had me thinking about those three years, during which Chip and I...

Shot a movie.

Saw a revival of Busby Berkeley's "The Gang's All Here."

Attended a couple of Clarion Workshops.

Saw Terry Riley perform "A Rainbow in Curved Air" live.

Saw Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" one-and-a-half times.  (We came in late and saw the last 40 minutes -- the nerve-wracking siege of the farmhouse; as the lights came up we were both clutching the arms of our seats, and Chip said, "Gee, I hope the first part of the movie is as good!")

Spent a lot of time talking.

(I also think I dragged him to see the musical "Follies," then in its original Broadway run, but that could be a trick of memory -- I know I wanted him to see it.) 


From 1969 to 1972 I felt as though any day that did not have some form of interaction with Chip was a day wasted.  When asked if I had a mentor, I always point to Chip. He is a great teacher and I learned more about writing from him than any other human being; but I think it was really his friendship and his far-ranging interests, that affected me so deeply at a time in my life when I was absorbing influences like a sponge.  Whatever lack of shallowness I can lay claim to, I owe to Chip.  Reading "On Writing" 37 years after those experiences, it amazes me how much there still is to learn from him.

Hi Tech, Old School

This is for Bryce Malek and anyone else who was a computer gearhead way back when.  A piece from a Bay Area public television station about the revolutionary new IBM PS/2 personal computer, from 1987.  Is it the biggest innovation in computing since the original PS, six years earlier?  Will users go for the hi-res 1024×768 screen resolution?  Will OS2 at last bring true multitasking to home computer.  Will OS2 ever even be released?  Will the guy from United Airlines ever eat his words when he says (more or less) "Book tickets through a home computer?  No fucking way!"  Press "Play" and find out!

Transformer talk.

If you'd like to hear me being grilled for an hour by a pair of fans from the UK about Transformers, TMNT, Star Trek, and other exciting chitchat and behind-the-scenes stuff, click here.

New Moon

If you've ever wondered what an auditorium full of girls sounds like when a newly-buff werewolf peels his shirt off, this is your lucky day:



As you might guess, Audry and I went to see Twilight: New Moon last night. It was the 7:00 showing, so the theater was filled to bursting with girls aged 9 to 19, and they put on quite a show. As for the movie itself (what I could hear of it, anyway), it's not bad considering it's laboring under the book's numerous plot problems. Chris Weitz is a more polished director than Catherine Hardwicke, but the rough edges were part of what made the first film so exceptional. New Moon is slicker than Twilight, with considerably more action sequences and special effects, so replacing Hardwicke was probably a good financial decision, if a poor artistic one. The cast is uniformly good, with Michael Sheen delivering the campiest performance of his career, and Dakota Fanning briefly showing that she may yet make quite a good grownup actress some day. Taylor Lautner is the standout as wolf-boy Jacob. He's likable, believable, and MAN are his teeth white. The computer-generated wolves are not good, and I'm beginning to think that CG has reached the threshold of what it can accomplish with furry things. As with the first film, New Moon has has a couple of unintentional laughs, particularly Alice's vision of Bella in the future, which was met with hoots of derision from the ladies in the house. But they went absolutely berserk at the film's last line of dialogue, so bring on Eclipse!

GLOMP GLUKKLE SHLIK SHLORP GHOMP GLUNK GLIK SHTORK.

There is a palpable nostalgia these days, shared by me, for those long-lost Lp covers of yore.  The art of the album cover flourished from the advent of the Lp in the mid-50's and died in the mid-80's, when the rise of the 5" by 5" CD reduced the canvas on which graphic designers plied their craft to a sub-postcard size.  Ever since I spent a sunny afternoon in May 1967 poring over the eye-popping cover for Sgt. Pepper, I have loved looking at album art.

Lately, I've found myself obsessing over old jazz albums.  The best of them capture a long lost era of Cool, and and crackle with the energy and optimism of the era.  The Blue Note covers of the the Fifties and Sixties, for instance, are legendary for their black and white photos and bold, often monochrome graphics.  Here are few examples:

Now, as for the bizarre title of this post. While recently adding some early 50's jazz discs to my collection, I came across three truly weird covers, all for famous jazzmen, all drawn by the same artist, extremely well known for his subsequent work but quite obscure at the time he did these. Let's see if you can guess who he is:

If you guessed Don Martin, your fabulous fortune is prizes is in the mail. That's right, Mad's maddest artist did the cover for a Miles Davis Lp back in 1955. Glorpf!

Best Line from This Week's "30 Rock"

The  cover copy of the Chinese edition of Liz Lemon's Dealbreakers book:  "The book for you, man no good, by Lesbian Flower Sour Fruit."

I do.

It was the spring of 2001, and Audry and I were looking at wedding dresses at various boutiques on Ventura Boulevard. There was one in particular that Liz Sage (who had diabolically tricked me into becoming engaged and who would end up marrying us) had recommended. When I saw it in the window, my reaction was the same as Audry's had been: Ugh. On the blank mannequin, it looked Victorian and matronly. Worse yet, it had green and pink beadwork running up and down its front. Green? On a wedding dress? Who thought that was a good idea?

I was ready to move on to the next shop, but Audry insisted she had promised Liz she'd try it on. We went in, and while she went into the fitting room I sat down and waited with grim expectations.

A few minutes later Audry stepped out from behind the curtain, and I nearly fell out of my chair.

This dress, which had been a drab sack with green beads, transformed into a thing of utter beauty when Audry wore it. She brought it alive. She was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.

Months later, in Orlando, on our wedding day, she was as radiant as a princess.  (Click for larger view.)

I bring this up because eight years ago today, Audry and I were married, at Disney World.  It was the happiest day of my life. Here's the highlight of the ceremony:



Notice how Liz doubles over in surprise, but immediately snaps back by saying "That's legal!" Thank god we were married by a comedy writer.

Best Line from Tonight's Halloween episode of "30 Rock"

Tracy: "This is going to be the scariest Princeton parents' weekend ever!"

(Bonus cultural references from Yours Truly: Jenna says "Cowabunga" and there is a woman dressed as Optimus Prime at the gay Halloween party.)

Looking for Harry.

Ask the average person who Harry Nilsson is, and if they're of a certain age they'll probably scrunch up their face and say, "The name sounds familiar..." and if they're under 40 they probably won't have the faintest idea.

But mention "Me and My Arrow," or "Without You" or "Everybody's Talkin'" or say "Put de lime in de coconut," and odds are good that no matter their age, their eyes will light up with recognition: "Oh, that guy! I love that song!"

Recently while digging around the Internet I stumbled across the fact that Harry, who died in 1994 just before the big L.A. earthquake, was buried at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village. I drive past that place all the time -- it's next to our local Costco, Pet Smart, and Staples -- and I never knew Harry was there.

A little further digging revealed that in the final years of his life, Harry lived right here in my hometown of Agoura Hills. Agoura seems a strange place for such a successful musician to have lived; it ain't exactly Malibu -- it's not even Westlake Village. On a little more investigation, I learned that Harry, whose career had taken a sharp downturn in the late Seventies owing to his general iconoclasticity, his refusal to tour or play concerts, and his notorious carousing with John Lennon, was financially wiped out when his business manager embezzled all his money, for which she did two years and never had to make any sort of restitution.

I never met Harry, but I've occasionally met people who knew him (including Lennon, and the great Van Dyke Parks), and my producer/co-conspirator on nine years' worth of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was Fred Wolf, who single-handedly animated Harry's film The Point, which is awesome and full of win and which you should see immediately. For some reason, discovering that Harry had lived here made me want to pay him a visit.

I'm not a terribly morbid person by nature. The only time I've been to a celebrity grave was to see Oliver Hardy, who's buried near the old Disney TV animation building, where I used to work. But as someone who has loved Nilsson's music his entire adult life, I felt compelled to pay him my regards.

And so Audry and I headed out this morning, armed with the exact GPS coordinates of the gravesite, and went looking for Harry. We found him at the top of this hill, just east of Lindero Canyon Road.



Audry put a flower on the stone.


The notes of Harry's song "Remember" were transcribed and hand-etched on the stone by Van Dyke Parks himself. Among the many musicians at the funeral was George Harrison.


Turns out the several famous people are buried here, including Artie Shaw, Jack "King" Kirby, and Karen Carpenter. On our way back, we encountered one of them:


Strange thing about being in a cemetery: you think about the people there, and wonder what their lives were like, what worried them, what was important to them, what upset or delighted or enraged them -- and you instantly realize that none of it matters now. It reminds you that whatever you're worried or upset or angry or afraid about ultimately is going to be meaningless. And maybe that's a good thing to think about once in a while. Gives you perspective.

Apropos of that, here is Harry's song "Think About Your Troubles," from The Point:

Fool Your Friends! Confound Your Enemies!

Ever wonder whatever happened to the old Johnson-Smith Catalog? You know, the one with the X-ray specs and fake dog poop? It grew up and mutated into this unbelievably awesome website, where you can buy handerpants and yodelling pickles and paintings of squirrels in their underwear! Check it out!

Fiction.

In reading Chip Delany's About Writing, I came across the following provocative sentence:

"One way or the other, directly or indirectly, good fiction tends to be about money."

I think (hope?) what Chip is referring to is not money per se, but its effects on people -- in their circumstances, in having or not having it, in the pursuit of it, and in the effects it has on peoples' emotions.

It's a great way to force you to think about fiction from a different angle, but I think it's overstated. (I imagine Chip would be the first to agree.) He's also left himself a couple of outs, through the qualifiers "good" (no one is going to always agree with you about what constitutes "good" fiction) and "tends to be about" (which allows for exceptions).

Money of course is representative of various aspects of both our survival (food, shelter, etc.), which motivates fictions both complex (Les Miserables) and simple (any Road Runner cartoon), and our aspirations: achieved, thwarted, gained but to no good end, and even (in the case of a book like Siddhartha) rejected. (Money is such a ubiquitous part of human existence that you could just as easily say that most good fiction tends to be about clothes. After all, we all wear 'em.)

Equally interesting, Chip says that you pretty much can't write fiction without establishing your characters' financial circumstances. Fascinating and true. But again, I think we do this in order to provide context for the characters' emotions and behaviors.

Money, in the long run, is just paper and metal. Even in the real world, it's basically symbolic. Personally, I think fiction -- most fiction -- good, bad or indifferent fiction -- is about only one thing:

Something stands in the way of what I want.

The "something" may be an antagonist, or circumstances, or myself -- and ideally it's a combination of all three. This too is an over-generalization, and is considerably more simple-minded than Chip's statement -- but I think it comes fairly close to describing the essence of storytelling, for what it's worth.

Okay. That's weird.

From an unpublished novella called "Wonderland," which I finished in 1999:

"Her words seemed to thaw out some sort of ice dam inside of me..."

From Richard Russo's That Old Cape Magic, published this year:

"[He] felt some ice dam in his heart break apart..."

Okay, maybe he says it better than me, but still... Get out of my head, Russo!

I won't say my story's better, but it does have lots more time-travelling, senseless killing, half-baked superheroes from the future, revelations of a higher intelligence in the universe and playing of the game "Monopoly" than Russo's book. (Both have marital breakups in them, though the one in my story only lasts for about ten seconds.) I'm just sayin'.